WPOC event: North Park 5/21/17 – Red Course
Stats – Time: 2:01:41; Distance – 9.46 Km (7.0Km as the crow
flies); 293m elevation gain.
The nice thing about this course was that although the
controls themselves were relatively easy to find, almost every leg involved
crucial route choices.
For the most part, the GPS track speaks for itself.
#1 was located at the entrance of a foot underpass below the
busy road. I remembered this from last year, and thus was able to avoid
attacking from above, through almost impenetrable vegetation, and circled from
the lawn.
#2 – Traversed the underpass and attacked from the lawns
west of the road. The other route choice would have been to go back south and
cross the busy road closer to the control. Did not seem as safe.
#3 – Chose to cut through the trail system to the main road.
The other option was a longer, but surer roundabout route on the main road from
the get-go.
#4 – Used the northbound curving trail to bypass the dense
vegetation, and then cut to the nearer, shallower reentrant through the open
forest on the spur, rather than reaching its bottom on the trail and climbing
back up.
#5 – Cut in an almost straight line through spurs and
reentrants to the open and the main road. There were several options from there,
including around the hill on the roads to the south or north, but the hill did
not look intimidating, so I decided to cut through its peak to the spur. That’s
when I made an error in judgment. While the more disciplined choice would have
been to take a bearing and pace count from the very top, I did neither,
reasoning that I will just walk the elongated peak and identify the spur to my
left. Only, the spur was quite indistinct, especially with the dense
vegetation, so I circled around a bit and had to approximate my location to
locate the control. Indeed, even at the control itself, you could not tell the
spur. ~3 minutes lost.
#6 – Cut through the treed lawns and parking lot to the
underpass.
#7 – I opted for the contouring trail system on the north,
to avoid an unnecessary up and down. From the sharp bend in the trail there was
a deer-path, if not a bona fide trail heading in the direction of the control.
However, when it reached a slight branch block, I made the mistake of trying to
find a more open route and climbed up to an open spot, only to find it walled
off by impenetrable vegetation. So, I went back to the deer path and crossed
through the blocking branches. At this point, I lost pace count, and was confronted
with the problem that while there was only one spring on the map, there were at
least 3 trickles, i.e, evidence of higher springs, on the hillside, sending me
in futility up each one to look for the spring. Then I realized that all were
much higher than where the mapped spring should be, and simultaneously saw
Jerry Agin heading towards the side of the hill from across the lower reentrant
just in front of where I was. The control was indeed in a spring/deep
depression just there. With all of these micro errors, this leg took me 15.5 minutes.
#8 – Took the lower route around, following the fence that
bordered the big industrial yard/building below. Reached the ride/reentrant
junction. The correct bearing headed towards dense vegetation, so I circled
left of it, and at about the correct pace count, when the slope started to
become too steep for comfort anyhow, looked around and saw the control smack to
my right.
#9 – Climbed up to the trail. I intended for a straighter
route, but apparently lost my bearing. From the trail, it was an easy route across
the baseball field.
#10 – Through the roads and trails. Initially, my eyes
misconstrued the two parallel power lines and the open in between them on the
map for a paved road. When I reached the marked abandoned shelter, and saw the
actual power lines, I stood corrected. An easy bearing from the shelter. Based
on the gps track, I think the control was at the bend of the more southern
stream (dashed blue line), not where marked on the map.
#11 – Cut through the main road. Midway on the road, heavy
rain started to pour, and did not ease until the end. Near the intersection,
looked up and saw the abandoned shelter (covered by the gps track). I opted to
cut through the open forest, rather than the semi-open treeless strip, for both
some protection from the rain and to avoid wetting my clothes in the waist high
shrubs of the semi-open (that did not work, I was soaked at the end
regardless). From the shelter, I continued up through the edge of the open
forest until the lawn, and from lawn’s edge I took a quick bearing to the
control.
#12 – Almost straight line across the open and down to the
main road. Control was in a road-paralleling reentrant/ditch, just left of
where I hit the main.
#13 – NE on the main road in torrential rain. Motocross time
trails held in the out-of-bound area N of the road. Crossed the road and went
down to the control.
F – Back on the runaround paved road.
I was initially leery of going out on the course, as my
ankle sprain did not completely heal from the Stokesville Rogaine 2 weeks earlier. Eventually, it was not that bad. My ankle
handled uphills, downhills and contouring just fine. It did start to hurt,
though, at about the 6K mark. I am guessing the main problem is probably a
contused weight-bearing ligament, which is still sensitive to prolonged
pounding. However, it seems to be on the mend.
Comments
Post a Comment