Usually, warm weather during the winter brings a crowd to our orienteering meets. After a very unusually mild, or should I say warm, winter, I think that the weekend cold snap actually brought people out. Even though we all complain about the cold weather, could it be that we all have a secret yearning for at least a little cold weather each year? Almost 100 orienteers attended the Camp Whispering Pines meet including two scout troops and the regular large contingent of ROTC students from Duke University and North Carolina Central University. 

Notable times were turned in by Don and Andrew Bryson on the Orange course, Charles Buckner on the Brown course, Georgy Kuntsevich on the Green course and Rob Stevens on the Red course. Georgy Kuntsevich, a visitor from Russia, is currently mapping Raven Rock State Park near Lillington for the club. According to Georgy, there are not quite as many downed trees at Raven Rock. 

One incident delayed a few orienteers on the Red and Green courses. The first orienteer finishing on the Red course, Doug Corkhill,  reported a missing control. I grabbed an extra control and headed out to replace it. When I arrived, the control was hanging right where it was supposed to be. Thinking Doug had lost it out on the course somewhere, I looked for his mind all the way back to the start/finish area. Later I found out that the control had fallen early in the meet. My thanks to the ROTC leader who found and replaced the control. Plenty of confusion and frustration would have occurred if it had stayed down longer. Only Doug and a few other orienteers lost time searching for the downed control.               

Thanks to Bob Smith for helping with start/finish, Joseph Huberman for teaching the beginners class, and Peter Brock and William Ebenstein for picking up controls.