Training Log Archive: ccsteve

Buffalo fest - long Red-X

Derailed on the first control - for some reason I saw the nice fork in the path and said "when I get to the fork, cut to the N-NE" and turned off most other clue finding abilities... And then I motored up the hill... And it was a long hill as I hadn't passed the second hill - oh wait - there it is, I'm climbing again... And that stream isn't on the map - I've just got to get up this next rise and the fork will be evident...

So when I was at the stream I thought I was at the descent after the small hill on an unmarked feature. The next hill that brought me up was longer than I thought, but I didn't get clued in until I reached the large bank to the main stream - and realized what I'd done.

My freshness at the start also masked how far I'd traveled - I hadn't been thinking about how far it was...

So - I went back past Mike near the vicinity of 6, cut NW and hit the stream / bridge and made my way.

Lesson for the day - don't discard other sources of information even if any one feature looks good...

Caught sight of Joel at 2/3 and brought myself even at 4. We were together to 5, and I left him behind on the way back up the hill to 6.

(5 and 6 were of course reasonably easy for me)

I came up to the two trees at 7 on a good line - I must have been directly South and saw the trees clearly and there was no flag. a few minutes later after I had made my way around the fields in a clockwise circle, I looked and there was the flag. That was an inopportune placement that I could not see it from the south, but the north was clear. I'll have to put some "is it really there" rules in my bag of tools...

Thought I had a good track to 9 on a route with no roads or trails to use - have to see splits to check.

10 almost got me - for some reason on my first reading of the map it didn't look to be at the water level, so I almost went by on the ridge...

To get to 11 I tried to work down the creek, but that was not as nice as I had imagined - I doubt I'll do that again;-) the plan was to work past the seasonal wet and climb up once after the right side-stream entrance.

Unfortunately I was slow on the stream portion and went up one side-stream too soon. As the pattern took me across I realized what had happened and continued to the control. [a bit more work, but it wasn't drastically out of the way]

The remaining controls were ok.

I think the first control cost me 10 minutes - and interestingly enough - there were no competitors faster than me by less than ten minutes!-)

I did use the motivation of having blown that to go faster throughout the rest. I'll send a polite note to the organizers to suggest they re-evaluate that section of the map...

I warmed down by retracing the start - The small hill is not a hill but really an extension of the hill next to it, like an angled spur. The path to the left is more of an indistinct trail - it has leaves on it as if it was forest, and branches strewn across it - 3-4" branches... It gets no traffic. [The second path is even less distinct - it has two different trees laying across the path!-]

So - only by standing there and looking can one really tell that there is a glimmer of a trail remaining. And that is not what the map implies.

I should have been able to work through the issue and that's on me, the map just helped me go awry...

Long - Red X - Splits

Event: Buffalo Orienteering Festival