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Bill's Dog |
Orienteeering with the CTOC can be a
lovely way to spend time among the flowers or intense competition or
both. I believe Bill Pilcher's dog got the first option right. It
was, indeed, a beautiful venue punctuated by several displays of
wildflowers. Lynette and April came equipped with a mesh bag to carry
the morels they hoped to find. Alas, it was not to be a fungal feast.
Instead, there were places laid out with banquets for the eyes.
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Photo by Kirsten Severud |
Early June in the McCall area brought
nearly perfect weather for orienteering and mosquitoes. It had rained
the night before, so wet grass inevitably meant wet feet for early
starters. Frequent rifle shots at a nearby target range shattered
what otherwise would have been a tranquil day in the woods (more on
that later). And then there was the confusion about the location of
the start/finish after I changed it from last year's location. With
those caveats in mind it might seem like maybe nearly perfect is not
the way to describe Ponderosa Pleasures on June 10.

Maybe as the meet director who had to
cancel this meet due to the presence of a crazy guy with a gun when
it was scheduled last autumn I had lowered my bar for success.
Nevertheless, I stand by my characterization as nearly perfect. We
had 35 individuals participate in 24 starts. Eight people took on the
Advanced Course, enough so we had more than a quorum for competition.
The Intermediate Course is where the competition was. Twenty
orienteers competed in 14 starts.
A quick examination of the results
posted below will show why I record finish times to the second. (It's
not really accurate to the second because there is no finish line,
but it's probably accurate to within 5 or 10 seconds.) If those
recorded finish times were accurate to the second, I could say that
David Bergset beat Kirsten Severud. The one second difference was
really no difference at all, effectively rendering their competition
a tie. I would have liked to decide the question by applying my
director's bias. But even that was a tie as Kirsten kindly provided
me with many of the photos gracing this report and David Bergset along with Ole and Andy helped pick up controls. Thanks, guys. That
made my day much easier.

Sergey is by all accounts a masterful
orienteer. So, it's one of those unusual situations where another
orienteer posted a better time. That orienteer was Isabella
Mcdonaugh, who posted a time of 53:58 well below Sergey's time of
1:06:17. There's more to the story than the raw times. I probably
should inform you that Sergey's time was on the Advanced Course and
Isabella's was on a modified version of the Sport Course (only the
first two and last two controls). Isabella is in kindergarten and
Sergey . . . well, Sergey is a bit older, old enough to be Isabella's
grandfather, which he is. I am thrilled anytime I see three
generations (I'm including Masha here.) orienteering.
Not all is right with the Wright
family. As long-time and accomplished orienteers they do tend to
compete with each other. The sad state of affairs is that they can't
all win unless they run different courses, which they did not.
Congratulations, Melanie on not only beating hubbie Innes and
daughter Katrina, but also edging out Ole by more than a minute to
take top honors on the Intermediate Course. I hope Katrina and Innes
didn't make the ride home undeservedly painful.
I posted Sergey's map for those
of you who would like to gain some insight into how a world-class
orienteer navigates. I would direct you to Sergey's routes to the
first two controls taking advantage of the road and a long re-entrant
to #1 and the contours, a saddle/hill and vegetation on the way to
#2. In Sergey's own words:
“Excellent
opportunity to practice bearing and reading subtle vegetation details
to zoom into controls!” Click on the image to enlarge it.
Finally,
I want to express my apprehensions about some of our bad luck with
Ponderosa Pleasures. Last year as I prepared to set controls the day
before our scheduled meet I found a family camped with their trailer
on the site I had planned to use for our start and finish. A man,
presumably the husband and father was outside. I introduced myself
and explained what we intended to do and told him we would modify our
location to avoid interfering with his camp. All seemed well. When I
returned to my car to change my shoes he began to yell to nobody in
particular about so many newcomers intruding into the forest. I
became alarmed that he might be unstable. Subsequently, he told me
that he was going to do some target practice with the rifle he was
holding. Of all of the trees he might have chosen as a target, it was
the one behind my car he chose. He asked me to move my car, which I
did, canceled the next day's meet, and moved it to June 2023.
When
I scheduled the meet for June 10 I did so having deemed the previous
year's incident a one-off event. When David Bergset approached
Advanced Control #3 he believed he was in a deliberate line of fire
and retreated. Later in the afternoon Andy Hill collected that
control. With this second incident I have become wary of further CTOC
events here. Maybe these incidents reflect our increasingly troubled
relationship with firearms, growing use of public lands and can
happen anywhere. But I've been twice warned at Ponderosa Pleasures
and do not want to risk a third and more consequential occurrence.
Karin
Didisse will direct the July 9 meet at CTOC favorite Bear Basin. It's
great terrain for courses of all skill levels. I'm looking forward to
it.
John
Murray,
Meet
Director
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Photos courtesy of Kirsten Severud |
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Lynette and April conferring with Andy as Karin looks on. |
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Osborn Ranch Meadow |