Sage Stomp 6 Hour Mini Rogaine – Gardens Creek Ranch
After loads of hints dropped and a semi-successful decision on how to get to Savona with minimal work time lost, we headed back out to the area where we completed our first full 24 Hour Rogaine last year. The area around Savona could be classified as desert. A far cry from the 7 foot salal groves and lush green forests of the westcoast.
We caught up with Leigh (Bailey of VICO) and after some formalities presented by RD, Darcy Lawhead, we all received our glorious maps.
Sage Stomp Mini Rogaine/Score O pre-race Briefing. Photo: Bruce Rennie
After exactly 1/2 hour to scan the map and plan our route, we all huddled again for some final words and the start of the race. Bam, the start of long orienteering races often resemble the Monty Python skit called “The 100 Yard Dash for People with No Sense of Direction”.
And they’re off. We took off with a fairly large group and quickly found ourselves pretty much alone. We decided to head due East and undertake a counter-clockwise strategy of bagging controls. The scale of the map (1:15000) lent itself to some quick legs and it took me a little while to acclimatize to the relative scale and excellent detail in this map. We ran straight to control #72 up on a hill, next to a rock and descended quickly to seek out the next. I quickly started heading a bit too far east and was reminded (Sandra) that we might need to head a bit more North. Yep, orient the map and start running. A few other orienteers had the same idea and so we found #76 and while our original plan had us skipping #82 which was a tad farther north, we decided to bag it and drop out to the road to start our Southern trip. l we saw 2 groups run right past the control which was tucked into the bottom of a gully/re-entrant, exactly as described on the map. I dipped the control and gestured to Sandra to quickly head out east; the competitive edge appearing far too early. 🙂
Jade
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- 2016 Javelina Jundred 100 Mile Endurance Run – Chasing a Dream - November 5, 2017
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- Sage Stomp 6 Hour Mini Rogaine – Gardens Creek Ranch - March 17, 2016
