Last week I asked "
how much nav is too much nav" and the response from racers has generally been, "we know it's an adventure race, keep it challenging and tough!"
That's great news to me, as it means my impression of the AR community
is generally spot on. Teams want a genuine challenge. Brace
for some more tough nav at the
Tidewater Traverse!
There have been some interesting comments to the "too much nav?"
question and I encourage you to read them yourself. One comment I
want to highlight comes from Greg Lennon, the head of the
Quantico Orienteering Club (aka the QOC); he asks:
I'm curious about two things:
1) Did anyone carry (or even consider carrying) the orienteering
map of Pocahontas that we (Quantico Orienteering) use at our events
there?
2) Do you think that for future races a more detailed map, such as
the Pocahontas orienteering map, should have the checkpoints (and other
race relevant features) added to it and be used as the race map?
Let me speak to #2 first. It's particularly interesting since we
spoke with Greg and the QOC over the winter about using the very
detailed and accurate orienteering map for the
SPROUTE adventure race. After course testing, however, we decided to
keep things really challenging
and not provide the orienteering map to teams. If you don't know,
an orienteering map is very precise and shows considerable detail
missing from the USGS quad maps. I'm sure those new to adventure
racing would find navigation with the orienteering map to be easier;
I'm also sure that most experienced adventure racers
would be shocked to
see such a detailed map as part of an adventure race. With true
orienteering maps, we're talking 1:10,000 scale or better!
Part of the fun and challenge of adventure race navigation is the
decision making and improvisation necessary when working with
less-than-perfect information. If you only do small, sprint style
races where there is either no real navigation or the nav is handed to
you on a silver platter, you might think the maps we used at SPROUTE
were terrible. If, however, you're a seasoned racer you know
better. The maps we used at SPROUTE (and for all our races) are
among the best you can find in races with "real" navigation because
they are:
- 1:24,000 scale (better than many races out there -- try working with UTMs on 1:100,000 scale maps)
- color
(nearly unheard of since the cost of 4 or 5 color topo quad maps per
team can really add up -- but we're not a business so we don't worry
about it)
- relatively current (1980s or newer with color corrections more recent)
Are they better than most races? Yes. Are they perfect? Hardly! But that's part of the challenge.
As for question #1, asking if any racers used the orienteering map for
the park, we at HRAdventure have never had problems with teams bringing
"outside" maps to events; if a team is prepared and goes the extra mile
of getting their own maps, good for them. Some races don't permit
"outside maps," but we do.