Caldwell City Challenge Meet Report

Seventeen hearty souls (which equates to 34 soles) participated in Sunday’s (Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2012) “The Caldwell City Challenge”, a 60+ % increase over last year’s meet. Seven used pedal power and eleven relied solely on foot power. Three participants completed the course with perfect scores which required them to visit all 36 points and to correctly select the answer the course setter (me) considered the best choice. How did the meet go? Well, afterwards, our very own Sergey renamed the event: “The Caldwell Metro-ROGAINE” (Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance). Completing this course required accurately navigating over 20+ miles. The main goal, however, was to have fun!

2012 Course Map

My sincere thanks go to my brother Bill who provided course vetting and printing services for our waterproof maps and clue sheets. Also to my spouse, Caroll, who provided the post meet pot of chili and the coffee, tea & apple cider. I provided the warming fire, the USMC Birthday cake, the SPAM & Tabasco Sauce, M & M’s, and Marine Corps Cups hoping this would eliminate any complaints (I was wrong).

The course setter learned several valuable lessons this year. One was not to use porta-potties as a control feature (they have a tendency to disappear overnight). The meet director (me) assumes full responsibility for the two mispellings on the clue sheet and any/all ambiguity some experienced with the many possible answers on the clue sheet. The main lesson here was not to rely on a course vetter from the same gene pool as the course setter.

The attached photo shows that our missing Porta-pottie, Control #43, was found in McCall. Although the correct response would have been "White", I ended up giving the full 40 points for any response: "Red", "White" or "Blue" (I also gave 40 points even to those who didn't make it to the porta-pottie).

Control #43

I have carefully considered all protests from various competitors and have dismissed all except the one presented by Ben Brock. Ben was the only protester to submit a protest in the appropriate format: i.e., photographic evidence and a money order in an appropriate amount; hence, control 51 allowed for ‘B’ or ‘C’ as correct responses.

A more complete set of meet photos can be seen here (yahoogroups).

Here are the "Official Results":

"On Foot" Division

1^st Sergey Velichko

2^nd Jeff Black

3^rd Ben Brock

4^th Karin Didisse

5^th John Murray

6^th Jereme Richardson, Lori Mangum, Brad Macintosh

7^th Nancy, Henry, Randy Jensen

"On Bike" Division

1^stJay Morgan

2^nd Bill Lehey

3^rd Andy Hill

4^th Wayne Herbel & Sons

5^th Michael Bading (note: Michael actually had the best time on the course and would have won but didn’t notice the two suns on the fence and went with the stars on the house instead; DARN!)