Discussion: THANK YOU!

Just wanted to post a final message to acknowledge all the volunteers who helped at RMOC's A-Meet in Laramie a few weekends ago -- especially the volunteers from other clubs.

(I've had to piece this together from multiple sources, so please let me know if your name is missing.)

Thanks so much for your efforts and contributions, whether large or small!

Great event! Hope to return for more. Hopefully earlier in summer when kids / families can go.

Great event. Thanks to all the volunteers!

Kids/families don't go to "A" events during the other parts of the year?

All around excellent. Thanks !!
Really enjoyed my first o-trip to Laramie.

Hard to take a full week off school. Laramie Daze has such fantastic terrain. I know you have reasons for not wanting to do it earlier and some folks will always have conflicts. But no way can I convince kids (and parents) to take that much time in the first couple weeks of the school year. Both the events themselves and the week long camping experience were tremendous positive influences on several kids that I brought in the past. But the current timing has made it impossible for the next generation to share those experiences. That is not to in any way say that I don't appreciate the tremendous work you do in mapping and putting on these events, only a personal lament.

I was only thinking about the weekend part, since the title of the thread was about the Western States, not Laramie Daze.

Weekend events work fine for juniors when they are within 5-6 hours drivetime. Beyond that, though, it requires missing school, paying ever increasing airfare, or both.

BAOC's events next summer are in late July. A week of camping fun and no poison oak! Full schedule to come.

Reasonable point about the title, Swampfox. But I'll also echo GuyO about time and distance for weekend events. This next month I'm taking kids to Ontario Champs (8-9 hours) and North Americans (10+), but not many orienteers are even that close to Laramie. Tundra, thanks for the update on BAOC. Sounds like a possibility.

And back to the main point - thanks to both RMOC and LROC for a week of great fun in fantastic terrain.

I'll also add that the dinner was fantastic. And although I was among those who looked at the original $20 price and thought it a bit high to be family friendly, when you consider the inclusion of drinks and a very large dessert, plus tax and tip, it turned out to be a reasonable value for the money. If I had ordered a $10 entree at a typical sit down restaurant, by the time drink, dessert, tax and tip were added, the price would have been comparable. And certainly the historic building / museum in which we had dinner was a worthy recipient of whatever rental fee was paid to use the facility.

So, thanks again to all the organizers and volunteers.

Juniors out west face greater time / distance / cost challenges than most of the rest of the country, since most A meets are on the east coast. Comparatively, Laramie is close! I guess we're lucky our schools start later. My kids will have to miss more school to get out to NAOC than we had to for Laramie Daze/Western States. Oh well.

Thanks to all for a fabulous event - I can't remember a vacation I've enjoyed that much, and some amazing O was a great part of it.

Can I ask where folks found good camping?

We were miserable at Curt Gowdy, between the high winds that damaged our tent and the fire ban that we were informed at check-in meant that the only place we would be permitted to cook was inside our tent (which we never ever do). In hindsight, and this being our first visit to Laramie, it would have made more sense to have asked this question in advance.

We did enjoy the orienteering and the dinner. Thanks to everyone involved!

We also found it advantageous that our kids' school started just after Labor Day. We spent the Laramie Daze week on a whirlwind tour of Colorado and had a grand time, which was made unexpectedly better due to all the places we visited being less crowded than normal due to schools having already started there.

Yellow Pine Campground in Happy Jack was lovely, more due to good company than anything else (almost completely occupied by orienteers). All the pines around the campsites themselves have been cut down, presumably due to pine beetle infestations, but those on the outer ring were able to get into a bit more "forest." It was close to all the starts, and only a short drive from the Laramie Rec Center, which was perfect for showers and some family-friendly pool time.

Agreed. We did hit the Laramie Rec Center on Saturday for pool and showers and the kids loved that.

Our trouble with Yellow Pine was that they don't take reservations, and when I called the Forest Service on Friday mid-day I was told Yellow Pine was confirmed full, and Vedauwoo was probably full by the time I called based on numbers from that morning.

So with the assumption that we would be competing with the Labor Day weekend crowds for any remaining campsites we decided to head for Curt Gowdy where there was the highest number of unreservable sites. There were many when we arrived mid-afternoon, but the place filled up quickly, mostly with RV's and huge campers. I guess the lesson is to camp at Yellow Pine and get there before Friday if it's a holiday weekend.

Is Yellow Pine protected from the wind in some way? Our tent was literally flattened by the wind numerous times even though it kept trying to spring back up. And were you allowed to cook outdoors there?

Well, it was pretty full, but mostly of orienteers. My recommendation would be to see if you can link up with someone who's camping for the whole week and get them to save you space at their site. There's room for several tents / vehicles at most of them.

It's on a hill, but perhaps surrounded by enough high ground that we didn't get as much wind? It was windy, though, enough so that one night when we were cooking (outside, in the fire pit) I had to put some effort into ensuring the large fire my daughter built didn't get out of control. We mostly relied on our stove for cooking, which we used at the picnic table. I didn't see anything prohibiting that, and most others seemed to be both using stoves and their fire pits to cook. Our tent (REI Half Dome) held up well against the wind, although our shade/bug tent usually had a side collapsed when we came back from the day's adventures.

Not the prettiest with all the trees cut down, but well worth it for good company and convenience.

I just posted links to two new sets of photos from Ellen Crosby (CTOC) and Yelena Zamoshchina (RMOC).

Results & Photos