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| Jerry Registering |
Willow Creek wasn't the first meet that caused me to ponder why so few
orienteers showed up to enjoy a new map on terrain so close to Boise.
This time there were only seven. After much consternation and much less thought
I conjured up an explanation.
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| Brad |
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| Sergey Finishing |
As I recalled the experiences of the
last year I began to see a pattern emerge. It was about a year ago
that Jeff Black directed a meet on the Queen Mine map newly developed
by me. The Mile Marker 14 Fire burned over the map in the middle of
July. July brought not only fire, but also a lot of untimely rain.
We had scheduled the Pine Creek Meet for July 10 because everyone
knows we don't get much rain in July, rain that could render the Pine
Creek Road muddy and impassable. Due to the improbable deluge in
Boise we postponed the meet for a week. Oh! And then there was more
fire. I had made considerable progress mapping the Avimor area when a
late July fire negated the work. August didn't work out too well
either. My partner, Norma, owns a house in Cascade adjoining terrain
full of the kind of features and variations that make an orienteer
drool. I had a good start mapping it. The landowner denied us access.
Well, so much for 2016. January's frozen ground at Willow Creek
seemed like a near ideal venue for our January meet. In case you were
hibernating and missed it, we experienced a wee bit more snow than
usual in January. By March the snow was gone. Who could have
predicted that the March 25 version of the January meet would be
delayed due to rain? Maybe a better question is who couldn't?
Perhaps you being somewhat more discerning than your much humbled reporter can see the pattern here I resisted for so long. When
John Murray is involved in a meet, something, large or small,
recoverable or irredeemable, will go wrong. Apparently a lot of other
folks discerned the pattern long before I did and exercised their
good judgment to stay away. Hence, the seven orienteers least imbued
with wisdom signed up for what promised to be the folly of Willow
Creek March 25.
Before discussing the meet itself, I
should pass on two pieces of good news. First, I will not be directing
the next meet. Instead, the ever reliable Sergey Velichko will
titillate us with a new map of the recently completed Esther Simplot Park. And if
that's not enticement enough, he hopes to use the new e-punch system.
And, second, I won't be directing a meet until October. You are safe
to return to orienteering until then.
Strangely, a folly it was most emphatically not. Everyone seemed to enjoy the terrain, and nobody complained
about the map. That was strange indeed. On the contrary, orienteers found the contours to be
accurate, as expected when the elevation model is derived from high
resolution LiDAR. Because the only significant vegetation was
brush—sagebrush, rabbit brush, and bitterbrush—LiDAR produced a
high quality vegetation map to the extent that it identified a single
large specimen of brush. The snippet is from Control 8 on the
Intermediate Map and Control 12 on the Advanced Map. The circle is
about 55 meters in diameter. The green dot in the center is the large
sagebrush on which the control bag was hung. |
Thanks to a very tired Michael Bading
for picking up the most exhausting controls. And, thanks to Jeff
Black, who was not entirely recovered from his 100 miler last week
for picking up some others.
John Murray
Meet Director
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| Doug, Brad, and Bill After Finishing |
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