Bisbee Hill

Posted Fri, September 4, 2009 - 12:55 PM
orienteering, navigation, wyoming

And the courses keep rolling on. Today was at Bisbee Hill, and we were warned that the red course was crossing into blue territory, with a total length of 9.3 km. The area also proved to be very open running in most places, with only patches of sagebrush instead of a nearly continuous cover like yesterday.

September 3, 2009 Red course at Bisbee Hill, near Laramie, WY. Click to enlarge.

I started at 3:16 PM and headed west along the side of the hill, then crossed the narrow marsh in the reentrant and up the spur on the other side into #1. #2 was mostly a straight-line route, bearing a little west to avoid the deepest part of the first reentrant crossing. I just had to go down and up the second reentrant, but the green part wasn't thick and I slowed down near the control so as not the miss the two small reentrants. I spotted the first one and went slightly west to find the control without a problem.

#3 was another straight-line run, and I aimed off slightly south and was able to pick up the boulders to the SE of the control, which then led me right into the correct spot. This area was nice, open, truly white pine forest with little ground cover, mostly junipers where there was any. The leg to #4 was a little more invovled, so I split it up into pieces. Step 1 - cross the marsh. Step 2 - get around the left side of the rock outcrop. Step 3 - Count reentrants, and see if the small tree clusters marked on the map could help. Step 4 - attack the control. Sure enough, the vegetation was perfectly accurate, and I crossed the last perpendicular reentrant in between the cup depression and the white spot, which led me precisely to #4. Now I was starting the section of the course with loooong legs.

#5 was a pretty simple beeline across open shortgrass. I used the hilltop near the road and the fenced-in area north of the line to stay on track, and passed a couple of runners here. After five days at altitude, I was finally able to sustain a good jogging pace even uphill, and ended up not having to walk very much on this course. On the way into 5, I went too low and got stuck in some of the green stuff, which was indeed slower. Finally I thrashed back up to the spur and grabbed #5, although one runner I had passed earlier had now caught up. I sprinted off to the west and a little south around the green reentrant, over to the hilltop for #6. Now, I had to plan a nearly 1.5 km leg into intricate rocky terrain.

The first decision to make was: north, or south around the big hill "OP Charlie". South was more open, but had more climb and bigger features, whereas north was more vegetated, with numerous reentrants to thread and a moderate amount of green. Since my legs felt good, I opted for the southern route, going south towards the open hilltop, then curving SW through a reentrant and then catching the bottom of the SW-running reentrant pointing to the loop at the end of the road. I walked up most of the way and came out right near the loop, but now the second half of the leg was downhill or flat. I started to run again going down the open spur pointing directly at #7, and by the time I got to the first green blob in the reentrant below, I saw a nice cowpath continuing SW along the base of Bisbee Hill. So I gave it a try, and it took me through a cool section of pine forest with big boulders (1-4 meters tall) and a full canopy that blocked the sun and made it damp and cool.I was able to keep track of the reentrants as I ran a couple of contour lines lower than the control, and started to look for the little spur or bench on the west side of Bisbee Hill as I started to curve south. I climbed a little up onto the bench, stopped to take a quick bearing on the top of Bisbee Hill through the trees, and thus encouraged, turned right and ran 20 meters down smack into the control. Total leg time was 13:23.

But now I had another long leg to examine. For a brief moment I thought about running the road, but #8 was just far enough in to discourage that option. Instead, I decided to follow the base of Bisbee Hill and turn east through the saddle between it and Markley Hill, then approach 8 from the north. Even though it would be blind from that direction, I was reading the rock features quite well so far and felt confident I could stay in contact.

I went SSE along a fairly open almost-footpath, wasn't able to spot the big patch of bare rock, but saw the next jumble of boulders about two-thirds of the way to the green reentrant. At this point I started climbing a bit and cut through some of the rocky areas to head more directly for the saddle. This worked like a charm, and I came into sight of Markley Hill almost directly on the saddle. The I followed a cow path down about a single contour line, and turned into the open forest on the NE slope of Markley Hill. Again, I was doing well, reading the rock features and noting the small reentrants along the way. Shortly I passed through a partially open area that was bounded on the south by a rocky spur that stuck out to the east. I climbed a little to the top of the spur, stopped quickly to verify my location, and then got ready to head due south to the control. All the features were right there! I came into sight of the big rock jumble just N of the control, and reread the clue as I ran around its right side - cliff, 3 meter, at foot. Up ahead, a rock ledge. Down to the bottom, turn left, voila - the control precisely where I knew it would be. Somewhere around 11 minutes for this leg. I was enthused.

My success into #8 gave me a bit of a rush which I carried into 9-10-11. I started to get completely absorbed in the navigation and ran most of the way hard. On the way out from 11, I went down into the reentrant, but instead of being a marsh, it was dry and pasture-like, very open. I sprinted east, then curved north to catch the road, up the road to the 90 degree bend, and then down the east-pointing spur to #12 in a little over six minutes for a km+ leg. I was still feeling good on the way to 13, and happy to be done with the more difficult navigation. Again, it was divide-and-conquer. Step 1 - around the south side of the rocky knob. Step 2 - Cross the green to get in sight of the elongated hill. Step 3 - Stay south along the north edge of the creek valley to get around the N-S reentrant. Step 4 - run downspur to the control. I executed perfectly, except right at the end where I slowed for the control a little too early and had to trot east to the knoll. I could see the finish to my left, and quickly ran down and motored up the other side for a time of 71:09 - a 7.5 min/km pace that I was very happy with.