For the event this May 11 at Nisene Marks, I chose an unusual format. The courses, other than White and Yellow, were marked in the woods with streamers. There were controls along the routes, which were to be marked by the competitors on their maps. As a penalty for incorrect answers, I planned to assign extra controls to find. There were several reasons for using this format, but the main one was that I thought I could put the event on with minimum advance preparation.
The first problem came along when it turned out that no Sunday was available this spring for the event that I wouldn't have already have scheduled for going to a national A-meet. The only date open was the Saturday before Mother's Day. Grudgingly, I accepted. I have no vacation time left, so it meant that I would have to try to set the courses in the few hours of light time on the Friday before the event, on Saturday morning, or during the night with a flashlight.
(Oh, by the way: You can skip to the results if you don't want to delve into the composition below. But the results won't make much sense unless you read the whole story.)
I was willing to use Nisene Marks because it is a beautiful place, and it is one of a few maps where I can get to the park by public transit. The park, however, has a nasty reputation. The southern, most commonly used part is overgrown with poison oak, on average shoulder-high. The map is 15 years old. The contour lines are 7.5 meters apart, which means the place is quite steep. The northern part of the park has the least poison oak and the most open woods. However, it is over 5 km to get to one of the northern hills from the northernmost parking area, with about 300 meters of climb.
I held an e-mail poll in early march, asking club members whether they would be willing to walk for 4 km or so to the start and/or from the finish in order to get away from the PO and to the nicer terrain. With a very slim majority, the prevailing opinion was for the longest walk possible, if that meant avoiding as much oak as possible. So I decided to go for it. I planned an about 5 km, advanced-level loop, and an about 3.5 km, intermediate-level one, starting high on the mountain. I was also going to offer the two loops in succession as the longest course.
Closer to the event, I measured the walk to the start. It was outrageous, so I moved the start lower on the mountain; the walk to the start reduced to 4.22 km with 190 meters of climb. The advanced loop became longer, so I had to offer a shortcut. I was still planning on offering the intermediate-level loop, and the Long course as the two loops end-to-end. I also planned the White and Yellow; the areas they used were completely disjoint from the streamered courses, so I could cut the maps. I prepared the maps and a template to grade the answers for the streamer-O in near-real time. Jeff Lanam programmed the e-punching units.
After the lack of setup time, the biggest remaining problem was the lack of volunteers. Besides the Beuermans who, as usual, agreed to run the registration, and Thorsten Graeve, who would run the electronic punching system on the day of the event, only two people answered my pleas for help. The event was going to be understaffed. I planned on one of my volunteers running the White and Yellow start and finish, and the other one would run beginners' clinics.
On Friday afternoon, I took the bus to the park, ran to Porter Family picnic area where the registration was going to be, and started setting the White and Yellow bags. Dusk soon came, and a ranger's vehicle was sweeping the park road. I didn't have explicit permission for working in the dark (or for setting up the event any time in advance, for that matter; but the controls had to be removed within 24 hours of the event). I waited out in the shadows until the truck left, and continued my work.
As I was placing bags above the main road, I could see the lights of a truck come by again. My best guess was that the ranger was around, again; the park is quite narrow in that part and I could see houses on top of the eastern ridge. These people could have called the ranger about my light. I turned the light off, but could not see a thing. I turned it back on as the truck went away. It soon became clear that even with the light on, navigation in this park would be difficult. Not willing to upset our relations with the rangers, I got down to the park road, turned the light off, and headed up to the advanced course start and finish. Four controls on Yellow ended up not placed on Friday night. I had a glimmer of hope that I would be able to finish setting the streamers early enough that I could get down to the parking and put those four out, or find someone to do it.
On my way up the mountain, I stopped to fill a water bottle from a stream through a filter. As I got up from the stream, my light illuminated something quite curious. It was a small Buddha. With him, underneath a bridge were some photos, coins, dried-up flowers, and handwritten text of Lennon's "Imagine". A memorial to someone. It all made perfect sense on a dark Friday night in the redwoods. These are the kinds of memories I do rogaining for.
I was very doubtful at that point that I would be able to do much streamering in the dark. So I went to sleep as soon as I got to the start area. I got up the next morning shortly after 5 am, and began the streamering. I was counting on being able to streamer at least 2 km per hour. That turned out to be an overly exuberant assumption. Even with this schedule, there wouldn't be time to place the penalty controls. It wouldn't be too much of a problem, I reasoned, as I could instead add some fixed time penalty for marking the answers wrong.
Near 7 am, I still had not placed the first control. Now, it was close to 2 km to the first control, with ample climb and overgrown sidehills. The leg was so long because I had to move the start/finish lower on the mountain. There weren't too many interesting features on the way to the control, so I didn't want to add more controls along the leg; several competitors gave up because they got too tired or bored even before getting to Control 1.
So, I was already way off my pace, and coming to my chosen control site. At first glance, I got right to it. At the second glance (down the hill), I was too low and too close to a stream. I dropped about 50 vertical meters down to the stream and investigated the situation. As I headed back up to the control site, I almost convinced myself that it was the right place. I put the bag and the e-punch unit there, and went on streamering.
As I was crossed the stream and moved up and down some reentrant washboards to control Site 2, things didn't quite make sense, but I discounted that on the old map. Before I knew it, the washboards ended and I found myself in beautiful mixed woods. A teepee stood near a knoll above me. The location was quite obvious. I used the knoll to relocate and place Control 2 where I wanted it. However, if that was Control 2, my route between 1 and 2 did not make sense. I analyzed the features on this route and came to the conclusion that Control 1 was indeed in a reentrant about 120 m W and 30 m lower than I had thought. It was now close to 8 am. It was clear I wouldn't have time to hang the Intermediate streamers (and hence there'd be no Long), or the four Yellow controls.
I hurried to place the rest of the course and was close to the finish just after 10 am—quite close to the 2 km per hour pace. I had no time, however, to place the 600 m shortcut from the Medium course to the Short one, but I thought I'd do that after assessing the situation at the start, and maybe begging the Short course runners to wait a bit.
To my relief, there was no crowd of anxious starters as I got back. In fact, the only person there was Thorsten Graeve who was going to run early and then help with e-punch download. He graciously volunteered to streamer the Short shortcut. Since there were no penalty controls and no need to assess the penalty in real time, a staffer at the start/finish was not necessary. I headed down to the registration. As I met the orienteers on their way up, I told them about the changes. Nobody seemed too upset. To my relief, there were only two Intermediate course participants, and they agreed to do the Short instead. Both did very well in the end. I also learned that Jean and Ev Beuerman took the matter in their hands at the registration, and dispatched Syd Reader to set the four Yellow bags.
Things were running smoothly at the White and Yellow start/finish, in large thanks to Dan Greene, Mitsumi Sugizaki, and Ev and Jean Beuerman. Jeff Lanam set up the download station after a brief struggle with Thorsten's car alarm. I headed up the hill and got there before anyone had finished. Thorsten was there and told me about his adventure; the Nisene Marks demons led him a bit astray as soon as he started streamering, and he had to re-hang some of the tapes.
The first finishers showed up just after 1 pm. They had no problems following the streamers on the Short, and enjoyed the course. As more Short runners finished, it turned out that some did had trouble with the streamers, especially the turn-off from a trail to the last control. The times were slow but most had the correct answers for the controls.
When the Medium course runners started arriving, however, they weren't so happy. All complained about missing streamers shortly after the Short shortcut. Some gave up altogether; most went back to the shortcut and continued on the Short. Three hardened souls, Syd and the Masalkovas brothers, did a grid search for the streamers. They found the course half-way between Controls 3 and 4, and first continued on to 4. They then went back to Control 3. There were more streamers missing, they said, between Controls 4 and 5.
Hearing the accounts of the participants, I decided that I really didn't know what I was doing. Instead of a 10–15 m separation between streamers, I should have maintained about 5 m, so that not only would the next one be visible from the previous one, but those who run fast would also be able to look ahead and not slow down much in search for the streamers. I was also suggested the idea of tying tape of different colors together—a pink and a yellow tape are more visible than either one, alone. I concluded that the Medium course runners must have lost the course in the middle of an overgrown reentrant where the course made a 90-degree turn.
Even on the Short course, reasonably well streamered, the speeds were slow, over 20 min/km. Dan Greene commented that the speeds were mostly due to slowing down for the streamers, and to the fact that orienteering was always in the "Red zone" (fine detail reading), as opposed to the "Green zone" (fast coarse navigation). It did not quicken things up that the courses had about 7% climb, and that the second kilometer of the courses went through some vegetation.
On the Short course, Dan edged out Dennis Wildfogel by 6 minutes. Dan was 2 minutes slower than Dennis, but only got a 2-minute penalty for Control 1. I ended up giving a 2-minute penalty for a miss of 40 to 100 meters away from the correct location, and a 4-minute penalty for being more than 100 m away. The time penalties seemed adequate in relation to the time it took the runners to complete the courses, and to how much faster they could have been going had they not had to constantly think about navigation.
Nobody figured out Control 1 exactly. Well, to put it more precisely, nobody had the same opinion as I did. Most people put the answer at the location I originally intended to put the control at. However, I was quite sure that that answer was not correct. After leaving the trail on the way to Control 1, the course dropped for what I estimated to be 3.5 contours (I did this estimation while picking the streamers on Sunday). Dan's answer, just below the E mapped cliff face (there weren't any cliffs visible from the control), seemed to be correct given the presence of a reentrant immediately E of the control. However, this answer was too close to the stream to the N (too low). I concur that if my opinion were true, then the reentrant E of the control is unmapped, and the spacing of the contours above the control is off. Once you buy those two assertions, however, things make sense; there were reentrants visible W of the control, and on the descent from the control to the stream, the runners crossed one large reentrant and got to the stream at a pointy spur, both of those featured agreeing with the map.
All other control locations were less controversial. Most runners figured out Short Controls 3, 4, and 5, and Medium 4. Short/Medium Controls 1 and 2 were the hardest, probably harder than they should have been.
Thorsten stayed at the registration area until 5 pm, when the last runners made it down the mountain and downloaded. Everyone pitched in to pack up the event equipment. I stayed at the top until Sunday morning to pick up the streamers (don't tell the ranger), as there was not enough light time left for pickup and I was tired.
On Sunday morning, at about 6 am, I was awakened by the noise of a motorcycle, very close. I could not make sense of it; I knew the park did not even allow bicycles, much less motorized ones, on any single-track trails. I went to sleep for a while, then got up and started streamer pick-up. I double-checked the features on the way to Controls 1 and 2, and Short Control 3.
As I continued to Medium Control 3, I found the streamers inside the reentrant that I thought the runners were lost in yesterday. More streamers led me to the broad top of a large spur, on which lie what I earlier thought was the bed of an old logging road. I distinctly recalled hanging streamers along this (unmapped and indistinct) road. There weren't any. An about 200 m stretch of the course was missing. I found Control 3 where I had put in the day before, and took down the few ribbons on the course before it. I was cursing the tree-hugger who would so senselessly take down the markers out of blind suspicion that the "beautiful" "redwoods" they were tied to (actually, mostly low bushes of various deciduous species, including you know what) were about to be cut.
As I went on, past Medium Control 4, the same road crossed my course. Beyond it were open woods; the streamers disappeared again! I looked closer at the road. It had a pair of tracks. Fresh tracks. I finally put this together with the sound I heard in the morning, and it dawned on me. Dirt bikes! Someone had been riding a four-wheeler in the woods. This person must have found my streamers on Saturday, and removed them so that his trails wouldn't be discovered. Too late. He-he.
After taking down the streamers and the White and Yellow controls, I headed to the ranger's booth. The "real" (gun-equipped) ranger wasn't there (she was on vacation), and the person in charge didn't know about the tracks. I offered to map them for the park if they had interest in blocking them. But as they say in Indiana, redneck is for life. Until they catch the guy, he's sure to make new ones. (Assuming, of course, there wasn't a more involved explanation to the disappearing ribbons. Like a part of the streamer roll was run through a special chemical at the factory, and the chemical dissolved the tape once exposed to the air. Or space aliens didn't want Syd finishing too quickly because that would upset the universal spacetime continuum.)
I have learned some lessons from my 16 hours of frantic dashing through redwoods and oaks:
Despite the shortfalls, most participants agreed that the streamer-O (or "O-athlon", after biathlon) is an interesting format that they would be excited to do again, just maybe not in area as challenging as Nisene Marks. The penalty control idea would make more sense if the start and finish are in an open, spectator-friendly area.
I'll considered setting another event in this format, but for February, 2003, I will most likely put on a regular B-meet at Nisene Marks. It should fill in the gap between the events in the winter BAOC tends to have, park permission allowing.
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