Meet Results

  Tough Courses, Perfect Weather

Reedy Creek Park | 5-Feb-2005 | Sandy Kohn, meet director.

 The weather cooperated with temperatures in the high 50’s. It was a beautiful day to be out in the woods. We had 189 participants with 136 different starts. Plus 17 additional students from James Sisk’s CPCC Orienteering Course who did a slightly extended Yellow course on Sunday. I set 4 courses: Green, Orange, Yellow and White and I made them all quite challenging — possibly too much so.

The only folks who got to spend a lot of time on trails were those on the White course. Control # 7 on White was off the trail so you had to pay attention to where on the trail you were so you would know to look down the ditch. Going from 7 to 8 would have been shortest off trail, but taking a trail was an option. White was a bit longer than normal and the best time on it was 67 minutes.

Yellow was mostly off trail but had good catching features to keep folks from wandering too far past their next control. It required crossing a deep stream gully on the way to control 3 at the top of the hill and again from 3 to 4. Yellow took folks into deeper words than normal for Yellow. You really had to keep track of where you were. My biggest error was having the wrong letters on Control # 5. I listed it as SB instead of XB . Sorry if this threw you off. I know some folks did some extra searching to find another large tree with a control flag by it. Yellow had the most people on it with 73 (plus 17 on Sunday).

Orange was also harder than normal. It had people going down a gentle ridge as a hand rail and many missed the field of pits (Control 4) and had to back track to find it. Being able to stay right along the top of the ridge would have avoided this error. Orange also had some serious stream gully crossings, especially just before Control 6. Orange had the most starts on it with 29, but also the most DNF with 13. To be successful it helped to know the technique of “aiming off”— purposely taking a bearing that points off to one side of your target to make sure you either hit a catching feature or know which way to turn once you hit it. This was the best way to find Control 7 on the knoll (with the water)- if you aimed a bit north, you would have hit a big reentrant that you could follow south to the control. It also helped to use the density of the woods (shades of green on the map) in selecting your route and tracking your location.

Green was long and in the middle section had a number of controls that were fairly close together but were challenging to locate. It also had 2 controls very close to the edge of the map and some folks entered the unmapped area. In fact, going from Control 3 in the clearing to Control 4 on the small knoll, the quickest route was to go through an unmapped area. Control 7 was in a complicated area of gullies and dry ditches. The best attack point to the control was the small knoll in the gully.

Reedy Creek is one of our smaller orienteering parks. It is a challenge to set courses here year after year. (This was probably my 7th or 8th meet here) In the past I feel like the courses have been too easy. This time they may have been too tough. Next year I’ll try for a happy medium.

Thanks to Brian Capron and Dalen Rice (from UNCC) who helped with registration; to Charles McComas who taught beginner lessons; and to Susan Richards, Nancy Fleming, Beth Powell and James Sisk who all helped pick up controls after the meet.

 

White Course — Length in kilometers:  3.2

Rank	Competitor	Finish time
1	Audrea Martin & David Coon	1:07:00
2	Brendan Cronin	1:15:40
3	Eric & Kyle	1:25:30
4	BSA Troop 4	1:27:30
5	Preston Bailey	1:29:00
6	Brewer	1:33:45
7	Team Herrera	1:40:20
8	Brannigan	2:06:50
9	Cobras	2:11:50
10	Andrew Walsh	DNF

Yellow Course — Length in kilometers:  3.6

Rank	Competitor	Finish time
1	Mark Steadman	1:14:55
2	Jacob Russel	1:21:50
3	Arlene Roman	1:25:30
4	Jared & Thomas	1:32:25
5	Brian & Carl	1:42:30
6	Tom Moore	1:46:45
7	Chapman #1	1:52:50
8	Nielsen	1:55:40
9	The Mini Team	2:00:30
10	Chapman # 3	2:06:10
11	Berryhill Girls	2:09:15
12	Stan Parker	2:17:30
13	Chapman # 2	2:24:00
14	Phil Kisek	2:29:40
15	Neighbors	2:33:30
16	Sun Valley 4	2:39:30
17	Lane	2:43:30
18	Devlin	3:03:20
19	Stephanie Weast	3:06:15
	Bodkin	DNF
	Vance JROTC	DNF
	Merrill	DNF
	Dalen Rice	DNF
	Gilbert	DNF
	Getz	DNF
	Deb Dowling	DNF
	Blair Peery*	DNF
	Ilson	Map Hike

*Webmaster's Note:  Well I wasn't wearing my glasses, and right around Control 4 there was this intermediate contour line on the map that looked just like a trail and it ran straight to Control 5 and I couldn't find it anywhere and I don't want to talk about it.

Orange Course — Length in kilometers:  4.2

Rank	Competitor	Finish time
1	Brian Badders	1:31:40
2	Jim Taft	1:35:00
3	Gary Creed	1:35:40
4	Katie &Crew	1:57:20
5	Mauro & Wendy Messina	1:58:35
6	John Berkley	2:10:45
7	Peterson & Christensen	2:16:10
8	Lane	2:41:50
9	Sun Valley 3	2:43:30
10	MDC	2:46:30
11	Tony Slate	2:52:20
12	Brian	2:52:25
13	SharAl	3:11:45
14	Susan & Nancy	3:15:00
15	Keith Liscinsky	3:18:45
16	Chapman 4	3:19:10
17	Beth Powell & Crew	3:37:30
	Fox 1	DNF
	Sun Valley 1	DNF
	Sun Valley 2	DNF
	Sun Valley 5	DNF
	Shipman	DNF
	Atencio & Goldstein	DNF
	Richard Fincher	DNF
	Batiz	DNF
	Winge	DNF
	Phyllis Tarrant	DNF
	Gator & Arlene	DNF
	Karen Hales	DNF

Green Course — Length in kilometers:  5.7

Rank	Competitor	Finish time
1	Rob Christian	1:42:40
2	David Alexander	1:50:25
3	Kevin Queen	1:57:25
4	Chapman # 5	1:57:40
5	Scott Pyle	2:00:30
6	Ian Prince	2:13:00
7	Ticknor	2:27:10
8	Keith Weilacher	2:53:30
9	Harry Shaw	3:34:40
10	XLR 8	3:42:35
11	Jeff Twiford	4:02:30
	Rubber Duck	DNF
	S. Caldwell ROTC 1	DNF
	Arnold & Gale	DNF
	Bohmer	DNF
	Burns	DNF
	Contessa	DNF
	Charles McComas	DNF
	Barbara & Bill	Map Hike

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