Training Log Archive: JanetT

Event: CascadeOC Ultimate #6 - Fishtrap Lake (Middle)
 

Walked south and then east of parking to get to the more detailed scabland terrain (i.e., with cliffs and plateaus in which to place controls, rather than just open rocky areas) where our first four controls were.

Near 60 and cloudy with peeks of sun.

PNWOF day 7. Brown middle distance NRE on the Fishtrap Lake map, 1:10000, 5m contours. 2.7 km, 95m climb stated. More clouds moved away and the temperature rose a bit during the race but it was never uncomfortable.

Started left from the trail junction and left the trail at the sharp bend. Intended to pass between rocky outcrops mapped as some marsh with cliffs on the sides but when I reached that area I didn't like the looks of it so climbed up to the plateau above and exited it on the east side through a gap that pointed straight to the control (a hill). I found herd paths dropping down off the plateau so at least a few others had passed that way.

To #2 I returned to a N-S trail and followed it around the north side of the first big plateau then hooked in. Going straighter went through some areas with deep vegetation that I was already fighting, so I wanted a break. It was easy to see the 2 mapped green blobs (trees) though both are dead and one was a pile of branches on the ground.

Stayed high to 3, where Kathy B graciously let me punch first to continue on to #4.

Lost time to 4 when I climbed the wrong hill (to the NW) and discovered there wasn't a big depression on top. Looked around and saw where I needed to go.

Decided to head north/right around the pond to #5 which seemed to have a cleaner approach. Saw Janet F on the S side, and maybe that way was slow enough that we at the control at about the same time (she punched first). She was in sight through #7, helping me a bit in the control circles.

From 7-8 I could see the thicketed spur just before the control from a good distance away...then just needed to find the second small hill beyond it. Stayed a bit east/left of the line to #9; no problem. Then went around the hill to try to find the intermittent trail to finish, which I did eventually for the last 30-40m.

Back to the parking area/download. Saw at least one horned lark and some pretty yellow flowers.

After returning to our AirBnB we walked over to and around the Finch Arboretum. We wanted to see the rhododendrons that Janet and David and Peter had visited yesterday. There were still plenty of gorgeous rhodies in bloom though some were past. I took too many pics of the blooms...maybe I'll post some later.

And we saw an immense snake in the rhododendron area! (At about the 1km mark.) It was probably between 4-5' long. ID later.

The European tri-colored beech is very pretty too.

Snake and gopher at the Aboretum

Brown - Splits

Hiked the Pine Lake Loop and Winslow Pool trails at Turnbull NWR southwest of Spokane/south of Cheney. Overcast and mid 60s with a few light showers developing. Saw a nice selection of nature here and elsewhere in the park, especially birds and wildflowers, including:

White pelican
Great blue heron
Gadwall
Cinnamon teal
Mallard
Black tern
Hawk (prob. red-tailed)
Redhead duck
Ruddy duck
Hooded merganser (f)
Tree swallow
Yellow-headed blackbird (m)
Red-winged blackbird (m&f)
Robin
Song sparrow(?)
Goldfinch
Flycatcher sp. (poss. Willow)
Eastern kingbird
Dog tick
Arrowleaf balsamroot
Sticky geranium
Meadow larkspur
Lupine
Camas
Western blue flag iris

Along the NWR auto tour route we stopped at the parking area for Kepple Lake and walked the Kepple Peninsula trail. Saw more of the same types of birds and flowers as earlier.

Both entries' tracks included some of the driving away from parking but I've adjusted times and distances to be just the walking times.

PNWOF day 6 at Camp Seven Mile, Riverside State Park north of Spokane. "Shorter advanced" course, 5.4 km, 125m climb stated; 1:10000, 5m map with old vegetation info (last fieldwork was 2016). Overcast skies and temp in the low 70s; felt more humid than the past few days.

We were warned (by other competitors) of a possible misplaced control, but it was likely moved before we got there. I got help from others on #3, 5, 6, 7, and 11. Nancy D started three minutes behind me and caught up heading to #7; she was within sight through 11. Could have used help on #12 :-D

#1 was a trail junction just over a rise from start...easy. Then off to 2, where I was reluctant to head over a spur so went wider to the left of the line vs trying to go straight. Figured out which trail/road I was on and it was easy from there.

I was headed for #3 correctly when Carol W came by and in to the punch (thanks again, Carol!), and she led the way on the hill climb to 4. Boris ran by on the way to 5, and I could see when he changed direction.

J-J punched ahead at 6, helping me find that one. Then Nancy caught up and passed me headed to 7. Probably would have been smart to find #8 first and then backtrack rather than bashing through green woods. It would have been nice to have circles and lines in that area cut as there was a lot of map detailed obscured.

Then pretty good to 9 and 10 with minimal wandering, 11 may have been on the wrong feature or at least incorrectly described (flag was by a ruined manmade object; Steve said he'd found something that appeared more like a foundation than the feature where the flag was hung).

12 was back in the area that confused me between 1 and 2 and I had trouble figuring out the contours -- what was up and what was down -- so spent too much time looking where I shouldn't have been. Eventually figured it out, then was okay from there on in.

Lost probably 8 minutes on 12, and smaller errors on 7, 9, 10.

Short Advanced - Splits

Short Advanced - Splits

PNWOF day 5, morning sprint at Manito Park, a lovely little city park south of downtown with flower and rose gardens, open fields and some wooded areas, rock details (we had 4 cliff controls in a row), and elevation changes but nothing too horrendous. Short Advanced was 2.4 km with 60m climb stated; 1:4000 with 2m contours. Temps were in the mid to upper 60s; skies overcast.

I did well to the first four and then misread trails to 5, looping south and east way too far out of the way, making a 1:30 or less leg into an almost 3:00 leg. Heading out of #9 I thought I was headed NNW but actually went more WSW so when I saw a road bending left I climbed the wrong hill. Took awhile to relocate. A 2:30 leg became 7:50. Ugh.

Otherwise I was happy with my route choices and execution, and enjoyed cooling down by wandering through the flower gardens.

Strolled from the AirBnB over to the Finch Arboretum, picked up a park map, and wandered a bit as far as the gigantic tri-colored and European beeches before returning and walking a bit down the road we're on. Needed to get up and moving again, as there's another sprint with our starts around 4:40 PDT (over an hour from now).

To the start of the afternoon sprint.

PNWOF Day 5 second sprint, at Riverside State Park, Bowl & Pitcher area (named for basalt rock features visible along the river in the park). The water level in the Spokane R was the highest we've seen it in our (I think) 3 visits here. A bit warmer than this morning; probably mid 70s.

Short Advanced was advertised as 1.7 km, 25m climb claimed. Map was 2016 vintage, 1:5000, 5m contours. I'm not sure the contour interval is right; or maybe AP didn't measure altitude properly, but there wasn't much elevation change.

Started down the trail and power-line to #1 rather than plunging straight into the junky woods. Then attacked off the rise.

Off line a bit to #2 and didn't see the features I anticipated so bopped out to the trail to confirm position. To #3 Carol W. passed me and led the way in. Rest were easy. We'd seen people heading to the Go control/finish on our walk to start.

Short Advanced - Splits

Short Advanced - Splits

PNWOF Day 4 at Saltese Uplands park near Liberty Lake, east of Spokane, WA. Though registered for Short Advanced, we didn't get course info until yesterday, and it turned out the Short Advanced was a 4.7km course with 240m climb, more like a green course than a brown.

Different weather today than the past few, with temps near 70, some breeze, and no rain!

I wanted to drop down to the Intermediate length, but they didn't have enough maps, so I took a Short Advanced map with the intent to only do ones I wanted to visit, so I went to 1-2-3-8-10-11-12. EDIT: This decision was in part influenced by the fact that I realized most of the way to #1 that I had forgotten my water.

I still managed to overshoot #2 and took an unplanned wide route to #8 (my fourth one visited), but otherwise was able to see controls from a distance away. Long grasses slowed everyone down a bit.

Drove down the road and parked to look for interesting birds in the wetlands visible from #8 and #10. Saw some ruddy ducks, killdeer, yellow-headed blackbirds (I even got an almost decent photo), and others. Someone said there was a Wilson's phalarope there, but I don't think I saw any wading birds.

Ran into Peter Goodwin also out there looking for birds and chatted with him for a bit.

Short Advanced - Splits

Brown Maps from the weekend:
Saturday Middle



Sunday Classic

PNWOF day 3, sprint (intermediate/medium length) on campus of Univ of Montana. 2.6 km, no climb (except for one staircase down and back up).

I had been signed up for the advanced sprint, but that was also the longest one (3.3km). Intermediate was enough fun for today. We'd signed up for starts shortly after 1pm (I started a few minutes ahead of that), which was serendipitous, as anyone who was on course at about 12:40 was running through a significant downpour. On the other hand, we had hardly any showers while we were running, and it only started up again as we were leaving the campus. The entire morning and early afternoon was blue sky foloowed by a shower followed by blue sky...repeat.

AP doesn't think I had any mistakes but my track reveals me heading in the wrong direction briefly after #1, before correcting and heading the other way. Maybe 20s lost. I didn't do quite the route choice I originally planned between 8 and 9 but it all worked out.

Thanks again to Boris and Alli and the rest of the Grizzly crew involved in the weekend's events. I hope you get to rest up and enjoy the rest of the week.

Map:

Monday sprint (note: splits don't include control 13--dead battery); map was 1:4000. Control 14 was along one edge of the school mascot's statue, but I never even looked at it to see what it was.

C • School mascot 2

Intermediate - Splits

AOWN notes (edited):

Besides the male yellow-headed blackbird that distracted me while driving up to Lubrecht yesterday, and which Glen saw again a couple of times as well in the open pastoral part of Rt 200 between Bonner and the meet site, followed by a family of big horn sheep (females) along the roadside on the way back to Missoula this afternoon, I saw some lovely wildflowers (website with pics at link):

Yellow broadleafed arnica and Oregon grape around the camp (and arrowleaf balsamroot in forests near the highway on the drive up), and several purple flowers in the woods including larkspur*, lupine, shooting star, and a slightly larger flower shaped like pasque flower but which was probably mountain clematis.
*maybe it was wild hyacinth; or maybe I saw both. I was on the course and didn't stop to take sufficient notes. :-D

No grizzlies, thankfully, except for the ones on the club shirts.

PNWOF Day 2, Brown classic back at Lubrecht. 4.6 km, 155m climb stated. Weather was a bit more favorable with fewer showers and temp reaching the low 60s before we left the meet site.

A mixed day, again. I did well on the long uphill leg to #1 (1.1km, or thereabouts), taking about 20 and a half minutes and covering 1.56km, and using clear features for navigation (after first making sure to head out of the start triangle in the correct direction). Fine to 2 and 3, but missed #4 and reattacked. Then I mismanaged the leg to 5.

I started off okay, heading east to cross the trail/reentrant, then started to climb the hill. I was skirting the darker green so thought I knew when I crossed the subtle reentrant, but then I neither followed the correct (NE) bearing, nor pace counted well enough, counting on seeing an obvious reentrant ahead of me with a spur behind it with the flag. My track shows I missed way left, and by the time I tried to relocate (thinking I'd head east to a trail), I hit a road running E-W instead. Uh oh. Found what I thought was a distinct bend in the road and reattacked from there, counting paces, but apparently just missed it. More quickly relocated and found it on the third try. 21+ minutes on what should have been about 5 or 6, I think (and 1.3km on a 300m leg).

North to cross the road and find the trail beyond it, which I did okay on, but struggled to find an attackpoint to leave it for #6. I left too early and found a control (201), but not my number (48). Couldn't place myself properly and wandered, even making an unmapped narrow clearing be the mapped narrow clearing NW of my point. Eventually I returned to the wrong control, wondering if they'd mishung it, so I punched there, but kept looking. Staying on the spur, I noticed a large pit in the reentrant north, found the pit on my map, and eventually found the correct control much farther down the spur than I had been looking. D'oh.

By this time Mary Lou Hogg who'd started 12 minutes behind had caught up (she found 6 first) but I got ahead on the way to 7, thought I was attacking it well from the trail bend and watching the reentrants, but it didn't work out that way. Wandered up a much more subtle reentrant to the NW before turning back east. Saw Mary Lou heading W and figured she was coming from it and found it shortly thereafter. Bearing again off heading to 8 but got there after getting too close to the trail. Reached 9 at about the same time as Mary Lou (she'd gone too far down the road; I angled in earlier), and stayed ahead through the end, but knew it wasn't enough to be ahead in total time. Sure enough, she finished ahead by 11 minutes, putting me in third today in F65 (Janet F had another decent run, and won the two-day) ... seconds ahead of fourth place.

Frustrating, but I often have problems in low-visibility forests when I'm trying to navigate by contour features I can't see. Happy with my navigation to 1-2-3.

C • Nice Tribute 3

Brown Long - Splits