Saint Louis Orienteering Club - SLOC - Babler O by Alane Wolins an Orienteering Newbie

Thoughts from an Orienteering Newbie - Alane Wolins

This is not going to be a blog full of the nitty gritty details, as it’s been a few weeks now and my memory is fuzzy.  

I consider the January Babler Cold Nose-O to be my first real orienteering meet.  Last fall I went with Amy and Jessie to the event in Grafton but that consisted of me following them around, as they are much more versed in map and compass reading than I am.  And lots quicker.

It was a cold and crisp sunny January morning at Babler
 State Park and fun to see familiar faces there- Yvonne, who designed the course, Kate, Chuck and others.

Yvonne running the show

Kate in her SLOC jersey

Map plotting

As I considered my plan, Captain Ahab very generously offered to follow me around to help out as needed and I eagerly accepted.  Getting lost is not high on my list of fun things.   I decided to try the beginner course and see what happened. My expectations on how hard this would be were based on three adventure races as a team member, and as I learned, adventure races are a huge level of difficulty higher than what I was attempting.

This orienteering differed from the adventure racing I have done in that there was a master map and participants copied the location points from that onto their own map rather than using coordinates to plot.  So it was kind of a relief as plotting from coordinates is a foreign language to me at the moment.

I decided on the white course, which is the most beginner course, and copied the points from the master map onto my own map.  The checkpoints are all set up to be easy to find, no tromping off road or off trail into the deep woods.  The flags to mark the locations look sort of like a very small box kite, in white and orange, and have a hole punch tool with a specific pattern of holes.  You punch your card with this and then there is a record of you finding the checkpoint.

Alane's MS-2 OutThere pack and her yellow balls

Captain Ahab followed along with helpful advice and I cleared the course in 38 minutes.  Not fast by any means, but a great confidence builder.  The checkpoints were located along well-travelled trails as well as in a park shelter, at the edge of a field, right along a paved road and finally next to a statue, making them very easy to find.

We got back to the start and I had already decided to go out on the orange course, which was the next level in difficulty.  The checkpoints in this case could be off trail but not too awfully far, and in locations that were relatively easy to find by using the contours of the map. I only pulled out the compass once, to make sure of a direction. 

Alane finding an easy check point

I’m really glad of Captain Ahab’s advice - suggestions as to how to increase speed transitioning from one checkpoint to going on to the next, reading the contour lines to more precisely locate a checkpoint on the map, seeing the contour lines in person and comparing to the map, using landmarks such as old structures.  And I learned not to take the map as 100% gospel when we were looking for a trail marked on the map that didn’t (or no longer) exist in real life.  We left one checkpoint and I headed the wrong way, pointed out by Captain Ahab by his asking what my plan was, and he helped me with deciding on the correct route.  Planning out loud was very helpful and seeing how Captain Ahab read the map vs how I did was a good learning experience.

This second course took around an hour 45 minutes for me to complete.  Captain Ahab would generally see the checkpoint first, but not tell me, so I was truly finding them on my own.  

Alane cleared two courses and took down the white course

The experience of orienteering reminded me of my hikes in the Grand Canyon.  I was already planning to go to next event before even completing this first one.  It was that fun and it amazes me that I had never done it before.  

For my next outing I’m going to change up a couple things.  No Captain Ahab following me around, I need to do this by myself.  Wearing trail running shoes is a way better idea than hiking boots.  I now know that I will actually be able to run the white course, which also means lighter clothes are in order- I was way overdressed, even for a 15 or so degree start.

This fun adventure would probably not have happened had I not met and joined Team BOR.  It’s great to have supportive teammates!  Now on to the next event!