Orienteering at Boyce Park

The Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club had its annual Boyce Park meet in a hot sunny summer day. Unfortunately, due to the Plum Borough ordinance prohibiting the posting of directional signs, some participants had trouble finding the Pack Shelter location.

Four corses were offered: White (beginner), Yellow (adv beginner), Orange (intermediate), and Red (advanced). The White course was less than 2 km long, while the Red course was slightly over 6 km.

online photo album






On the approach from control 2 to 3, got lost and took the wrong trail. Eventually regrouped and found my way back to the main road.

Right after control 4, thought I could go East and then north, but there was a true wall of vegetation, making passage virtually impossible. Eventually, ran to the trail on the East, and then followed it to the North.

After control 5, near a couple of small hilltops in the middle of the woods, found a recently-mowed trail, and for a moment I thought it was the trail I was looking for. But it was not: it was a "illegal" trail that a residential landowner created from his back yard into the park.

On my exit from control 7, tried to reconnect with trail above by going SE, but found myself in front of a wall of impenetrable thorny vegetation. Had to zigzag a bit, scaring off a jumping deer out of his hide-out.

After my experience so far with unexpected thick vegetation, decided that my approach to control 9 was going to be by following trail and not short-cutting through the woods. Once on location of control 9, could not see the control for about two minutes, looped around a bit, repeated my steps, then saw it.

Approach to 10 was direct, knew the area, and took my chances in fighting the vegetation.

Location of control 11 was very familiar. Had a beverage stop for the Hash House Harriers years ago on the same location. The clearing was now populated with tall grasses and weeds.

On the location of control 13, could not find the control for about three minutes. I misread the map a bit, and got fooled by what looked like shallow reentrants just before the reentrant where the control was located. Looking at the map more closely, the reentrant shown on the map is positioned exactly West from the hilltop summit, something that I didn't see at the time. The vegetation was pretty thick, and the control was not visible from more than 10 meters away.




CTR LEG TOTAL
1 2:03 2:03
2 3:56 5:59
3 8:55 14:54 should have been less than 6 minutes
4 3:14 18:09 knew that creek
5 5:24 23:33
6 6:05 29:38
7 3:40 33:19 knew the trail maze near clearing
8 4:49 38:08
9 7:27 45:36 time lost looking for control
10 2:12 47:48 went straight through shiggy
11 4:00 51:49
12 3:44 55:34
13 12:27 1:08:01 looking for control forever
F 2:37 1:10:38 very fast downhill

amazing how the 500 meter leg to finish was so fast when compared to the 750 meter leg 12-13 that tool so long

Leg times recorded with recently-purchased Timex Ironman used watch, purchased just the day before at REI semi-annual garage sale thanks to the too-overtly loaned membership card of an aquaintance standing by.

On the map, there is a peculiar mapped features: two adjacent short hills.


This is how they look like:


A control on the Yellow course was right next to a geocache named Carpenter House: