Course routes and comments

 

 

Phast Generation (Ken Walker and Glen Brake), 1st place overall, 1st place Masters, for 24-hour:

 

Strategy: we analyzed the map and found a higher density of controls in the NE quadrant, so that was our prime target area. We planned a looping route that picked up just about all the controls. We expected to finish this segment at about dark.

 

That would lead us to the NW corner. The NW had fewer controls but they were close together, so that looked interesting. Rick, of course, said in the notes to avoid the NW at night, but we decided to ignore that advice.

 

Finally, the SW corner had a fair number of controls, but was spread out, so that was held for the end. The SE was sparse, so we wrote that off unless we covered more distance than the 75 km expected.

 

Execution: 77-70-88-49-87-39-79-86 (lost an hour on this one)

-41-78-23-60-67-29-48-66-84 dark -47-35-65-26-74-36- missed 45 (lost another hour) - 64-34-73-69-83- daybreak -43-25-80-75- missed 71-finish

 

We lost a lot of time on 86, as we read the control to be low in the reentrant, and eventually found it up above the rock bands at a higher elevation. Others in the NE went smoothly. This was mostly bushwhacking and we averaged a bit over 3 km/hr. Things slowed quite a bit in the NW due to lots of climb, darkness and fog. We hit a few areas of briar (36) and laurel (47). We had difficulty pinning down an attack point for 74 as the hill was hidden in a laurel stand. We finally traversed the base of the main slope just south of the laurel until road noise from Rte 44 disappeared. Then we knew we were in the shadow of the small hill holding our control and were able to quickly find it.

 

Missing 45 was a disappointment, as we invested a lot of time climbing up from 36 and knew we made a big loop around it. However, it wasn't worth a second attempt, so we moved on to 64. The rest on Canaan Mountain went okay, despite thick fog.

 

Dawn saw us at Under Mountain Road, with six hours to do the SW quadrant. We decided to hit water and then continue to 80 and work our way back. We figured to allow two hours for a run-in from this section. We went up 80 from the west, which was steep and slippery rocks. That took longer than expected, and we headed next to 75. We skipped 82 and went for 71 from the west. This seemed like a simple bushwhack that would drop us on Route 63 for a run to 68. Unfortunately, a new driveway had been cut right on our bushwhack line, and we deviated to the south to avoid it. This expended significant time and forced us to bail on the first trail we encountered. We thought it was headed to Route 63, but curved west and dumped us on Magic Mountain Road next to where we started. It was now 10:30 and we were 10 km from the finish. This was not a problem until we took a close look at the map and realized the last 5 km went up a 1000' climb to the finish. Our combination running and forced march brought us in a bit past noon for a seven-minute penalty.

 

The route covered a total of 75 km and 2900m climb. We generally found the terrain interesting, with good contours and rock features. The Great Mountain Forest is excellent open woods with lots of fun running.

 

 

Vertically Challenged (Jim Henderson and Rich Nietupski), 8th place overall, 2nd place Masters, for 24-hour:

 

Made up for a blown, overly ambitious plan for Saturday with a quick 500 points in 5 hours on Sunday morning. Decisions made with no real knowledge of how much laurel lies ahead can really slow you down. The usual 6-hour break we take to eat and sleep was extra pleasant because of real beds instead of the tent and indoor plumbing so it got stretched to 6:55. Control order 77,86,41,32,45,69,83,89,73,34,dark,64,46,30,break, 44,68,88,49,87,79,60,70,finish

 

 

Wasabi (Jim Mertz, R. Schwartz, J. Cahalane), 1st place overall, 1st place coed, for 12-hour

 

We decided on the following route where we would assess our time and speed when we got out to 79 and then decide whether we had time to go further north. When we got 79 and decided we were moving fast enough to try 86, 41, 78, 23 our team unanimous decision was that we wanted to get 86 & 41 before it got dark, which we did. it became dark enough that we needed our headlamps just as we crossed the stream above camp pond on our way to 78.

 

We meant to grab 23 on our way out from 78 but blew right past it and felt it was not worth it to go back. in hindsight we should have not bothered with 23 at all, gone north after 78 up the trail, grabbed 65 then backtracked south and then headed west on the trail and dropped down to 32, then dropped down further to 77. Then we could have used 30 as a bonus control if we had the time otherwise straight in from 77.

 

68, 44, 70, 88, 49, 87, 39, 60, 79, 86, 41, 78, 23 (missed), 77, 30

 

 

 

JoeKirs (Joe Brautigam, Kirsten Begg), 1st place overall, 1st place coed, for 6 hour.

 

68,44,70,88,49,87,skip 39, 79,60,67, 29, skip 48, 66, skip 28/84,

47,35,65,78,skip 23/41/86,77,skip 30

 

Original route was about 27k, we estimated we could cover 5k per hour so

we had 3k to play with at the end. Turns out we were covering about 3.6k

per hour for the first 3 hours.  We were running along Spaulding Pond on

our way to 67 with 3 hours left.  So we bailed on quite a few controls.

Not sure what our distance covered was, but I know we could have scored

higher with less distance by staying on the west side of Rt 272.

 

 

 

Orienteering DeLux (Charlie DeWeese and Bob Lux), 2nd place overall, 1st place Masters, for 6-hour:

 

The route: 30, 77, 86, 41, 78, 66, 48, 29, 67, 60, 79, 87, 88, 70 and in.