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Analysis of the terrain for the upcoming competition #1

Analysis of the terrain for the upcoming competition #1


I found an advertisement online today for an upcoming event "Alaska Orienteering Festival" in Alaska. The event  will take place on the 3rd and 4th of August, 2024. Event's Website

The first day will feature a very challenging map called Willow Creek, as presented on the competition website.



Here are several key observations about this terrain that I can highlight based on the map analysis:

Judging by the photo next to the map on the competition website, visibility in the forest is quite limited for open forest.



 The terrain is very gentle, with a relief (it is looks like contour interval 2.5 on this map). However, the main difficulty lies in the fact that the terrain does not provide clear, long navigational lines that can be followed on the leg to more easily keep to the planned direction of travel.

In the example below, you can see how short and oriented in different directions the navigational lines of the spurs and ridges are.

If you're not familiar with the term "navigational lines" and how they help build reliable navigation, read the book "Confident Orienteering Book 1: Fundamentals."


There are also a lot of similar landforms, such as hilltops and depressions. In addition, it can be seen that the relief structure is very complex. It consists of one gentle stepped slope with depressions at different levels. 

In the figure, the red lines indicate the index lines (levels 1 and 2), while the blue lines represent the contour lines between them. Depressions at different levels are shown in various colours.




 




Thus, I predict that the participants will make a lot of mistakes despite the very good runnability of this forest. There will likely be many significant errors, such as "total loss" in the control area and in the middle of the route in long legs. The lack of small paths and clear vegetation boundary lines also contributes to this.

However, there is one feature that will be very helpful in navigation: depressions with clearings. I would rely on these pits in the first place and try to use them on the route


And in general, I would build the route as a chain of short, bearing sections between distinct hilltops and depressions. And of course, it is important to have good distance monitoring. Those who can measure the distance in steps will have an additional advantage on this map. 


A book for experienced orienteers on how to reduce errors on courses is available here.

Also this book is already available in French, Ukrainian and Danish (please contact me if you need a link to any of these books).

Aleksandr Alekseyonok, July 11, 2024.

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