Met the Raccoongaine registrar at the HQ of the Raccoon Creek State Park on Route 18, and left my
vehicle in the parking lot, to walk East and with the intent of setting the event controls North and South of the lake.
Incredibly, it started
snowing. Luckily, my footwear was presumably waterproof, being lined with Gore-Tex.
My intent was to go 63-64-74-75-65-53, but with snow cover, lost the trail going from 63 to 64, and not having a compass (doh!), relied on terrain features for orienteering myself. Avoiding the green, somehow I ended up at the man-made feature halfway between 63 and 53. At that point, changed my plans and went to 53 and placed the control on the
edge of the lake, while thinking "
they are gonna love this..."
Then contoured the lake shore using the easy trail, and then reached 65. Dave Battista was the vetter, and he validated the location, and the ribbon was still there. Somehow, the Finnish competitor, Mikko Berg, did not find the control, but found an area with rocky ground.
Near 74, a large tree
bridged high across the steep ravine, and wondered if I was going to see it again as a photo on Facebook with team Polish&Blondish balancing across wearing Vibram Five Fingers.
After 75, it was senseless to return West, and continued East instead, out of the map, and East of the dam. Connected with the map area south of the lake, and wondered if any competitor was going to try the same.
On the south part of the lake, my sequence was 76-77-51-52-49-50. I had planned to include 45-37-38-30, but by the time I got to 50, it was 4:15 PM, and had to get back to the North Side of Pittsburgh where the
BreadWorks factory is located, and purchase 15 large loafs of Rustic Sour Dough at half-price (5:30 to 6:00 PM only).
By the time I returned to the bridge that started the day, the snow was all gone, and took a comparison
photo.