TRAINING LEAD-UP
Wednesday, Feb 12:
18A "Upper Body Prep" in 22:20, HDT-KB 10.3.2 (arms) in 16:51, 2K meter row in 9:35 on the Avironb with nose breathing as a filler
Discovered that Pokemon Go has a shadow effect on AR now... remarkable!
Thursday, Feb 13:
No workout, but a pretty sunset from my mom's backyard.
WINTER WILDCAT CHECK-IN
We were headed back to Summit Bechtel for another Winter Wildcat. Last year's event was such a fun experience. We have the whole place to ourselves, and it's magical. An orienteering winter wonderland.
This time, we had a Canadian who joined us for the road trip up. She was visiting the area and needed a ride up. The logistics worked out perfectly.
We checked in and got swag.
It's nice being able to stay at Yamagata Lodge, since you don't have to wake up extra early to drive anywhere.
WINTER WILDCAT DAY 1
I had been hoping to see a couple of my former colleagues here, but they didn't end up coming.
Maps were distributed at 7am. Some distribution tables had CW O-course maps, and other tables had CCW O-course maps. I guess that helps to spread out the field a bit, although you do get the added benefit now of being able to see where people in the other direction are coming from, and generally, they'd be coming from the point. Overall, it's probably a help to the racers to have people going in opposite directions.
There was enough space and enough tables for every team to do the map work they needed. We stayed in an offshoot room this time. Mark said something about how the "MYSTERY" checkpoints would work, but I didn't quite understand it. I thought there would be some mechanical or word puzzle to solve, but when we did come across our first point with "MYSTERY" in the clue, we didn't see anything special at the point.
SB and I decided to go East this time. Last year, we went South on day 1 and North on day 2. We were still going to go North on day 2, since that's typically flatter ground, and there are more landmarks in the area with all the scout camp structures. It's easier for physically and mentally tired people who have already raced for a day. We wanted to go East this time to see what that terrain was like. If we did the event again next year, we'd have a fuller picture of all the directional options then, setting us up for a really good race. We'd have to do the up-front work of exploring the East for the first time this year to enable that, though.
There were other fun twists to consider going for, too. There was a drawing-O again (draw your own detailed map on a blank slot on the real map, using an uncensored map projected on a screen 5 minutes before the race starts for the day each day), a blank map section (where all you could really go on would be bearings and pace counts), a traditional O-course, a Memory O (you don't get to take any maps with you - memorize the steps to the next point, go there, and then you can see another copy of the same map where you memorize the steps to the next point, and repeat until you find all 5 points and get back to the start to retrieve your maps), and a new Maze-O (a mini corn maze with points you have to find in a particular sequence, but with point labels that may not be familiar to you).
We wouldn't be going near the drawing-O until the next day, but I went ahead and drew my own map, to have a reference for later study on how tricky or easy it might be.
There wouldn't be active snow this year like we had on day 1 last year, but there would be a good chance of some cold rain. Snow is better than rain, since it just bounces off of you. Cold rain will stay on you and make you colder, especially when you're wet. I didn't mind, though... the tougher the environmental conditions, the more of a competitive advantage I feel that I have, since I know I can endure it better than most.
It's always a bit more crowded at the start, before everyone starts to spread out. The O-Maze was set up right outside the lodge, but we decided to not do it first thing in the morning, to avoid the crowd. We'd grab it at the end of one of the days, as filler for when we get back early, since you do want to get back early at these events. The time penalty for being late is 50 points/minute late! That's essentially one CP worth of work for every minute. There would be 90 CPs this year... about 45/day, with 10 hours of racing per day. If you found all of the points, that would be about 4.5 points per hour. Only the top few teams might clear the course on any given year, though, and the top teams typically cover about 2x the distance that I cover. So I might be lucky to grab 1 CP every 30 minutes.
We started going south along the road to the lodge. Easy walking. We grabbed one point (CP30) along the way... it came a bit earlier than I expected, but we saw others going in and out, so we went in, too and got it.
We worked on the Eastern side of the South map for a while... we went down a slope to grab CP85. There was snow on the ground, leftover from earlier in the week, so it was easier to see where a couple of teams had gone before. We weren't the first there. Sometimes, there are advantages to being the first there, because Mark had also hidden 25 plush tiger tails at CPs for teams to find... you could trade one in for a $20 bill. I'd rather have a tiger tail souvenir, if I ever did find one. We're probably not fast enough to find them. If a fast team finds a second one, they have to leave it behind for another team to find, though.
Next, we went back to a major intersection to take a path and jump off to find a pond. There were some teams going off on the wrong track, but we were paying attention, and SB saw the point on the other side of the pond and grabbed it.
We looked for a reasonable spot to go downhill as we went further south. We saw a clearing that we were looking for and then hunted a bit for the point, among tall grass. We got there about the same time as other teams that had come from the pond, even though we had approached the point from different directions. CP36 was a "It's a MYSTERY" point, and that's where I was surprised that there was nothing special about the point.
From there, it wasn't obvious on the map that we'd need to do a water crossing, but we did. On the map, it had looked like the water would've ended already. Fortunately, there was a log going across the water that we could use. It wouldn't have been fun to get so wet early in the day, with the temps as low as they were.
Next, we went up a slope to get to the top on the path of least resistance.
Then, we got to stay long the top of the plateau, making our way south then west. It had started to rain, so I put my hood up. We were making good progress, so that didn't put a damper on our spirits. Once at the western edge, where we couldn't go any further west without going downhill fast, we looked for CP65.
Next, we had to find a very specific gap in the cliffs to drop a lot of elevation and get back down to a path. We used clues from the clearing and from the positioning of the contours to figure out where that was, and we went down to the service road. A little further down the road, we found the reentrant that took us down to CP95 and then made our way all the way back up back onto the road. The higher the CP#, the more points that one is worth.
We stayed on the road for a bit longer, before finding a bend in the road and a non-clif way to get back up onto the plateau that we had not long ago dropped from. This one gave us the most trouble. When we popped up onto the plateau, we didn't know exactly where we were, but we saw a clearing. We walked along the cliff's edge, trying to find the point, but with no luck. We went one way for a long time, then we backtracked until we were sure we had been there before. We re-attacked it from a high point on the road above and found it not far from where we had originally started looking, except it wasn't as close to the steep drop off as I expected, and there were many trees and other things in the area that made it hard to find. We probably spent the most time on that point (CP55), out of all of them. It was only worth 50 points. It's hard to give up on a point when you feel like you should be right there, though. There was a 56 minute gap between when we found the previous point, to when we found that point.
Next, we went back to the road to get to an intersection. The rain was now relentless. We happened to pass by a pavilion, so we stopped there to restock our pockets with food, switch maps (tough when your hands are cold and don't have much dexterity), and re-arrange water supplies. With the maps, you don't want them to get wet, so the pavailion came at a perfect time. It was remarkable that in the cold rain, we were less inclined to even take off our backpacks momentarily to grab food or water, even though we can do that on the go.
We were still seeing some teams every now and then. We got to an intersection that could be the entrance to the CP96 clearing that we were looking for. One team kept going and blew past it. We checked it out. The rain made it so that visibility was poor. We had to walk like halfway down the clearing until we could see the point. It wasn't marshy like the map suggested... it was just an open field for scout camping, probably.
Next, we took another service road. CP56 probably wasn't too bad.
We continued down the path and then went down a really washed out service road. Then, we got to an area where we were looking for a "small cave" along the northern (left) side of a horse shoe. That was a fun find. I guess SB got a brief reprieve from the rain.
The attempt on CP89 was interesting... we were going to follow a path going eastward, right after a little mountain. We ended up missing a turn that we were supposed to take, seeing a much wider path and following that, instead, and we went to the left / west of a much larger mountain. In hindsight, it should've been obvious what we had done. I had noted that the hill to our right was more like 200yd in length, vs 30yd, and the terrain to the left of the large hill would look like a nice road.
We didn't realize it then, though, so we went up the hill, thinking we were going up something else... only when we got to the top did we realize and confirm what we had actually done, though. While we were up on the ridgeline of the hill, I saw footprints, so we weren't the only ones who had made this mistake, going up this random hill! Rather than spend more time trying to search for CP89 from the top of the the hill, which looks like it would've been challenging to find with a lack of landmarks anyways, we decided to give that one up and keep going, exiting to the north.
We also decided to skip the blank map section. I'd like to try each "twist" out at least once... maybe next year. I don't think it would've been that bad, but we were being conservative with our time planning. Any one mistake could eat up another hour.
CP46 ("Base of 2m cliff") was pretty straightforward to find up the reentrant.
The icicles were pretty neat. There wasn't anything remarkable about CP66 or CP45 (another MYSTERY one that we couldn't figure out). It was time to switch back to the South map!
Point CP90 should be just off the trail, but those can sometimes be the hardest kinds of points to find, when there are no clear landmarks on where to go in. There were some unmapped side paths that we explored. There was a lot of elevation change with the downward slope and terrain features there, which also limited visibility. You might have to do some climbing to see what's at the top or bottom of a terrain feature. We found it... not super quickly, but we found it.
Our next move was to stay on the lower ground and make our way up to CP50, but the terrain made for very slow and indirect progress, so we went back on the trail and then got off later to go north. There were unmapped paths up there, and we counted well and chose the ones going int he correct direction and were able to find the point! Sometimes, it feels like it's a bit of luck, but you're also going off of the terrain.
From there, we'd be going due East until we hit a path, and then we'd see if we could find a good way to get across the creek to CP60. Fortunately, there was an unmapped bridge! We pace counted our way successfully to the cliff up the slope that contained the point.
We were back near the lodge, but we still had 3 hours on the clock, so we decided to go for the Memory O, which was hosted at the Eagle's Nest. Last year, the O-course had taken place in this area, and the Memory O had taken place on the hill with Yamagata Lodge.
The Memory O had us to up near B tower and into the woods on a big downhill. Next, we went into a river area to the east, cutting perpendicular across paths and looking through some rocky areas near the river for the point. It was rough terrain, so it took us a little longer on this one.
Next, we took an easy path down south, for a clever clue that said "Card game with bidding"... when we saw a bridge, it all made sense. The next point's clue was "Oct 24, 1929", and my older (though not that old) teammate figured it out quickly - Depression! Mark's got jokes!
Having found all of the Memory O points, we went back to the Eagle's Nest to get our maps, and then I convinced SB to get one more normal point CP63 at the vegetation boundary on the northwestern edge of the area, before we went back to tackle Yamagata Hill. We took the "shortcut" that goes straight up, and we made good time.
We still had 35 minutes left, and the O-Maze was supposed to take 15-20 minutes and was right there, so SB and I went out to it. Worst case, we'd bail if we were running out of time. It was deserted, though... it turns out that the electronics didn't survive all the rain, so we went back and checked in for the day, with 30 minutes to spare.
We get to keep the maps overnight, so you can do some more planning for the next day before you go to bed.
It was a good day. We had sucked up time on CP55, but our attack and re-attack eventually led to a successful outcome. We had made the mistake on the hill while going for CP89, but we figured it out quickly enough, with not a ton of extra distance travelled, so no harm done, even though there was some unnecessary elevation covered.
WINTER WILDCAT DAY 2
We had put together a good plan for our Northern route. We had a main must-do route, plus optional add-ons. There were even stretch add-ons that we accounted for.
They had fixed the issue with the O-Maze, and they opened it up early and did an early release for those who had come back early the previous day with hopes of doing the maze. We got there early and took it on. It was really muddy, since it had rained, and people were treading and re-treading the same paths over and over again, due to the maze format. It must've been funny to watch. That little maze can be surprisingly disorienting!
There were three themes that you could choose from, and you and your partner couldn't pick the same one. Both of you had to independently complete your maze, before you could get 100 points for the point. SB chose countries (based on flags and country shapes, although the flags ended up being colored differently than usual to be tricky). Between orienteering symbols and superheroes, I decided to do the symbols. It would've been nice to have my symbol cheat sheet. There are sooo many obscure superheroes, though. Boys probably had an advantage there. The rules on how to tackle the maze weren't clear to everyone. I'm not sure how they interpreted it, but it was pretty clear to me that we'd find the points in the numbered order. Some of the O-symbols look very similar to each other. You just make a best guess, and worst case, if you're wrong, you try your next best guess. Fortunately, the punches had the names of the symbols spelled out for you... same thing with the heroes and the countries, so you could tell if you were about to punch the correct one ahead of time.
The sample maze that had been emailed out ahead of time was bug-themed... SB would've crushed that one.
At one point in the maze, I remember having a feeling "I'm trapped" after getting disoriented in there and not finding a way out, haha. We did the maze, punched for credit, and went on with our plan.
We took our "usual route" down the hill, feeling fresh so far. I grabbed CP33 by the dam, where we had seen deer last year. We cut through some open land, and SB got another similar-looking point at CP62.
We went along a path, looking for gaga ball pits again, this time knowing how they are represented on the map, until we got to CP93. We were proud that we weren't distracted by a path that many others had taken to go down the hill. We stayed high and on our bearing to find the point.
At CP103, there was lots of deer poop around.
We headed over to another big building to start the O-course. We'd be going clockwise. There could be an advantage of going one way or another, based on whether there's one leg where the point is hard to find.
Our first point was in a tunnel by the lake. There weren't as many points around the lake this year. It was raining, so the tunnel would've given us nice cover. We traversed across open land and went up a hill to connect to a path that took us on a path-like cut through the forest, which took us to gaga balls by tower F. We cut down from there to look for point 2 at a rootstock. It was a bit further down that we had anticipated, but there were other racers in the area, and they clued us in on where to look, not that we wouldn't have eventually found it ourselves. The people we ran into on day 2 were nicer and helpful than on day 1... I think at first, everyone's very competitive. By day 2, everyone's tired and feeling like it's more all of us against nature, instead of everyone against each other.
Point 3 was in a womens' shower building. I asked a guy who came out of it if it was his first time, but he didn't answer.
Next, we cut mostly west and downwards, looking for point 4. That took a little bit of searching, but the guy was there, too, and it helps to work together to search.
The next point was the one I was most concerned about. Near this spot last year, we had wasted a bunch of time looking for the point that overlooked Glen Jean. The tricky thing is that there are unmapped trails out there, and it's easy to make parallel errors. We went north to come onto our initial path that would loop around and merge with another path. So far so good. We found an unmarked path that was headed in the right direction, so we took a gamble and followed it. Fortunately, it took us straight to the "broken tree".
From there, we shot a bearing to go down that hill and back towards "civilization" (camp sites). It did get a little tricky at times, because there would be man-made cuts or paths, which made for easy travel, but they weren't always on the exact bearing we needed. We did our best to keep in mind how much we were deviating from the desired bearing as we took the paths. We got to the general area that we were looking for, and then we ran into another team that helped us find the boulder with the point.
From there, we cut through a lot of camping land to get to the "spooky tent" from last year.
We went up a spur to the next point... last year, a point here had its electronics frozen. We followed the well-mapped paths to find point 9. From there, we went to the small stream with point 10, where it was quite windy. I think there might've been a point here last year, too. O-course done!
Next up, we tackled point 92, which was hidden near where a point was last year. Last year, we bushwhacked up through a bunch of thorns. It wasn't pleasant, so we were going to take a longer path up this time, but we saw another, less steep bushwhack option from the road and tried that instead. It wasn't bad. We found the point and took the path down.
CP52 was a bit challenging. Using the pond as a landmark, we followed a reentrant up. We ended up going too far east, though. We were one trail fork off of where we had wanted to be. With some problem-solving, we figured that out, though, and went back far enough west to find the point. It is a good feeling figure out where you actually are, after being puzzled for a while. Everything suddenly makes sense.
We took some trails in the area out towards CP102. We stayed aware of where the buildings and the road above us were. We kept an eye out for when we wanted to cut up to the road. Once we did, we got to walk along a skate or BMX park. The point was hidden under a ramp. Small-sized people can more easily duck in there.
CP32 was tricky for us. We had wanted to find a southbound path shooting off from the main road, but we never saw it. We ended up going a longer way around. It became more obvious when we found ourselves at a big clearing. There was another team who had also been confused by the missing trail, since they had been coming in the backwards direction, backtracking, since we had seen them back at the ramp. We didn't see them again, so we weren't sure if they ended up finding something, or if it just took them longer to decide to go the long way around like we did. Going the long way around, we eventually re-entered the trail system and found the point. Not super easy, although you at least had a different pond to use as a landmark.
In hindsight, looking at our actual track, we didn't do that much more distance than we had originally planned. It just felt like we were walking a long way.
Next, we followed roads and decided to attack CP31 from the high ground, for a more obvious attack point than trying to take the low ground and attack from there. The high ground was actually a shooting range. We found a less steep way down... some of the other options were nuts. We were able to see the deer stand with the point from a distance, to our west.
From there, we went northeast to hit the main road. I was looking to my left for a bridge. I never saw the bridge, but I noticed that the road was starting to turn south, so we went ahead and cut in towards the lake and backtracked a tad to find the point.
CP72 requires a good bit of walking to follow the path, it feels like. There was also a point here last year.
There was a wedding that day, so we were told to avoid being close enough to be in anyone's pictures, haha. We took a road up towards CP101, cut up after we passed cliffed areas, and went right up to the point. Some climbing, but nothing too crazy, in all.
While on the high ground, with 3:20 still on the clock, we decided to give some of the drawing-O points a try. At least the first one didn't seem bad...
Coming from the road on the north eastern corner of the drawn map, we could follow the road until it went north a second time... follow that bearing to go up a hill until you were at the summit, on the eastern side. It went according to plan! CP 80 didn't beep when I punched it, and it didn't make a sound for a nearby team, either, so we took a selfie as proof.
I didn't trust myself enough to go for CP81, since landmarks weren't as obvious. CP82 seemed doable, though, since it was on the far side of a clearing, and the clue was "cell tower". It should be hard to miss. We found an unmapped way to drive to the clearing, and we knocked that one out, too!
We didn't go for CP83 and made our way up the road, back to mapped territory. We took a scrambling shortcut down to CP84, and then we cut through windy switchback to get to CP70 at the bouldering area. Like last year, you had to do ropeless bouldering to get to the top of the structure and punch in. Fun!
CP53 was our last find, down a slope around a bend near Yamagata Hill. Then, we made our way up the hill one last time. Finished with 30 minutes to spare!
We covered 18.9 miles on day 2, with 3,700 feet of ascent. So about 1 more mile and 300 feet less. It's deceptive, because you feel like you're not doing as much elevation or distance on day 2 because you're in civilization for a lot of the time.
We were happy to get 3rd among female teams, although this year, with prizes, they only did 2 per division, and then they started letting people walk the prize table according to overall placement after that. Fortunately, we were still OK enough overall that we got something. It's a different approach for sure, though!
Another super fun event. My legs weren't smoked this year. I had been doing a good amount of rucking lately, between Operation Buckwheat recon, the 12 miler, and the GORUCK V-day events.
