Karen and I just participated in an ultra distance orienteering meet yesterday near Chattanooga. We did the 12 hour version, but some folks were out on the course for a full 24 hours, starting about the time we went to bed the night before. They came from all over the country. There were some great views over very rugged terrain. It was all on foot, no biking or paddling. The nav was pretty challenging. We had about 3 miles in between points. You were forced to sort of chunk up each distance into bite-size portions and constantly ask yourself if everything looks right. The direction of travel, terrain on all four sides, and any creeks needed to be taken into account. When we reached a re-entrant that appeared to be the one we were seeking, for example, we had to verify that it was not only the right depth, size, and length, but also that it was veering in the right direction. My compass and altimeter came in handy. An experienced navigator could go by feel for a lot of that, but we had never done anything at this distance before and we are used to using 1:10,000 scale maps for O-meets with points only 500 meters to maybe 1K apart. This was 1:24,000 which is what we use for adventure races, but we normally don’t do true orienteering in an adventure race. If we do there is normally a separate map with a finer scale. So, I guess what I’m saying is that every point we reached was a small victory.

The wildlife was beautiful and we spent as much time watching that as we did trekking. The whippoorwills were loud as could be as we listened from our tent on Friday night. We heard a group of them calling over each other’s voices. I’ve never heard so many at once before. Normally only one at a time. Karen also thought she saw an indigo bunting bird. I took some photos of it as it splashed in a creek and bathed itself, but they didn’t come out good enough. My camera just doesn’t have the zoom power needed. We also saw many deer and heard something grunting at night and early morning that Karen reckoned was a buck, but I’m pretty sure it was of the sasquatch persuasion.

Anyway, we had a good time. The trip was awfully long (about 5 hours there and worse coming back due to Atlanta traffic) and not a place we plan to visit often, but we’re both glad we have been there. I’ve got one heck of a map if we ever want to go back. And by the way, when you view the map, the blue stuff is the Tennessee River and snaking around with it on either side are cliffs. That is represented by the thick brown stuff which are topo lines at 20 foot intervals that are so closely drawn that they appear to be touching each other. The points would often be hidden along the cliff or down the side of them near creeks. There were ways to get down the cliff that weren’t dangerous. It just took some maneuvering. We used small trees to help gain some footing. It was fun stuff.

Here are some photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pedalgrinder/UltraOGaine2008