Below are the final results for BAOCers at this year's Rocky Mountain 1000-Day in Laramie, Wyoming. It includes the 5-day A-meet and the Rocky Mountain Goat. Full results (including times for individual days and the full roster of the Crystal Relays) can be found at the RM1000 website.
Mikell Platt, Eric Bone, and BAOC's Dan Stoll-Hadayia finished out the 5-day event in the order in which they finished each of the 5 days on Blue.
Steve Gregg managed to pull it out and come in fastest overall on the Red course and win M40. Ron Hudson had the fastest time on Red on the final day, which pulled him up to third place overall on Red, and first in M45.
Dennis Wildfogel dropped down to Brown on the final day because he had to withdraw from competition on Green on the 4th day because of an eye injury. He blazed through the Brown course in 34 minutes and was fastest Brown runner that day.
Rachel Care won F-10, and Malcolm Wyatt-Mair came in second in M-12. Malcolm had difficulties on the first day, and even though he won White the other 4 days, it was not enough for him to climb into first place.
On the Rocky Mountain Goat, Dan Stoll-Hadayia finished second and Steve Gregg sixth.
And, in the ever-popular Crystal Relays, the BAOC #1 team finished second, right behind SVO's team. Congratulations to Dennis Wildfogel, Steve Gregg, Penny DeMoss, Gavin Wyatt-Mair (who finished first on his leg!), and Dan Stoll-Hadayia. RMOC's #1 team was third. BAOC's #2 team - this year's "Z team," also had a respectable showing - kudos to Louise Madrid, Kelly Wells, Rosemary Johnson, Robert Lewis, Harold DeMoss, and Gerry and Stacy Goss.
Thus, the competition was nowhere near as fierce as usual. Although I (Steve Gregg) don't plan to decline my award for being the top finisher on the Red course, the fact of the matter is that Mark Dominie, Ron Hudson, and myself were the only three people there with any chance of winning. (This includes the F21 women, of which there were only two or three.) There were only about a dozen people who even completed all 5 days on Red - a far cry from the usual 30 or 40.
There were several theories being tossed around to account for the low attendance. One, there were two other week-long orienteering events on the East Coast this summer, and so the easterners that might have gone to Wyoming attended those events instead. Two, some people did not enjoy the open, relatively easy nature of the orienteering last year (Bob Cooley, to give a prime example). And three, many schools had their first week of classes on August 16-20, which cut down on the number of families that could attend.
Whatever the reason, for me the event lost a bit of its excitement this year as a result. Hopefully next year will see a return to the large crowds of old.
The second part of the Sprint was held on a fantastic area, featuring one long leg through flattish, rocky forest that resulted in many errors of 10 minutes or more - remarkable for a chase start! In fact, the main reason I moved up from 18th after the Prologue to 6th overall was that I relocated quickly and "only" lost about a minute and a half on this leg.
I also thought the existing maps from last year were used more effectively. Yes, there were still some long running legs across the open plains - that's just an unavoidable fact of Wyoming orienteering. But I thought the coursesetters did a good job overall in using the more technical parts of the maps. People were making significant navigational mistakes most days. I only had one completely clean run over the five days of racing.
Some other thoughts (from Steve Gregg):
Name Club Class 5-Day Cum. Time Blue 1 Mikell Platt RMOC M21 04:37:24 2 Eric Bone Cascade M21 05:12:28 3 Dan Stoll-Hadayia BAOC M21 05:29:56 Red 1 Steve Gregg BAOC M40 05:08:14 2 Mark Dominie CNYO M35 05:11:32 3 Ron Hudson LAOC M45 05:20:00 11 Gavin Wyatt-Mair BAOC M45 06:45:41 14 Kelly Wells BAOC M40 07:15:19 17 Robert Lewis BAOC M40 10:03:07 Ian Tidswell BAOC M35 - (DNS days 4-5) Green 1 John Harbuck EWOC M50 04:22:20 26 Stacy Goss BAOC F35 07:19:37 28 Louise Madrid BAOC F40 07:38:40 29 Gerry Goss BAOC M55 07:39:23 Dennis Wildfogel BAOC M50 - (DNF day 4) Rosemary Johnson BAOC F45 - (DNF day 1) Penny DeMoss BAOC F45 - (DNS days 1-2) Harold DeMoss BAOC M60 - (DNS days 1-2) Brown 1 Edwin Gookin SDO M65 3:43:46 Dennis Wildfogel BAOC M-Open - (day 5 only; fastest time, 00:34:00) Nancy Lindeman BAOC F55 - (DNF day 3) White 1 Rob Tryson EMPO M-12 02:18:56 2 Malcolm Wyatt-Mair BAOC M-12 02:27:07 3 Rachel Care BAOC F-10 02:30:06 Kelsey Wyatt-Mair BAOC F-10 - (DNS day 5) Rocky Mountain Goat Name Club Skips Time 1 Eric Bone Cascade 4,23 02:00:28 2 Dan Stoll-Hadayia BAOC 4,13 02:11:01 6 Steve Gregg BAOC 21,22 02:36:28 9 Ron Hudson LAOC 21,22 02:42:30 13 Gavin Wyatt-Mair BAOC 21,22 03:03:40 20 Kelly Wells BAOC 19,20 03:27:02 Rocky Mountain Kid Name Club Time 1 Brit Conrad Germany 01:04:08 10 Gerry Goss BAOC 01:37:05 14 Stacy Goss BAOC 01:42:49 17 Louise Madrid BAOC 01:53:20 26 Nancy Lindeman BAOC 05:05:38