Training Log Archive: Nadim

From Rosedale Ave., Bethesda, MD. to Mark Twain School and Park via Old Georgetown Rd., the Rock Creek Trail and Avery Rd. It was hot and I was carrying orienteering controls, extra water and a change of clothes. My car battery had died earlier. At one point w/it stuck in my neighbor's driveway where it cut out, I had to push it and couldn't get it out of a depression. Instead of hurting my back more, the heaving helped loosen it up and make it feel better for a while. It took the ride easy so that the bumps weren't so hard on it too. Near the end I circled the mapped area and noticed how nice the forest looked. Several deer thought so too.

From Mark Twain School and Park, I set controls for the QOC Summer Short Series. It was a pretty hot day but not very bad in the woods if you took it easy as I did. I hadn't been in the park during the daytime for a while. It was very evident to me that I missed mapping a few things such as some rocks and that I'd overmapped the vegetation to appear thicker than it actually was. Other things that I did were such as locating point features on a hillside in the dark turned out to be fairly good. As I set controls walking the early ones, I realized that I was running out of time and so I jogged the last several ones. My gut hurt a little starting out doing this. I got back to the start area about 10 minutes late but some people were still getting ready. There were 16 participants altogether and the comments on that area and map were encouraging.

From Mark Twain School and Park, across Rte. 28 and into Rockville Civic Center Park (John G. Hayes Nature Preserve). Tom Nolan got the controls along Rock Creek Park. Dave Onkst got the controls on the east side of Rockville Civic Center Park, and I got the ones on the west side. It felt good to run a bit even though I wasn't going fast. Just being unencumbered by packs hanging off me was nice. I again noted that much of the woods were less thick than I had mapped them.

Mark Twain School and Park in Rockville, MD. After Max was put to sleep, I started at the school and I did more field checking. My earlier quick review of the hillside along the field dropping into Rock Creek Park was quick since I was headed into the area south of Rte. 28 to do more extensive field checking there. Though it was dark, my checking revealed that the USGS contours were rather farther off than I thought. A large reentrant was about 45m too far south on the USGS map. Despite this, with more pacing, I was able to match-up the parts of the field above the hill to the terrain below and in the process I found many more rock and other point features. The vegetation was harder to get right at night so that'll have to wait for another time. I didn't have time to get to much of the flatter land below but did find a nice spring and a disapearing stream. All these corrections and additions have been added to the map for the QOC Summer Short Series training for this weekend. My back still hurts.