Discussion: about out-of-bounds tracing on Sunday's NW corner

One thing that I figured out only after I got home and downloaded my GPS track, is how come I got so confused in the NW corner of Sunday's Long course. And I remember there were many other folks standing around me, maybe puzzled the same way I was. If you look at this map detail, you'll see two man-made structures in the blue squares. Both have something of a spur-like feature going N or NW. Myself and many others were in the vicinity of the out-of-bounds man-made structure (the southern blue box). I didn't have my reading glasses nor a magnifying lens, so it was hard for me to see the symbol in the southern blue box when it was also mixed with the magenta vertical lines (out-of-bounds symbol), and was convinced I was instead in the vicinity of the man-made structure in the northern blue box.

I guess the question I am rising is whether is it a good practice to place out-of-bounds vertical lines in close proximity to control locations, when there is the risk of reduced map readability. Would have a thick magenta line indicating the border been sufficient to indicate where the out-of-bounds area was ?

but then, on the other hand, in the map for Raccoongaine, there will be copious amounts of vertical lines surrounding the perimeter of the event area, after we found out that a couple of participants in past events completely strayed into farmer's fields, claiming they never saw the single line border symbol we had in the first map.

I overheard some discussions about this at the finish line so thanks for explaining it so well with the blue boxes. The northern blue box is actually two boulders. There are only about a dozen boulders on the entire map. :-). The southern blue box was a small shed/building.

We had three checkpoints on that wonderful hillside of detail and were very excited to be able to use that land as a lot of it is private. When we got permission from the landowner to use the back part of their land they made it clear they didn't want people near their house so we needed to use the out of bounds symbol to respect their wishes given that we were able to have courses go into an area of the Dundas Valley not used since 1975!! Our experience is that only a solid line can be confusing and isn't 'warning enough'. In retrospect we should have added a solid line along the edge of the OOB and also taped it in the terrain so people would
Know exactly where the edge was. We did this with a portion of the rectangle OOB in the middle of the map. Interestingly while picking up the taping along the edge of that rectangle OOB one of our volunteers met the landowner and they were pleased that we did that to respect a thanksgiving family picnic they were having on their land. :-)

I was a bit confused in that area, too. I thought the black line along the edge of the OOB was a broken fence. I probably strayed a bit in to the OOB expecting to see the fence. Turned out it was a broken meridian line so I was SOL and beat a hasty retreat when I saw the shed. I may not have been the only orienteer so confused as there was another further up the hill running along the edge of a fence with iron pickets. Tape along the edge of the OOB area would certainly have been fair.
But all in all thanks for going to the extra trouble to get permission to access that bit of privately owned land. Just another example of the class events HKF/GHO/DGL have always staged.

I was one of those people in the OOB and confused by the building, mostly because I didn't know I was in the OOB and I just couldn't understand why the bldg. was not on the map. I did have glasses but they were all fogged and I was lucky when I could get a clear glance at the map. Anyway, I finally figured out the tiny black square in the OOB was the bldg. and that I in fact, was in the OOB myself. I certainly tried to respect all OOB but the woods were clear and it looked just like the allowable area and I wasn't tuned in to exactly where I was---until the sorted the bldg. thing out.

As to using a solid line border instead of the OOB striping, this is not permitted by IOF rules. A solid line bordering an OOB area indicates that the boundary is streamered / marked in the terrain, and can only be used if you intend to mark the boundary (which might have been wise in this case where the boundary is close to controls or routes and does not follow a clearly defined natural feature).

As an organizer, I might also have done this for the small marsh north of middle distance control 150 (because all marshes look similar and if you are lost, it would be very easy to wander into this marsh by accident). Was this marsh OOB for environmental reasons? From a distance it looked just like any other marsh and would have been very easy to enter by accident.

Of course, having been an organizer, I know that streamering areas in terrain is time consuming, so you can't do everything. And I applaud the organizers for a fun and challenging event.

I had similar challenges when I came across the shed, which I couldn't see beneath the striping. There were quite a few other folks there as well, so likely there were more than a few people in the OOB area. Flagging would have helped although I know we're supposed to know exactly where we are....
Thanks for the event.

On the long course, what was the red hatch area near 205?

bman: Lots of broken bottles and other trash on the ground. Marked as "dangerous area" for good reasons.

and the out-of-bound marsh W of 221 ? was that a bird nesting place or something to be protected ?

Mikeminium: I can attest that the rectangular OOB area near the path with all the water points had some tape, and is marked as such - for _part_ of the area. I hit the NW corner which clearly shows a thicker line for the westernmost purple line, and a solid line going east for a little bit. I then knew exactly where I was. (and promptly relost myself in less than a minute, a new personal record.)

For the NW corner, I entered it and never went near the houses where that little shed was. Instead, trying to go northwest, I hit the open area next to the house, on the southeastern portion of that pocket. Then went back through that pocket of brambles after hitting the three controls - likely the only person who didn't notice the big path lying openly accessible just east.

My compass was working fine. I just kept neglecting to check it, both times above.