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We've had nice diversions from the Phoenix heat at several orienteering events in the Flagstaff area this summer. The temperatures at the Campbell Mesa Trailhead yesterday were lovely, with cloudy skies keeping the heat down, but no monsoon rains to slow us down. Sixteen people joined us at another new site for our club. The Campbell Mesa doesn't have any dramatic climbs or drops, but offers enough variety to make the navigation interesting. Three large bike loops in the area provide plenty of attack points, which makes navigation a little easier than an area without trails. We offered two event lengths for the day, a 2-hour course and a 4-hour course. Participants were allowed to choose their mode of transportation: either a foot-only Score-O, or a foot/mountain bike Bike-O. None of the controls were located on the trails themselves, so regardless of how participants traveled, some foot travel was necessary.
Because those on foot are able to travel between controls without back-tracking, we usually expect the foot participants to have an advantage. This was the case again today, although the abundance of easy bike trails kept the competition close. Leading the field in our 4-hour event was Team "Chafin' the Dream" (Matt Bruton, Cody Myers, Katie Pavlik, Kate Wyatt). They visited all but one of the controls, but actually had enough time to visit them all if they had wanted. A close second place went to Jeff Rockow, who visited 22 controls while traveling on foot and bike. Team Brown (Liam Brown, Grace Bryan) had a great showing, visiting all but 4 of the controls for their first official orienteering event ever. In our 2-hour event, Natasha Proctor blasted through the course visiting 16 of the controls. Gary Hickey had a good showing, visiting 14 of the destinations in under 2 hours. Russ Pilcher and Eric Norling also had a successful day, both visiting 11 controls. Robert Anderson and Team Hyde (Harleigh, James, Juniper, Marigold) also joined us for a leisurely stroll through the forest to find several control destinations.
Special thanks goes out to Kevin Adams, who helped set the course and picked up controls afterwards, and Gary Hickey, who collected about half the controls after the event. We can't present events without the help of our volunteers.
We appreciate all of you who joined us for our navigation events. We spend a good amount of time preparing for the events. Our biggest payoff is getting people to join us to practice their navigation skills. We hope to see you again at one of our future events.
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