It’s 10:00 AM on the day of the meet. I’ve got two controls to hang and two hours to do it. I figured it might take one hour and I’d be back at the start location in time for a sandwich before the crowd begins to arrive. Wrong. I tell Artem, who is going out on his own to set some controls, that we need to be back by 11:00 so that we can get the start set up and off I go.

In the next two hours, I got rained on and completely soaked, lost my glasses, saw my map get soaked and disintegrate before my eyes (you should have seen me piecing it together on the ground like a jigsaw puzzle), and spent ten minutes frantically searching for my glasses which were knocked from my head by a low hanging branch. After getting my jigsaw map put together, I used one of my advanced orienteering skills, map memorization. I memorized the map back to the dam, wadded up what was left of my map and set off. You can imagine my surprise when I got to the lake and saw a nice swimming beach on the other side instead of a dam and the highway fifty boat launching area. I’d made a wrong turn or two and come out about one-third of a mile too far up the lake. So much for my map memorization skills. Lucky for me I had been to the swimming area so I knew which way to turn. I finally arrived back at the start about 11:50. It was a cold, cold stare that I gave Artem when he asked me if I’d like to go out on a course.

This was our first meet on the Falls Lake map. Those of us working at the meet and competitors alike agreed that future meets at Falls Lake should be held in the dead of winter due to the thickness of underbrush in some locations. There were many DNFs, especially on the orange and red courses. Those of you who didn’t finish the orange course, take heart. It was a very, very difficult orange course. Several tough control locations, thick underbrush and wet conditions contributed to its difficulty. Even some "old hands" who have been orienteering for a number of years had difficulty with some of the controls. The red course DNFs were probably because the course ran much farther than its true length due to the downed trees, underbrush, and wet conditions. For you future course designers, it would be a good idea to shorten courses when they pass through difficult terrain.

If this was your first orienteering meet, don’t be discouraged if you had difficulties at Falls Lake. The underbrush is not as thick at our other sites. In addition, winter is coming on and those pesky leaves will be gone. Hope to see you at the next meet.