Diving Deeper #1

There was significant interest in the middle distance at  SOFT ROCK map from the 2024 Pacific Northwest Orienteering Festival, which we shared in our group "Orienteering Technical Trainings."

This event took place on June 28, 2024.

The course setter of this event, Boris Granovskiy (pictured below), offered to provide insights about the terrain and the courses. This interview starts of a new series "Diving Deeper" on my blog where I will publish interviews with various orienteers.

Thank you, Boris, for agreeing to answer questions about the Soft Rocks map and the courses you've designed. 

Boris Granovskiy; (photo by Conrado Escobar).

Could you briefly introduce these competitions to our readers? Was this the seventh and final day of the Orienteering Festival ?

Sure! This event was the 7^th day of the nine-day 2024 Pacific Northwest Orienteering Festival. The Festival was organized jointly by three clubs in the Northwest United States: Cascade Orienteering Club (Seattle, Washington), Eastern Washington Orienteering Club (Spokane, Washington), and Grizzly Orienteering (Missoula, Montana).

The festival was split up into two parts: the first five days were held in Eastern Washington state, around the city of Spokane. There was a warm-up race, two National Ranking middle distance events on the weekend, and two low-key events – a shortened long distance and a short middle - on Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday was a travel day for the participants to go from Spokane to Missoula, Montana (about a 3-hour drive). A self-service training course was available in Missoula.

The Montana portion of the Festival consisted of four days in four different venues: a classic distance, a middle distance at Soft Rock, a long distance, and a sprint + knockout sprint tournament on the University of Montana campus.

Who are the organizers?

For the Grizzly Orienteering part of the festival, the event directors were Allison Brown (also co-president of Grizzly Orienteering) and Emily Johnson, and the course setter was Boris Granovskiy

How many participants were there?

A total of about 300 people participated in some days of the festival. The Soft Rock middle distance race had about 220 participants.

Now, a few questions will be regarding the Soft Rock map:

Is this the first edition of the Soft Rock map, or was there a previous version?

The first version of the map was made in 2021, just after the Grizzly Orienteering club was founded by me and my wife, Allisom Brown. The initial map had a limited amount of field checking on top of a very detailed lidar-based base map.

Who were the cartographers involved in creating this map?

This was a team effort. The initial base map was created by Matthew Robbins and further extended by Gregory Balter, who also did some field checking. The 2023 update was done by Jon Campbell.

What base data did  they use for this map? Did you utilize laser scanning, which is now widely using?

Yes, lidar data was used to generate the initial contours and vegetation, but it was not great for correctly mapping rock detail. This needed to be done by field checkers.

Have you been to similar terrains yourself, or have others mentioned that this area resembles regions in other countries?

The Soft Rock terrain is pretty spectacular and unique in its combination of runnable, open forest and extensive rock detail. If anything, it reminds me of some areas in Spain (Peguerinos) and perhaps some Turkish maps (Antalya). There are also some great American maps that have a lot of rock detail, such as Surebridge Mountain (used for WOC 1993) and Pawtuckaway (used for World Cup 1992). I was incredibly excited when first finding such terrain in Montana in the spring of 2021!

It's a large area with such rocks and cliffs? Is there potential for making more similar maps nearby?

Unfortunately not. A lot of nearby areas are privately owned, which makes it impossible to get access for orienteering – or even just walking. This is the American reality. ☹ When driving around Montana, I have seen similar rock detail in some areas near the city of Butte, so I am hoping to explore that in the next few years.

Is this area freely accessible? Can anyone come for training, or are there any restrictions?

This area is on state-owned land, so it is freely accessible. We would love for people from outside the country to come visit and train on our maps! It would be great for our small (but growing!) orienteering club.

Now we're going to talk more about courses:

Could you briefly tell your experience in orienteering and mention other competitions for which you have designed courses? Have you previously encountered such detailed terrain?

My father Yevgeniy Granovskiy was a long-time orienteer and one of the original founding fathers of orienteering in the Soviet Union. As a result, I’ve been orienteering virtually my whole life, starting in 1990 in Russia and moving to the United States in 1992. I was on the US national team and ran WOC six times between 2003-2013.  I spent nearly ten years living in Uppsala, Sweden and running for OK Linné. I was the course designer for a national competition in Sweden in 2008 and for numerous local, regional, and national competitions in the US.

What is the color coding system for courses is used? Which courses are the easiest and which are the most difficult?

The American system for courses works like this:

White – beginner (MF 10, 12)
Yellow – advanced beginner (MF 14)
Orange – intermediate (MF16)
Brown, Green, Red, Blue – advanced, with Brown being the shortest (MF60+) and Blue the longest (M21)

 What challenges did you face when designing the courses?

One challenge was avoiding too much climb. The area is dominated by a steep hill in the middle and other steep hillsides. A lot of the most interesting rock detail is on the steep hillsides, so designing legs that avoided going straight up or down was important. Even still, climb on most courses ended up being over 6%.

Another challenge is the size of the area. The detailed part of the map is quite small, so I ended up utilizing a map flip for the longest course (Blue / M21). It is bounded on most sides by private property, so I needed to make sure courses did not come too close to the edges so that competitors would not go into private land by mistake.

I also avoided some of the densest areas of rocks, as, in my opinion, those are almost impossible to read on the map at running speed.

Finally, I gave a lot of thought to arena design, to make sure there was a good setup for spectators and participants.

Link to all courses in Livelox

Are there many rocks and cliffs in the terrain that are not included on the map?

Yes. It is impossible to show everything, even with a 1:7,500 scale!

Regarding the most difficult course, which legs did you consider key (the most technically challenging)? Did your predictions hold true?

I expected there to be several keys to the Blue course:
1) S-1: This is not an incredibly challenging leg, but it does require getting your head into the map, the unusual scale, and simplifying rock detail right away.

2) 2-3: This is the first leg with route choise, and the first leg that goes ‘against the grain’ of the terrain. It forces you to either run around on trails or traverse steep hillsides, where it’s easy to lose map contact or make parallel errors.

3) 14-15: Another route choice leg where bad execution can cost a lot of time.

I was a bit surprised that the controls with the most mistakes (according to AttackPoint) were 19 and 20, but perhaps competitors were simply very tired by then.

It's well-known that a crucial skill for athletes is adapting their navigation tactics to the terrain's conditions. Now that the competition is over, can you share the main 'keys' to this terrain? What features can athletes reliably use, and what should they be wary of?

All of the rock detail sometimes makes reading contours and seeing ‘the big picture’ of the contours difficult. I think a key to this terrain is understanding what the contours are doing, and avoiding extra climb when possible. Also, the big ‘monolith’ rock pillars stand out and are visible from a long way away. Looking for them from a distance can really help simplification. On the other hand, trails can be a little hard to see in terrain and, given the very runnable forest, not always very useful. And, of course, you can’t read all the rock detail on the run, so again, simplification is key!

The map is very detailed, making it essential to print well and accurately mark the course (placing control numbers, cutting  leg lines, and control  circles). Who handled this work? Can we view the competition map file so readers can see how the course looked on the competition map?

I did the circle cutting and placed control numbers. The printing was done on waterproof paper by Greg Balter. He is a pro! 

file of the map is in this google folder (provided by Boris Granovskiy)

In a photo of the area, I saw a control flag with a blue stripe. A flag with a blue stripe between white and orange seems to be more visible, especially in bright sunlight and against a background of dead leaves or soil. Is this design characteristic of any particular club or organization?

These are commonly used in North America to help color-blind orienteers see the flags better.

That seems like a very good idea to me. Maybe other clubs or federations will pay attention to it and adopt this practice. 

Were there any humorous or unexpected moments during the course preparation or the

competition itself?

The most unexpected was seeing new signs warning against trespassing on the edge of the terrain just weeks before the competition! Luckily, none of our participants got shot or were threatened.  

The terrain is unique! Personally, I believe it is not only suitable for a World Championship Middle Distance or Relay but would also make for one of the most memorable championships. With this in mind, are there any plans to host international competitions in that area?

Haha, we are a tiny club of about 100 people, and we only got started four years ago. Until 2020, there was no orienteering in Montana at all. Just organizing a national orienteering festival was a huge accomplishment for our team, and we are very proud of the work we have done. Now it’s time for a break and some relaxation. Then we’ll start planning for what might be next, but for the next year, my priority will be on growing our youth program and adding to the collection of maps we have around Missoula.

An international event is pretty unlikely in the near future. Maybe if the OO Cup team wants to come organize an event in Montana, we can talk…

Boris, thank you again for the interview, and congratulations on having access to such a remarkable terrain. It's a significant advantage to have a nearby area where you can practice navigation in such challenging area.

Photos from the area are taken from this public web album.

Prepared by:
Aleksandr Alekseyonok, July 7, 2024.