Huff and Puff at The Pond

Posted Tue, September 1, 2009 - 9:57 PM
orienteering, navigation, wyoming

Day 2 of Laramie Daze. I woke up around 8:30 AM at the Yellow Pine campground, grabbed a quick Pop-Tart for breakfast and headed up to the suggested training map at Medicine Bow. The training course was flagged with yellow and blue tape and split into two halves - one middle-type, 10 controls, 4.5 km and a second half with 6 controls over the same distance. I only did the first half in order to save my legs for the afternoon, and managed a respectable 7:30 pace on the relatively flat terrain, even with two mistakes. I was the only one out there - Peg, Ludwig, and Ardis (at least two of them from TSN, I don't remember exactly) showed up around the time I finished.

But here was the afternoon course. Very different.

September 1, 2009 course at the The Pond, near Laramie, WY. Click to enlarge.

For one thing, the map was at 1:10,000 scale. Also, a lot more climb in and out of the various reentrants coming off the creek. I started out blazing down the spur to #1, and then slowed considerably on the way to #2. I came about due east through the first reentrant system and over the spur with the trail, then down and up to the next spur with scattered trees. At this point I wasn't precisely confident how high up on the spur I was, but managed to spot the two small wiggles as I continued east and then curved north a little up onto the spur. This whole leg was slow overall, though, as I spent a lot of time getting used to the way things were mapped vs. vegetation. There was a lot more ground juniper in the ravines compared to yesterday, which slowed things down. Still, I started to get a baseline of what to expect.

My route to #3 was merely OK, northish going up and down the perpendicular rentrants to the open spur, then down and up the larger ravine without finding the narrow marsh or the small cliffs to the east. It turns out I was too far west and crossed just below the marshy area, and got pulled towards the rockier area southwest of the control. I was able to identify the bare rock/cliff area, with no small reentrants nearby, and recognized I had to go NE along the steeply sloping hillside. In fact, I ended up low enough that I had to climb two contour lines to get to #3, but the cliff above it was easily visible from below.

#4 was not bad, except for a lot of junk underfoot through the ravine. I headed more east straight up the south side of the reentrant, then crossed north past the isolated boulder and spotted the control from several dozen meters away. For #5 I gave my lungs (and shins) a break by going around the top of the reentrant and dropping onto the the other side to spike it. The run to #6 was also pretty fast, since I stayed south enough over the spur to spot the reentrant NE of the control and stay on the right side. I ran down to the big boulders and puched together with Charlie S, who had started a few minutes earlier.

6-7 was an adventure racing leg - long way round, or through the swamp? I pulled a little ahead of Charlie down the spur, and started to go around to the road once I hit bottom. About 50 meters south along the base of hill, I suddenly went knee deep in muck. Well, why worry now? So I turned 90 degrees to the right and ran straight through the thickest part of the swampy area, but then made a mistake by climbing the road on the other side too much towards #7. I was already 10 meters above the control when I realized I should have cut off sooner. At least it was a downhill run to a control quite visible from above, but not below. Charlie matched my time on this leg by going low instead.

#8 was yet another multiple up-n-down. I stayed a little west to get around the edge of trees in the reentrant, and found an unexpected bonus by spotting #9 from about 200 meters south of it. I had walked some of this leg, but managed to carry my downhill into the uphill on the other side, cross a patch of bare rock, and continue east to #8, although slower than I would have liked. Then it was a near 180 and sprint over to #9, which I'd already seen - a near 7 min/km pace on this leg compared to my approximately 10 min/km cumulative.

Going to #10 was - guess what - more reentrant crossing! This was getting old, but what choice did I have? I walked the uphills and caught the gap in the trees just right of the line, and when I reached the crest of the large open spur, stayed walking while I visualized the control location relative to the treeline - up fairly high in a stand of near pure pines (as white typically is here.) Then I went back to running downhill, down the spur just left of the line this time, crossed the marsh at the bottom and carried the speed back up the reentrant on the other side, then drifted left to easily find the control at the base of a 1.5 meter cliff. #11 felt like a carbon copy of the last leg, except this time I was a little high and had to turn due south down the west edge of the steep-sided reentrant (I never saw the rocks in the reeentrant to the NE). I crossed just east of the small pond, getting my feet wet for a third time and went up the hill a little too far east - a quick compass check corrected me over to the control.

#12 wasn't that fast, but I was happy with it - I spotted the small reentrant on the other side of the first spur and that led me directly to the narrowest portion of dampness, a small stream only about 18 inches wide between the two marshes. I took the reentrant on the other side, which had an indistinct footpath (probably a cattle trail), but it was free of ground cover, and then cut north uphill to the control. I headed due east up the spur out of #12, and curved around to spike #13 on a good fast leg (not much elevation change; can you see a pattern?) #14 was similarly fast, and I was happy to be navigating these two quite well, even though the foot speed left something to be desired in earlier portions of the course.

The next leg put me right back into mediocrity, though. At first I was all ready to take the line, and went up about 15 meters before realizing I should have tried to contour around. Well, maybe it wasn't all bad because I managed to catch an animal trail that was about right, contouring around the slope to the lower edge of the large area of bare rock, then past it through a couple of small reentrants and descending right to the last pond before the split. I vacillated here a little bit, thinking I had gone too far but at the same time knowing I hadn't yet hit the large southbound reentrant. Plus, the woods down here were nice and cool, and I was ready to lay down and go to sleep there. This added maybe 50-60 seconds to the leg time, but finally I continued forward far enough to hit the creek (another DUH) and start up the west side of the reentrant. I passed the small reentrant I used earlier on the 11-12 leg and angled upslope to #15, although another runner just in front of me helped guide me there. But I was really starting to run out of steam at this point. #16 was a long uphill slog, crossing yet another marshy area, but I read the reentrants OK and happened upon another animal trail which helped the footing. #16 was slow, in fact my worst leg speed-wise, but still a spike - go figure. Then I gasped up to the road to start the long leg.

About 300 meters into the prairie, I looked back to see another runner in a red-white-and-blue O-suit coming over the crest of the hill to the road. This actually helped me to push it a bit, and I cruised the gentle downhill into #17 at what turned out to be a 4:34 pace, as compared to 14-something for the last leg. Wow! #18 was good, but not quite as fast, and I struggled uphill and over to #19. But my pursuer (who turned out to be Greg Balter) didn't catch up and I gasped again up the hill to the finish with a time of 71:06. Greg ended up coming in about two minutes behind me, but started later and was a couple minutes faster overall.

Splits are posted on Attackpoint.