Joaquin Miller Results

June 6, 1999

by Joe Scarborough, meet director

Here are the results for Joaquin Miller, along with course-setting notes (and splits) for the advanced course and comments on dealing with a less-than-perfect map. The ribbons marking the control locations will be left hanging for training through this summer.

Neeme hit the nail on the head: "When you expect the map to be bad, you just don't use it as much, so that's ok." A spin-off problem from the usual lack of truth-in-advertising is that when the reality of map problems is revealed in advance for a given event such as this one, people naturally think the orienteering must be worthless. A moral to the story is if we absolutely must use substandard maps for A or B meets (there is an oxymoron in there somewhere), at least let's give competitors a fighting chance to deal with it.

If a successful event is one that is better than expected, JMP did very well. Magnus said it was the best training event he has had here. Some said better than Joe Grant. At any rate, no one told me they were unpleasantly surprised by the map or terrain. But there were problems, big ones for some people. I could have prevented some with more time and care.


Notes on Course-Setting and Navigation

I took splits when I picked up bags, running at a good pace for me but, of course, with little navigation. I pass these on with some of my thoughts on course-setting and navigating with a bad map. The asterisked legs include 45 seconds packing the marker.
   Neeme    Kent   Kelly     Joe

1   0.36    0.51    0.42    0.36
2   1.02    1.19    1.35    1:51
3   5.30    6.30   10.20    7:11
4   3.12    3.07    6.23    4:03*
5   3.47    5.55    7.46    6:41*
6   4.35    7.04    6.46    7:13*
7   3.20    4.26    5.17    4:39*
W   1.15    0:45
8   4.14    4.14    7.42    5:17*
9   7.52    7.51   11.23    7:33*
10  3.34   10.00    9.07    4:06*
11  7.40    7.05   10.54       ?
12  1.45    2.27    2.55    9:45
F   0.21    0.17    0.22    0:27

T  47.36   61.12   82.30   60.23
1. Purpose of this leg was to get runners to the road without them dealing with a lot of green and map problems. It also presented the requirement of facing an unusually short leg (only 100m) right off the bat. Unfortunately elephant tracks left little for the later starters to do.

2. This control was to set up the next leg.

3. Navigational problems were: how to deal with crossing the two ridges, and finding the correct reentrant to follow down. Unfortunately the map did not help much. Knowing the map was bad, my advice is to use major and more permanent features, then keep your eyes open for the best way through and pray. Of the two re-entrants down to the control, the one on the right was far faster. The map was no help there. Bob Cooley pointed out that there was an unmapped side reentrant along the way that could be taken as one on the other side of the control. Bad map, bad luck, unfair.

4. If you kept your bearing on this one, you should have done OK. I noticed by the tracks that a lot of people found an unmapped route through the fight above the control. Fast times required finding an efficient line around spurs and across reentrants, both poorly mapped, without losing direction or wasting elevation. Typical steep redwoods conditions. Luck came in the form of hitting or missing deer paths.

5. Neeme says the trail "of course." I was hoping to present a good route choice here. Neeme was fast but might have been even faster by keeping to the right, which is straighter and saves four or so contours. I tried to indicate in the notes that straight and non-trail routes were doable despite the map uncertainties.

6. This was the long contouring leg of the course. Maintaining direction and elevation and keeping track of spurs was the trick here. I stopped early and lost some time. The bag was meant to be higher on the rootstock than it was hung, but the ribbon might have served just as well. High bags are a necessity where the map is bad and vegetation thick. I hope everyone remembered the marked exit route.

7. This was a climbing contouring leg with the compass very helpful. Was anyone tempted to go up to the trail?

8. This was one of the two grunt legs of the course. You just had to be sure of getting in the correct reentrant. Neither I nor my vetters realized that I forgot to mark the control, the cliff, on the map. And I think it should have been two or three contours lower than indicated by the circle. This is one of the things that made for problems on the next leg. Another thing that Steve and I missed on this one was that the bag was high and the slope steep, and the wrong code would be visible from below. Normally I cover both sides of the tag with the correct number even though you would have to be lying on the ground to notice. Several people lost time. Gary Carpenter lost 10 minutes because of this goof.

9. Here it was a matter of dealing with the ruggedness and vegetation, though only over a short distance, while hoping to come out at the right place on the trail. Bruce, Steve and I all found a problem with the map, in that the control feature was left (upstream) of the direction indicated by the map. I made a map correction, moving it 25 meters downstream, which was not enough. I hope the fact that the control was on a major catching feature softened the blow a little.

I took my time here with careful compass work. From #8 I sighted a major redwood group on the first spur. I picked deer paths contouring the spur and next reentant, keeping an eye on the redwood group when I could. From the second spur, the one with the trail, I climbed until I was back on my line, based on back-sighting, then picked out a big madrone on the second spur. Since I could see this tree form the reentant below, I could sight on down to the spot at the bottom where the control should be. After reaching that spot and seeing no junction, I paced upstream about 45 meters to the control. I don't think anyone missed this one to the left. The bag, again, was not as high as I wanted.

10. This was a small crag on the next spur over just up from the re-entrant junction, #9. It was not meant to be tricky, just to break up the climb, avoid a dogleg and keep the optimum route for the next leg off the trail. But it turned out to be the bugaboo of the course, and I still am not sure why. It was thick going up the spur and very thick just before the control so visibility must have played a part. I was curious so double-checked closely.

The map says it is 125 meters from #9. My pacing was 110 meters, not necessarily accurate because of the slope. Also, it was probably affected by moving the #9 location. I went up the reentrant on the left side of the spur, and the forest opened up as shown just before the control. I correctly did not expect to see the bag because the crag is just on the other side of the spur. It was not hung low (about four feet off the ground) but, again, I meant for it to be higher as indicated by the ribbon. (Note to course-setters and vetters: the ribbon indicates to the hangers not only the location but also the height.) So the map seemed OK so far.

I then checked the approach from the other side. Coming up that way, there is a deer path below the spine of the spur that is the only likely route. There is not a lot of leeway here, since it is only about 25 meters from the bottom of the reentrant to the top of the spur. When coming up the deer path, the bag was visible to the left for a distance of 20 meters. Still, at least a half dozen people had big problems here, including Kent, Neal and Panu.

11. This seemed almost as tough a climb as #8. Legs pretty rubbery now. The cute thing about this leg was the huge blob of dark green used by the mapper in lieu of field checking. I noted the fraud in the notes and corrected it with the words "run" on the map. Of course that does not make it right. Also, there was a big chunk of fight that I should have noted (just below the one I did note.) After that came the only trails I had the whole run, maybe 150 meters worth. The fight around the control was on my draft map but did not make it to the final.


Results

WHITE      1.77 Km,  45m, 7 controls

1. James Wilson                    22:40
2. Erin Krueger                    35:36
3. Anastasia Telesetky             47:33
4. Linda Bartel                    62:40
5. Younger                        101:50
Michelle Impey                       DNF  (missed #7) 

Groups
1. Deborah and Jordan Ball, Ann Vaughn          55:34
2. John Megovich and Colleen Mahoney            64:45
3. Charles and Margaret Pigg, Tad Tryon         67:40
4. Vickie Woolswoth, Robin, Marisa,
   Stephanie, Erika, Jessica and Adrianna       89:47
Sue McCarthy, Jessica K., Sarah H.,
   Melissa S., Kelsey K and Elaine K.             MSP  (wrong #6)
Mary Krizer, Tiffany, Tequilla, Tajana
   Gwen and Amanda                                MSP  (wrong #7)
Sonal R., Poonam B., Iswha B. and Upen P           OT


YELLOW     2.14 Km,  85m, 9 controls

   Wyatt Riley                           18:52
   Angelica Riley                        28:29
1. Keisake Ide                           38:05
2  Marsha Jacobs                         51:14
3. Jan Wolfe                             91:00
4. Loren Wolfe                           98:05
Julie Wells                                MSP  (wrong #8) 

Groups
1. Lukas Frei and Ed Hermeno             72:04
2. Micah Ball and Kate Riddle            86:20
3. Oleg Kibivev, Wendy Yu and
   Sundeep Abraham                       94:44
4. Susan Tanner, Lynn Elmensdorf,
5. Philipp and Daniel Kopisch            98:05

2nd Course
James Wilson                             44:35
Erin Krueger                             53:57
Kelly Solverson and Michelle Impey       89:29


SHORT ORANGE        2.72 Km,  115m, 8 controls

   Mike Eglinski, OK                 28:25
   Dan Meenahan, OK                  28:52
   Mathias Kohler                    31:27
   Rex Winterbottom                  32:00
   Ian Tidswell                      32:40
   George Minarik                    35:14
1. Russell Green                     38:59
2. Theo Verhoeven                    57:21
3. Tom Carpenter                     60:05
4. Rob Gendreau                      70:09
5. Leslie Minarik                    72:40
6. Leif Kirschenbaum                 78:48
7. Pat Roth                          86:40
8. Stewart Hivtz                     95:55
9. Rosemary Johnson                 103:26
10. Nancy Lindeman                  116:17
11. Blair Alexander                 136:27
12. Joe Rivera                      138:52
Patty White                            MSP (wrong #7)
Orlando San Martin                     DNF (missed #1) 
Don Gee                                DNF (missed #1)  
Mary Jones, OK                         DNF

Groups
1. Schoenfeld and Wojtorte                    38:59
2. George Chan and Vivian Lee                 62:15
3. Manfred Kopsch and Peter Elemensdorf       69:08
4. Melissa Criqui and Steve Jankowski         75:31
5. Hillary Wolfe and Graeme Joeck            105:34
6. Sandor Straus and Jasper Wu               120:40
Ben and Ira Weiner                               OT


ADVANCED      2.7 Km,  280m, 12 controls

1. Magnus Wallenborg, OK              47:24
2. Neeme Loorits                      47:36
3. Kent Ohlund                        61:12
4. Gary Carpenter                     66:28
5. Ian Tidswell                       66:59
6. Manfred Kopsch                     77:03
7. Kelley Wells                       82:26
8. Bob Cooley                         86:20
9. Neal Barlow                        88:10
10. Sanna Wallenberg, OK              90:53
11. Shawn Larsen                      96:00
12. Dan Greene                        93:59
13. Gene Wee, OK                     116:20
Raymond Wren, OK                        DNF  (missed #10)
Panu Haaramo                            DNF
Bill Papendick                          DNF