Training Log Archive: GlenT

Trails at Green Lane Park, starting from the Hemlock Point Day Use Area parking. Finally a nice day weatherwise - sunny, low 70s and lower humidity. Trails in this area are mostly rocky and rooty, but there are no big hills.

Event: Two Rivers Adventure Trek
 

Two Rivers Adventure Trek, 4 hour option. In Wharton SF near Hammonton, NJ (near Batsto, but we didn’t use the O map). Map was a 1:30,000 USGS topo (vintage unknown, but not recent) with two supplemental maps showing the current trail system (at an even smaller scale). Lots of unmapped trails and roads in the terrain and several no longer existing trails. Area is quite flat and the map had 10 foot contours (not very many of them).

An interesting exercise in adapting the navigation to use the information available. I hit the first three controls I tried for pretty well, successfully following the remnants of a mapped trail right to one of them. Took a circuitous route to the next control which resulted in significant blueberry bashing and then spent another 10 minutes or so searching for the control (south of a one contour hill). Sloppy mistake on the next one where I just wasn’t paying attention and went right by the “marshy area, east of track” - cost about 8 minutes. Next one was straightforward, following a track and then compass bearing to hit the road along which the control was (made a good tactical decision en route to avoid a section of thicker woods). Headed next to a section where we had a supplemental map showing a network of mountain bike trails, figuring that the trails might help navigation to some of the controls in that area. Changed the plan once I got on the mountain bike trails since it wasn’t apparent that the trails were going to actually help me find the control. So, headed towards control #9 (a spur) - picked up an unmapped trail which seemed to be going in the right direction and then successfully used the contours to find the control. At this point, I got greedy and made a strategic error to head to control 10, thinking I might be able to pick up two additional controls after that one. Well, things didn’t go well when I took a wrong trail so most of the last hour of my trek included 200 meters of bashing through a thick marsh (medium green if was on an O map), finding #10 eventually, and then having about 40 minutes to cover >4km mostly on a road (with only limited ability to actually run). Was able to run just enough and made it in with 9 seconds to spare. :-) Found 8 controls, which was good enough for second in the 4-hour solo category.

Event: NAOC 2018