Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: 2021 Orienteering USA Nationals
 

US Sprint Orienteering Championships at Sierra Community College in Rocklin CA. I had no expectations for this since I'd been injured and not training well since March.

S-1 - I moved okay and spiked it. The 1:3,000 map helped! I wasn't thrown off by the distances.

1-2 - I went up what seemed to be the main corridor. With the excitement, I lost track of exactly where I was. An unmapped double railing on one sidewalk confused me. However, I recognized the diagonal sidewalk in time to cut right at the right time, and move on to spike the control.

2-3 - I chose to take the southern route, but in retrospect, some seconds might have been saved going around to the left/west side of the pool. I still spiked the control.

3-4 - Straight.

4-5 - Through the canopy, then across the parking lot, to approach the control from the south. I had read the clue to be underneath and went right to it.

5-6 - Straight, but hesitantly.

6-7 - I went counter-clockwise around the first building, then clockwise around the next. I spiked it. Joe Barret had passed me after the stairs.

7-8 - With 3 main routes, my execution of going north, south, then north again was probably not optimal. I got to the ramp before the control from the east. However, I lost not time getting mixed-up on where I was.

8-9 - I went clockwise around the construction and approached the control from the north. This may not have been optimal but it seemed to reduce climb and was not hard to execute.

9-10 - While flipping the map about I think I got confused between controls 6 and 9. I ran north then east and got stopped by construction fencing. Going around that, I got into the main campus corridor before turning around. After that and relocating, I hit the control just fine. Based on my GPS track, I estimate losing at least 90 seconds. Winsplits had me in first place in my age group up until this control.

10-11 - I went back the way I'd come, between the large and small buildings. Going through the start was an option I didn't see but I don't think I'd have saved any time doing that.

11-12 - Around the building, being sure not to step in the gardens.

12-F - Pushing okay into the finish.

I got 4th overall in my age group. I think everyone in M60+ made some errors but I stood a good chance of placing without my error on the way to #10. That was surprising since I'd been injured and not training well since March.

US Orienteering Championships Model event off of Rte. 89, at Little Truckee Summit. Though the terrain had areas mapped open, it was very green with low vegetation. It helped doing this to refamiliarize myself with this terrain. I hit all of the controls well but I was slow and had to walk a lot, when I didn't want to. I wondered how slow I'd be in the upcoming races.

Sprint 5 - Splits

Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park, Chico, CA. With our planned hikes at Lassen National Park cancelled. The Dixie fire had entered the park this day and the whole park was closed. Since we had a long drive ahead we went about it and tried to locate something else to do. The Bidwell Mansion wasn't much but it was interesting. Unfortunately it was closed to the public on this day (open other days of the week). We walked around it and along a stream. We learned some history and saw the edge of the California State campus which bordered the park. There was traffic getting to and from this place. It was hot so we didn't have enough motivation to do other things.

We could see the plums from the Dixie fire. Eddie Bergeron had put together an interesting video from the GOES satellite imagery showing it from above.
https://i.imgur.com/Rv9yLX1.mp4

Sacramento CA. I swam a couple lengths of our small pool while talking with Max, Samantha, and some Californians who live near the coast that we'd passed through earlier on this trip. The mother was from the wine country that we'd passed through north of San Francisco. She seemed to acknowledge global warming without being positive about man causing it.

Butte Lake, Lassen National Park, CA. Peggy, Max, Samantha, and I hiked from Butte Lake to the Cinder Cone in this eastern end of the park. The air was bad from the nearby Dixie fire. Ash could be seen accumulating on the car. My camera meter showed me that the light was more like evening twighlight--it's not normally safe to take a picture directly into the sun but in some direct pictures the sun could barely be seen. There was plenty of smoke. Visibility was down, but we could see some things over a quarter mile away with ease. Samantha's fears made our hiking progress slow.

We hiked a trail to get close to an old Cinder Cone and went past the Fantastic Lava Beds on our left to get there. On our right was some very open pine forest that would be good for orienteering. Our progress hiking was slow, but with enough breaks for Samantha, we made it. The smoky and dark sky was fitting for seeing the cinder cone. Had we had more time, Max and I might have gone up it 700 ft. in a half mile. It was start and had a few trees growing on it. From where we were, we got some smoke obscured glimpses of the famed Painted Sand Dunes (what seemed to be rhyolite-like formations) from the eruption which happened only around the year 1650. Max and I went a little further than Samantha and Peggy; just past the saddle, to see the other side of the cinder cone. An earlier hiker had left 10 pine cones on the trail and in the cinder sand, had them inside a rectangle made by dragging a foot. This was a bowling alley. Max and I used small rocks to knock them down. We reset the lane before we left. Our hike back was fast. It was gently downhill and were trying to catch-up with Peggy and Samantha. Our walking fast became competitive, with Max edging me out at the end. Of course, he wasn't carrying my 20 lbs. of camera gear. :)

Lassen National Park, CA, at Manzanita Lake. Max and I set off to jog around the lake while Peggy waited with Samantha. We'd moved west from our hike earlier this morning and the sky was completely different. It was blue. Max and I had taken our phones with us and we stopped several times to snap pictures of the Lassen volcano reflected in the lake. The trails around the lake forked a lot. Max was running faster and we probably diverged routes. This was my first running in a while.

Crater Lake National Park, OR. While Peggy waited around the Crater Lake Lodge area with Samantha, Max and I went up to the summit (1,069 ft. climb, 7,976 elevation) of Garfield Peak and back. The hike switch-backed up a ridge with views inside and outside of the caldera lake. Inside we kept seeing Wizard Island and the rim peaks. We got some views of the Phantom Ship island too. Outside we could see Mount Bailey and some nice meadows. Once again, it got smoky so the colors and views were obscured, but sometimes colors were rich such as along the shoreline of Crater Lake.

Crater Lake National Park, OR.
After the Garfield Peak hike, we drove on Rim Drive for a few stops. We saw Phantom Ship from the east and Vidae Falls which is right on Rim Drive. Our anticipated stop and short hike to Pinnacles was not to be since road construction had closed access :( --another time I hope.

From Rim Drive, our family took our last hike in the park. We hiked the short Sun Notch loop trail. What it lacked in distance, it made-up for with great scenery (despite the smoky air). Flowers, cliffs, Crater Lake and Phantom Ship (from the southwest) were prominent. Samantha was fussy again. I waked her up the trail, and Peggy walked he down. It was sad leaving but we had a lot of driving left for the day.



After a bit of driving, we made it to Tulelake, CA, where Japanese Americans had been interned during WWII. It was closed but the information sign outside was right on target spelling out how the Constitution is just a piece of paper unless people back it up--a lesson to keep in mind more than ever today.

Afterwards we got to Lava Beds National Monument. The visitor center was closed but we did get to do a few short hikes through the natural bridges and lava tube caves off of Cave Loop Road--fun!


To finish the day, we had another 150 miles of driving to get to Redding, CA--about 15 of that was on a windy bumpy dirt road and another 30 was on a narrow and bumpy paved road. We had late pasta dinner at a local pizza joint before crashing.

Union, OR. On our way to Crater Lake National Park, we stopped at the Natural Bridge, where Rogue River falls into an old lava tube, disappears for a ways, then reappears. This was a short outing. Our hotel was within walking distance though we didn't know it and drove.

Crater Lake National Park, OR. Finally making to the northern end our our trip, we started off with an easy short hike on the Castle Crest Wildflower Trail. We didn't go all the way. Trails diverged and we stopped at the first field. Samantha was fussy and there weren't many wildflowers at this time. We headed back.

Crater Lake National Park, OR. Starting from Rim Drive, we hiked up to Watchman Peak where there was an observation deck. The trail was well graded and only climbed 415 ft. but that was hard for Samantha. We stopped a lot and needed a lot of convincing to make it to the top. Once there she liked it. The views were great though forest fire smoke kept it from really seeming like the blue we'd heard about. The color of the water can also change a lot depending on the angle and time of day. Distant volcanos could be seen standing tall above the mountainous terrain around them.


Wizard Island with it's eye catching cone was close and almost below us. White dead trees on the top resembled standing skeleton bones.

Van Damme State Park, CA. Samantha and I were in a tandem kayak, while Peggy and Max were in singles. Samantha helped a little but not a lot. I paddled most of the way myself. We were in a tour group. The tour was for sea caves. We had calm water with a slight breeze and the temperature at around 57 F. This was a great tour! We got to cover more ocean than most groups since our size was small. There was one other family with us.

Kayaking Video (short)

Kayaking Video (long)

Fort Bragg, CA. Before lunch we went for a short hike to Glass Beach. The was a site where trash used to be dumped. The ocean did away with most of the visible the trash eventually, but turned the broken glass bottles into a colorful beach. Nearly all the sharp edges had been sanded down. Looking at it one might think they were just pebbles, and that fit the rocky coast. Over the years, the glass has been disappearing people have collected it (it's currently illegal to remove it). Locals seemed to think there wasn't much left, but we saw a lot of small pieces.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California. After a sometimes slow and very curvy/hilly drive, we got to Avenue of the Giants, known for its many Redwood groves that were saved from lumber milling when the state bough much of it at a premium price. The efforts of the state and the many who sat in trees for years to make it happen seems worth it many time fold to me.

It wasn't obvious where to stop. The Visitor Center was halfway into the drive. I pulled over randomly at one pull-off. Max, Peggy and I explored the Pioneer Grove and there wasn't much of a trail there.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California. After having stopped in the Visitor Center and watching a video on the protests that led to the saving and creation of the park, we made a stop in the Founder's Grove. One of the tallest redwoods is located there. The hike was easy and had many nice trees. The remains of some living long ago were there too.

Redwood National and State Parks, CA. After another drive, we made it to the last park of the day. It was after 7pm so the visitor center we hoped to stop at was closed. We weren't sure where the hike I'd planned was and signs were minimal. Eventually I stopped almost randomly at one of several pull-off's for the Prairie Creek Trail. Max and I mostly hiked together while Peggy and Samantha went a shorter way. They got ahead of us for a while when Max and I stopped to checkout some hidden areas.


We also spent a few minutes in Elk Praire and saw a few elk.

San Francisco, CA. Cycling with Samantha on a hybrid tandem between Marina Green Dr. and the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We had a side trip out and back to a point under the south side of the bridge too. This was kind of crazy with a mix of experienced and inexperienced cyclists on the noisy, narrow, and windy bridge. There were no accidents that we’d seen, but there easily could have been. The views were good but limited to the west side.

Muir Woods National Monument, CA. I did a lot of stopping to do photography. We went 2 bridges out. On the way back, Max and I walked the high trail back. I would have liked to get up to the Dipsea Trail like I had on previous visits but that was too much for this already busy day.