Training Log Archive: David_Waller

Event: OCIN / TROL Joyce Park
 

Went to pick up three controls that had already been picked up. Worthless trip, but nice to get out in the woods after standing around in the shelter for several hours.

Putting out the last batch of controls, the water controls, and the signs for the Joyce meet.

Setting controls at Joyce. I would like to start a reasoned discussion among OCIN coursetters and other interested parties about two things. First, what about the idea for local meets of having the option of hanging controls from a branch instead of needing every control to be on a stand? In conditions like today, our system requires lugging around a set of unwieldy control stands, spending 5 minutes at each site trying to find a place where the ground is soft enough to push a stand in, and then not really being happy with the control placement because it was the only place where it could go in. I think that there are a lot of places where hanging a control from a branch would be massively easier, and would enable coursetters to take more controls out per trip. We would just have to engineer a system of attaching SI to the flags. (Note that BoulderBob from NEOOC has done this.) Second, can anyone estimate a percentage of controls in the past five years at which a runner used the manual punch? I would just put forth the idea that, in the long run, running out a spare SI unit to a control perhaps once a year is more efficient than bothering with the hundreds of manual punches that need to be inventoried, dragged into the field, secured, potentially lost, etc.

I'm not upset about the current system -- just wondering if we can make it more efficient.

C • Control hanging on Ski O's 5

More checking at Joyce. Many places are significantly wetter than mapped, requiring some pretty major course re-designs.

Registered for Cabin Fever on 1 Feb; probably means that I'll miss Possum Creek

More field checking at Joyce. Not as successful as yesterday, and not the most pleasant day to be out on the open fields.

Checking control sites and noting minor map updates for Joyce Park. Thankfully, the map is still in pretty good shape.