Training Log Archive: JanetT

Day started out wet, with a shower or two on the drive north. Low 70s when we started; near 80 by the time we left the area. A sprinkle or two on the way home. We were wet, but from sweat on this humid day.

Parking to start of the Short (3.8km) UsynligO course near Nescopeck State Park (on Game Land territory), on courses designed by and using a 1:10000/5m map Greg A (Gswede) had created for training purposes. No field checking, so no vegetation or rock was shown beyond a few patches of light green. The woods had knee to thigh high blueberry, ferns, greenbrier (especially near wet areas), and some rockiness underfoot but was generally open as far as visibility; no good size boulders where this course went. Sandy F was also there; we met at the parking lot around 10:30 and hiked to start together.

Greg led us to the hill that was the start and finish location. He'd brought some streamers on clothespins to get from the (unmapped) jeep road remnant through the woods to the hill, but ran out of them halfway there; and started leaning branches against trees for us to find to get back down the hill. The streamers and the leaves were both green so finding them on the way back was tricky.... When we got to the start hill we built a bit of a tepee using about a dozen branches leaning against one tree. I used a hiking pole on the way up and down but left it at the "tepee" while on the course.

Nescopeck Short, 3.8km, designed by Greg A, using UsynligO. Greg and Sandy started first, then Glen, and me last.

At a few of the controls I was near the feature but had to wander a bit to get the tune to play.

By myself through the first three, then I spied Sandy on the way to 4 but didn't catch up until we both circled around the reentrant at 6. We were together the rest of the time; she originally thought she'd skip the farthest west ones but decided if we worked together she'd do the whole thing. At #10 I got up to the end of the hill but I had to threaten my phone (take it out of the waist pack) before it played the tune.

#13 was trickiest, an approx. 400m contouring leg across an almost featureless hillside, with a rocky spur about 1/3 of the way along. I noted a form line wiggle south of the reentrant and when we reached an area where there seemed to be reentants and a notable elevation change we searched around before I asked for a hint. We were joined by Glen while still trying to pick out the right reentrant; using the hint led us all to it. Then we just needed to navigate back to the start/finish.

I liked most of the terrain through #10 or 11 where there were multiple ups and downs, marshes, hills, etc, but I'm not super-fond on long legs across bland hillsides, like from 11 to 13.

From finish back to parking, doing our best to find the markers/streamers Greg A had set up on the way up.

I forgot to stop my watch at parking (it had an additional 24 minutes) so I blew away my track and copied Glen's.

Thank you, Greg, for making these maps, courses, and sharing your time with us today!