Orienteering race 1:50:16 [4] *** 6.45 km (17:06 / km) +322m 13:41 / km
spiked:9/12c slept:7.0 shoes: Inov8 ORoc280-A 2013-08
Earl's Trails Green, SL 5.4 km, set by Phil B. Nice course making good use of the woods and removing most temptations to run on the bike trails. Gorgeous sunny day with temps in the mid to upper 60s and low humidity. Mosquitos, but they could have been much worse (I had bug repellent on my neck and arms). Some young blackflies hitched a ride home, but weren't biting.
Thanks to Phil for the course, and Jim P for epunch support.
Green was a subset of Red, the same through 8, and then jumping over to their 13. From their 16 we came straight on in to the finish.
Didn't see very many people out there! A few at the first couple controls who I figured were on shorter courses, then no one until kadley after my 8 and his 12. Good first three controls. Decided if I had to climb up and/or over the hill in the middle of the map to 4 I'd do it on trails. Once I worked my way over to it I took the main trail around to the south, until I was SSE of the control and was able to mostly contour from there, only slightly confused by bike trails but figuring it out. Trails most of the way to 5, and lucky to 6 when I got near the control (S side of rootstock) in the low viz area and saw a downed log. Hmmm, "I bet the flags at the S end of this," and it was.
7, the shortest leg, was my first blow up as I took the saddle NW out to the trail and then forgot to correct for the angle so I explored some rocky areas to the north of 7 before figuring it out. Fine to 8 and back to the trail. Took kadley's line down the hill then never saw him again as he scooted off up the hill after crossing the stream. I took trails to the closest junction W of 9 and then tried to contour, but drifted too far down the steep hillside and had to correct from the mapped half-meter boulder below it. A bit S of the beeline to 10 and hit the trail at a Y junction, but it was the upper not the lower Y so approached that wrong too; quickly corrected, though. Good for the rest though slow because it was mostly uphill (12 contours over about 900m). Happy to be done.
Discovered an unmapped ancient truck-in-the-woods about 20-25m west of point 102 (hilltop south of the southernmost out-of-bounds corner), rusty front end visible but truck bed buried in the duff. Probably worth a black X.
Phil says AP's calculated climb is way off; I calculated about 160m counting contour lines on the map but it felt like over 200.