On the Plains of Despair

Posted Mon, August 31, 2009 - 9:57 PM
orienteering, navigation, wyoming

Today was the first day of events at the 2009 Laramie Daze! After the relaxing hike up Medicine Bow Peak in the morning, I hit Laramie for lunch and wi-fi and headed up to the map called Plains of Despair for the 3-4 PM start window. Course geekery below.

August 31, 2009 course at the Plains of Despair, near Laramie, WY. Click to enlarge.

Mikell was sitting at a table next to his truck with the packets, and I signed in, changed, and warmed up before getting the day's race map. Technically, it wasn't an official race, but was definitely run that way, with flags, punch cards, start times, the whole deal. At 3:18 I flipped the map, and ran past the start/finish control on the trail to the northeast. I went slow at first, to get into the map and not make any stupid mistakes right off the bat. Even though this was a kind of training event, I still took Mikell's suggestion to treat it as an opportunity to prepare for the ones that count, and had no intention of blowing it off.

The indistinct trail led across the creek bottom almost directly to #1. Even at the very start, I took the time to watch for the rocky knob to the east and, after crossing the damp bottom of the ravine, looked for the small hilltop. I easily found #1 in a small pit behind some trees (although it probably wasn't the fastest leg,) and then picked up speed ENE along the top of the spur. I crossed over to the larger spur north, noting the multiple reentrants and gliding right between the vegetated areas. I ran up to the crest of the spur and then straight down looking for the small hilltop with a knot of trees just to the right. Thus spiking #2.

On these Laramie maps, the vegetation is very well done. The white is truly white open, usually sparsely spaced pines with little to no ground cover. The light green is usually aspen, and tends to occur in the reentrants. Two distinctive types of vegetation go unmapped, though - sagebrush, which is quite variable in thickness and can slow down running speed in some places, and ground juniper, which is not advisable to run through, but occurs only in small patches and makes up for it by smelling really good. I'll try to make a point of taking some pictures of the various vegetation types for y'all back at home.

To approach #3, I continued east down the southern slope of the spur past to come even with the double hilltop, then headed down to try finding the small white gap in the bottoms of N.B. Crow Creek. I didn't find the gap, but it wasn't too bad pushing through even though I went ankle deep in mud. Oh well, wet shoes. I could see the double hilltop on the other side, and staying right led me right up the reentrant to #3. Then I ducked out into the open area and crossed the road. I was able to eye the clump of trees in front of #4, and ran around the west edge, cutting through at the last minute. However, I got indecisive in the circle and wasted a few seconds. Then it was downhill to #5. I took a quick compass bearing to be sure and ran along the north rim of the reentrant (well, not a rim, it wasn't very deep) until I spotted the small hill NW of #5 and swooped in for another spike. Next was a long leg, so I crossed the creek going nearly due south and started up the hill on the other side. And this is where I started to slow down.

Crossing the reentrants was a little tiring - even though they weren't at all deep, there were a few times I slowed to a power hike up the opposite sides. Early on I took a long view and spotted the saddle about 500-600 meters south and slightly east of me, as well as the rock piles nearer on the right (west). Every time I slowed on an upslope, I read the map and tried to notice a new feature, and checked with the compass every once in a while too. I came right over the main ridge near a single boulder, and spotted the large rock outcrop on the hill 250 meters south. Good deal. Since it was now downhill, I picked up the pace directly into #6.

#7 was my one major mistake. Flushed with the excitement of speeding downhill, I went too far down to the jumble of rock features at the S edge of the circle, and had to stop, consult, and slowly come back uphill to nab #7 after a 2:00 split, not much better than half the average speed of my last leg. Still, at least the percentage mistake was on a short leg. So, I told myself (as everyone should after a mistake,) "Whatever. Next." The rocky hilltop to the NE made a great feature to guide me into to #8, and the height marked on the clue sheet (3 meters) led me directly through the wooded area to the control. On #9, I drifted a little more north intending to contour around the hill, since I was walking or slow-jogging many of the uphills by now. The plan worked, and again the clue (2.5 meters) led me right to the correct boulder. Only one more leg, then a short one to the finish.

I didn't like this leg one bit. I think it was because I was really feeling winded, and the up-and-down started to get to me so I had to walk many of the uphills, wanting to pant but forcing myself to take deep breaths anyway. I found myself looking back and forth between the map and terrain way too much, without making the connections I should have been and definitely without benefit to navigation. I tend to do this when low on oxygen. Perhaps it's a ploy my body uses to make me slow down, but at least I can recognize it. Nevertheless, I still managed to gain on another runner several hundred meters ahead and keep wits enough about me to check off the reentrants as I went by. After rounding the one about 400 meters east of the control (near the north line), I slowed down to spot the hilltop and be more careful as I entered the forest. I managed to find the next hilltop, then the spur beyond. The trees were thick enough that I couldn't see the next spur to the north with the control, but I ran a little west and then cut north to run right into the small cluster of rock with the control on the west side. Awesome - no major mistakes.

Then it was an uphill run to the finish. I crossed the trail and switched to a one-breath-per-right-footfall cadence up the hill to finish with a time of 44:17 - better than I expected and a pace of 7.18 min/km. This terrain is quite open and the pace is fast, and I feel good about going below 7 later in the week - knock on wood.

Splits are posted on Attackpoint.