Wilson Award Winners Announced

Congratulations to Caroline Sandbo and Courtney Cutler of Cascade Orienteering Club and Thomas Laraia of Minnesota Orienteering Club. Caroline, Courtney and Thomas were chosen to receive the 2018 Iain Wilson Character Through Competition Award. This was a difficult decision given the many strong applications that were received. Each athlete will receive $1,000 as reimbursement for travel and training expenses. These awards honor the memory of Iain by recognizing and supporting young athletes and newcomers to the sport. For information about the award, visit www.orienteeringusa.org/wilsonaward.

               
   Caroline Sandbo                   Courtney Cutler                      Thomas Laraia
   Photo by Paal Runde                   Photo by Kyle Cutler                      Photo by Dave Yee
 

 

Every club is unique and can contribute to the growth and health of orienteering in the U.S. Whether your club had an extraordinarily successful event, is planning something unique or special, or simply wants to advertise quality events that it puts on, we want to highlight it here!

Please contact the editors at newsletter@orienteeringusa.org to add content to the next newsletter!
 
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By Mary Jo Childs (GMOC)

Otherworldly.  Awesome. Fantastical.  Beautiful. Challenging.  Orienteering in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona in February was all I had hoped it would be and more.

Heading down to Tucson, AZ for the Southwest Spring Week, I was eager to experience orienteering in the Sonoran Desert.  I wanted to get up close to the giant saguaro cactus with its outstretched arms and experience the famous (infamous?) jumping cholla cactus my sons Ethan and Andrew had told tales about.  I wanted to see what other beings, plant and animal, made the Sonoran Desert their home and I wanted to challenge myself to find my way through a world unlike anything I had ever experienced before.    I wanted to feel sunshine on my skin in the middle of February and eat as much authentic Mexican food as I could. And I wanted to enjoy meeting my O friends from near and far and making new friends in a new place.  

The Tucson and Greater Phoenix Orienteering Clubs put on 10 days of fun in the sun.  The first two days of A-meet races were held 90 min S of Tucson in the rolling grasslands of the Coronado National  Forest. The terrain looked a lot like Wyoming at Kentucky Camp and Box Canyon: very open except for occasional copses or an isolated tree and numerous branching reentrants which made for tricky navigating.  It was easy to mistake a sandy streambed for a trail so compass work was necessary. There were few cacti here with the exception of the red staghorn cholla. The woody shrub called “cat claw” (aptly named) became the plant to avoid (though I’d take cat claw over greenbriar any day).  The courses were well-designed and interesting.

During the week there was a variety of fun races and training activities in and near Tucson.  

These began with a THOMASS-style handicapped race in the foothills of Catalina State Park.  After a mass start, each person had to find from 2 to 7 controls, based on age, then all had to do the same point-to-point course back to the finish.  The area had intricate contours, lots of rock features, and was a botanical garden of cacti which I delighted in running around. I didn’t know barrel cacti could grow so big.  The vegetation actually made it difficult to run in a straight line, but the visibility was excellent and often a huge 200 year-old saguaro with a unique anthropomorphic stance became the distant point you would run toward.  

On Tuesday morning, we had compass and pace training at the Ironwood Picnic Area.  We did this in pairs using a window-O map and a full map as a back-up in case one had to relocate.  I teamed up with Eileen Breseman (COC) and enjoyed seeing how our bearings diverged and our distances compared on each leg.  The flat terrain was ideal. It was broken with hundreds of parallel dry stream beds and several near-parallel washes with thick vegetation, so you had to rely on your compass.  Visibility was pretty good except where a bushy palo verde tree with bright green-bark would block your line of sight. It was good practice going around obstacles and returning to your bearing.  Again, the variety of cacti was distracting but delightful. Early on, Eileen stepped on a few balls of cholla and had to stop. I was thrilled because I got to use the hemostat (a surgical tool) I carried with me to pull them off.  It was quick and easy and painless.

After a quick lunch, my traveling companions from  Boston-based Navigation Games, Keegan Harkavy, Finnish exchange student Vilppu Viinikainen, Ethan Childs and I visited the highly acclaimed Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum where we learned about the natural and cultural history of the area.  Learning about the geology and the wide variety of cacti was great, as was seeing numerous hummingbirds at the pollinator garden, hearing mockingbirds sing, and seeing their featured Raptor Flight with a peregrine falcon flying just over our heads was terrific.  This is a must-see destination in Arizona. We had to leave early to take advantage of the afternoon training at Cat Mountain nearby.

Vilppu, Keegan, and Ethan in the Tucson terrain; photo by Mary Jo Childs

This was a corridor-O followed by a point-to-point course in a popular hiking area.  It required a 20-30 min hike up to a saddle where the actual training began. This area was bounded by steep slopes with huge red boulders which, with the addition of all the cacti, was very dramatic.  I started late and took photos along the way, so by the time I found the start, it was nearly time to head back down. Those who did the exercise enjoyed it, especially a long run through a large wash.

Wednesday was a chance to visit the funky town of Bisbee, AZ near the Mexican border.  We began the day with a Street-O in Old Bisbee using an aerial photo and a score-O format.  This colorful town sits in a narrow valley at the bottom of which are most of the hotels, shops, restaurants, and other historic buildings.  Most of the houses are built on the terraced slopes so there are lots of curved streets and thousands of stairs. Being a mecca for artists, writers, actors, and old hippies, the houses are colorful, the gardens are eccentric, and there is public art everywhere.  With a regular street-O map it could host a world class sprint that would be an event to remember. After the race people strolled the town exploring shops, breweries, hotels, museums and the old copper mines. We reluctantly left in late afternoon with the promise of travelling through the old cowboy town of Tombstone on the way back.  

The next day we got to do a sprint race on the gorgeous campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson.  Being an institution welcoming to the disabled and in such a hot climate, there were lots of ramps as well as stairs, shaded alcoves, porticoes, and beautiful hardscaping and landscaping making for intricate map reading.  Cristina Luis created a 1.5 km corridor-O from the start triangle to the first control. Try navigating on a campus map with most of the buildings cut out! It prepared competitors to use features other than building shape and size for navigation.  

Thursday’s navigation games were held at Reid Park, a large, shaded, urban park with small lakes, a zoo, ball fields and playgrounds.  We met at a pavilion where the main activity was a Park-O in which each participant is given a stapled set of map sections, each about 5 cm square.  No MN lines meant that you had to orient each square to the features around you so it was good practice in navigating using features. Barb Bryant set up a maze-O which attracted many children and their caregivers from the adjacent playground to try this introduction to the fun of orienteering.  The third game was “Magic Squares”, an advanced level game involving map orienting which prompted the more competitive among our group to do it as a race.

We returned to Catalina SP on Friday, our last day in Tucson.  In this detailed setting there were four activities to practice: corridor-O, control picking, compass training, and a contours-only exercise.  Since this was my favorite area, I was happy to return. We got to see lots of wildlife here as well, a nesting pair of great horned owls near the pavilion, lots of small rodents that behaved like prairie dogs tunneling around and popping out of holes all over the picnic area, small  lizards, coyotes, jackrabbits, mule deer and lots of singing birds. It was spring!

Early Saturday morning we said good-bye to our very accommodating host Peg Davis, and headed up to the Superstition Mountains in the Tonto National Forest east of Phoenix for a 2-day A-meet and Night-O put on by the Greater Phoenix Orienteering Club (GPHXOC).  The afternoon sprint was at Needle Vista. This “forest” was still part of the Sonoran Desert but the terrain was steeper, more rugged, and rockier than Tucson. With a contour interval of 20m, much of the detail I am used to seeing on a map was not shown, so it was necessary to use compass and read the big features.  Cacti galore made me happy and I even saw the strange “Creeping Devil” in the wild that I had seen labeled in the ASDM cactus garden. The short courses were appreciated since we were returning there for the Night-O later. It is true that it is COLD in the desert at night—it was 28 degrees! But the stars were out and it was magical.  Just imagine the thrill of hearing a band of coyotes singing as you returned to the finish.

Our final event was an NRE at the First Water Trailhead map adjacent to Saturday’s event.  It was very hilly and very tricky, necessitating good compass skills and the use of distinctive saguaros again.  The earth was reddish and the ground was barren except for cacti and woody shrubs again. This course was the most physical of all but the allure of what was over the next ridge or around the next hill kept everyone going.  And so I was tired on the last leg of my last course when I looked at my map while jogging and in so doing, walked right into a jumping cholla cactus. Ouch! On my knee was a 6" spiny segment of cactus. At first I tried to use one of the recommended methods of removal by using my map in one hand and my compass in the other.  That only allowed it to jump onto my left thumb. So now I had spines in my knee and a spiny cactus on my thumb. So glad I had my hemostat. One strong tug and it was off and then I could pull out the four individual spines. Did it hurt? Yes, a little. But it was worth it. I got to experience the legendary jumping cholla, at last.


Jumping cholla attached to orienteering shoe; photo by Mary Jo Childs

And so ended 10 days of awesome orienteering in the most interesting place I have ever raced and trained.  I got to see old friends and meet new ones, ate Mexican food daily and still did not get my fill, got daily doses of sunshine and even managed, with my group, to successfully solve all the clues of an Escape Room in downtown Tucson with minutes to spare one evening.  I look forward to returning and encourage everyone to put the Southwest Spring O Week on your Orienteering Bucket List. I can’t think of a better way to experience this unique part of our planet.

Read the event coordinator's take on the week here

Oh! I almost forgot! We're doing it again next year, February 16-24, 2019.

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- by Joshua Sanchez (Patuxent, Maryland), the 2017-18 US National Navy JROTC Orienteering Champion

The Navy JROTC Orienteering Nationals were held over Presidents’ Day weekend, February 18-19th in Apopka, Florida about 20 miles northeast of Orlando. Area 5, which is comprised of Maryland, Virginia, and DC sent five schools, all of which are regular participants at Quantico Orienteering Club events.

It was already strange enough that three high schools from the same county would be attending the Navy JROTC Nationals in Florida, but this idea was over the top. “Three schools on one bus would never work” some of my friends said, when introduced with the idea of putting Calvert, Patuxent, and Huntingtown’s orienteering teams all on the same charter bus. But that is exactly what happened. The 16 hour bus ride was nearly unbearable with a drive through Thursday night. But once we got to our cabin at Kelly Park, my team was excited once again. The good part of where we were staying was the model course was only a half mile away. After we settled into our cabins we went out to take a breather and check in to Navy Nationals.

We got our bibs, even though some were the wrong numbers, and headed out in groups to tackle the model course. I lead the first group through the model course. But with many teams running the same course, we decided to change up the order half way, to prevent any competing teams from straggling along. We looked at the key features briefed in the course notes such as the numerous pomade thickets, which were brutal to run through, and plenty of sinkholes. It was particularly strange experiencing the flat terrain of Florida coming from QOC-land and the significant climb it offers. After the model course, we went kayaking in Wekiva Springs. The water was crystal clear and the sun was out, making the day one the team will remember. Especially trying to swim in the “hot” springs in February; needless to say, they were not hot.

Day one at Navy Nationals was before us and many of our first year orienteers were nervous. After a quick drive to the park, we could hear the other NJROTC teams yelling their diddy's while warming up together. Once we got set up and rose up our team flag on the canopy, we started sending people out. We were told to have a water bottle on us to prevent dehydration which I blatantly avoided. In the woods I felt very confident from the start, hitting the first few controls with ease while following the map clearly. I ran fast over the dry grasses instead of running on the sluggish sand trails. Eventually the pomades tripped me up. I had to reorient knowing I was going for the wrong thicket. On the second to last control a small depression in the middle of dark green vegetation with little visibility proved particularly tricky. Many lost the majority amount of time there.

Day two at Navy Nationals was at Wekiwa State Park. This park had a little more contour but a lot more spread out with open confusing grass fields. The team got set up just like day one and sent people out, we arrived later since we had late start times and they were using a bus to bring people back and forth to remote start/finish from the event hub. When my start time approached, I rode the bus up to the start. The course was a lot about keeping bearing and paying attention to the key features, pomades and vegetation boundaries. There were more contours but still got messed up on a few controls underestimating the contours. When I came into the finish, only then was I able to realize the Florida humidity.

Awards took some time to come out since someone went missing for an hour. Once it was time to present awards I got to meet many other NJROTC cadets from around the country. One team even asked me to take a picture with them with their flag. I met the defending champion from last year, Jake Minta, from Hillgrove County HS in Georgia. I was glad to find out that the Mid-Atlantic Juniors were very well represented with Area 5 having 7 top ten finishers on the various courses.

The ride home the morning after was worse than the ride down for many reasons, and it seemed like it took twice as long. We arrived back at our school after midnight! It was a wonderful experience and FLO did a great time orchestrating the event. Next year Navy Nationals in California will be something to look forward to.

Patuxent and Calvert High School Orienteering Teams at Wekiwa State Park, Florida.

NJROTC Nationals Individual Results
NJROTC Nationals Team Results

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