Orienteering in April

I wrote a while back about an activity called Orienteering and have done a couple of local events since then. The co-worker who introduced me to the sport called me up a couple of weeks ago to let me know that there was another event planned at Jubilee State Park, just a few miles from home, would I like to do it with him? Sure, sounds like fun. So we went out and wandered around in the brush for a couple of hours last Saturday. In the mud. And rain. And sleet. Perfect.

It really wasn't too bad. The IRVOC web site said "Super visibility. No poison ivy." I guess that's one way of looking at it. We chose the orange course, at 6.4 km (4 miles) a pretty good run for a cold Saturday morning.

Mike brought along his GPS unit to track how far we really traveled, this is what it looked like

Total distance: 6 miles. Elevation change: 300 ft. Creek crossings: 2. Water in creek from weeks of spring rain: lots. Water in boots after two crossings: gallons.

We didn't really loop around as much as the path above shows - I think the GPS signal was drifting a bit - but you can definitely see a couple of spots where we had to backtrack. I guess we need to practice our map reading and compass pointing skills some more.

We had fun anyway.

The next event is on May 10. I'm thinking of bringing the kids, come out and join us!