This past weekend, orienteers young and old converged on the channeled scablands around Quincy, WA, to partake in the Orienteering USA Junior National Championships and some of the best orienteering terrain that the PNW has to offer.
Take it from Keegan who, when it came to reflecting on Saturday and Sunday’s Red races, could only come up with the landscapes and their views:
“It was the terrain for both days. I would love to say there was a challenging control I nailed or a fun route I picked but the terrain completely took the cake for both days. On Saturday it was coming to the large cliffs overlooking the Colombia River and being completely stunned by their size and beauty. For Sunday it was running atop the little plateaus and being able to look down on the alien landscape around me. It has truly been a while since I have been so stunned by terrain while orienteering.”
-Keegan
Given the many committed youth traveling from afar, plus a large pool of Washington youth cultivated by host club Cascade’s Winter Interscholastic Orienteering League, each junior championship category was brimming with competition. All results can be found here!
Whether you ran a race yourself or are admiring from afar, we wanted to bring you inside the minds of some of the US Team members in attendance by asking them to reflect on their experiences:
First, what are some moments that stood out (for better or worse) from each race?
FRIDAY — FRENCHMAN COULEE
ANNA (GreenY): I remember being terrified of the cliffs the last time I ran here, which was probably 2014 when I was 10 years old. If the circle was anywhere close to a cliff, I would slowly creep up on it. I have come a long way now that I can run along the cliffs within sight of a steep drop-off as a handrail!
BEN B (Red): There is no success, only despair.
IAN (Red): My highlight from Friday was me and Ben Cooper making the same mistake going from 4 to 7 to 6 to 5.
BEN CON (Red): I’m proud of myself for realizing the out-of-the-way route to 3, and the last 6 controls of my race I was able to push quite well and not have any major mistakes.
GRETA (GreenY): 11 was cool because it seemed very nebulous and I expected to have a hard time with it but it worked out well!
KEEGAN (Blue): I managed to find a super quick (and not wet or painful) way through the green marshy stream between 2 and 3. Which doesn’t seem like a big win but was very exciting when it happened.
LILY (Red): I didn’t have a particularly “good” control or map contact improvement…but I did enjoy the cliffy reentrant on control 10! I also saw lots of other orienteers out there which brightened my day.
ORIANA (Red): Outnavigating Lily to #16 (sorry Lily!) after she had caught 10 minutes on me from earlier errors. Felt good to know I still had my head on my shoulders while chasing someone fast.
SAM W (GreenY): Crossing the stream (at the wrong place) on the way to 9 in waist-deep water.
SHAWN (Blue): Going from 11-12, I watched another runner go straight through the marsh in waist-deep water. That route was the exact path I planned to go through, but after that, I immediately turned 180 degrees and took the trail instead. Despite not being proud of Friday’s race at all, I was proud at that decision.
ZOE (GreenY): Had some…misconceptions about the dark green crossing from 8-9. The water kept rising but I had to embrace my choice; once the water reached my waist I was ready to swim, but luckily it didn’t get to that point.
SATURDAY — QUINCY LAKES
BEN CON (Red): I suppose the highlight was doing as well as I did, being able to be consistent out on the course and have a good race.
SAM W (BrownZ): The views form the cliffs were pretty cool!
SHAWN (Red): The first 12 controls on Red were a great change of pace and terrain from Friday, and I’m happy that I was very precise for that first half.
ANNA (GreenY): This cliff looked like a better route up than the gap to the south…during the actual rock scramble, I had a moment of looking down and freezing. It was a bit scary!
BEN B (Red): I felt very proud of my leg 3-4 execution, even if the route choice itself was subpar. I managed to carry out a very nice long-distance low feature bearing.
GRETA (BrownZ): I liked 7 because it was one of the three controls that actually went well on Saturday, while I was pushing through a migraine.
IAN (GreenX): My mistake was getting stuck on a parallel feature at number 5, it was the hill feature a little south west of the control.
LILY (GreenY): Epic wipeout up the rock scramble past the marsh. I was also in awe of the huge cliff in the middle of the map around control 10. It was massive.
ORIANA (GreenY): Probably my bearing from 3-4! I knew relocation would be super hard so I took a very slow and steady bearing and ran headfirst into the control.
ZOE (GreenY): 7-8 was a highlight in the moment and a bad route in hindsight. Highlight because I was happy to avoid the possibility of a Friday marsh repeat by using the path marked on the map, and because I enjoyed the challenge of handling the scree. Bad route because apparently many people saved a lot of time and pain by crossing the marsh further down, so I guess my prior experience of the venue did not serve me here.
SUNDAY — BISHOP’S LAND
ANNA (GreenY): I got to see a lizard tail disappear into the rocks going down a really steep area. I don’t know what kind it was, but clearly reptilian!
BEN B (Red): I was happy with my ability to stay in contact with the map at all times. The venue was inherently very confusing but I managed to always know exactly where I was with no confusion, which was nice.
ORIANA (GreenY): Staying in contact with my map! Had a navigational disaster on the way to #2 (I lost like 5 min I’m being overdramatic) and so I really focused on map contact for the rest of the course and though it slipped a BIT at 8, I knew where I was almost always.
SHAWN (Red): The view was amazing on Sunday, even better than the great views the past two days. It was so hard to run my race without looking behind me at the gigantic river that looked so cool. I also had my best race ever this day, so those are both good highlights.
ZOE (GreenY): Okay yeah I messed up 2 but I saw a deer from the cliffs above 🙂
BEN CON (Red): The highlight of Sunday’s course was probably the route choice to 10, I think I had a good route planned that would have gotten me a lot less time but my execution wasn’t great. It was a challenging leg though.
GRETA (BrownZ): I loved 4-5 because the route choice seemed interesting. It was tricky to decide between the eastern route which was rockier and shorter and had an easier attackpoint and the western route which had a trail, but seemed like it might be more difficult to attack.
IAN (GreenX): My highlight was climbing a small cliff leaving number 8.
LILY (GreenY): My highlight was control 2. Although I didn’t take a good route choice through the first half, I took a good bearing after the rock scramble. The last half I had great contact with the map and made it quickly through a difficult flat section.
SAM W (BrownZ): I stood near #4 for a full minute because I forgot what the “open land” control description symbol meant and didn’t know where to look for the flag…
Based on these highlights and lowlights, some orienteers clearly do their gratitude journaling and focus on the good, while others get right to the self-criticism. Whichever they may be, now is the time for the team to be united in facing the errors of their ways…Silliest mistake of the weekend?
ORIANA (Fri-Red): Day 1. Control 1. I watched a Routegadget disaster on almost this exact leg the week before and yet still made it myself.
GRETA (Sat-BrownZ): Silliest mistake was the entire Saturday race. I ran with a migraine and it sucked. In all honesty, I should have planned routes better and taken more time to confirm my surroundings before running.
SAM W (Sun-BrownZ): Definitely #1 on Sunday 😦
ANNA (Fri-GreenY): The fact that I thought I could run to a reentrant <50m away from 12 and find the control for 13 when it was actually on a cliff – yes, where the arrow is in the picture -…well, the fact that I was legitimately surprised upon checking my descriptions that this was not 13 was not good! My sense of distance was apparently going because I’d just been hammering it out until here.
BEN B (Fri-Red): Control 1-2-3 on Friday was absolutely disgusting. I don’t have gps but that just spares you looking at what was possibly the worst-spent twenty minutes in any of my races ever. I circled around the first two controls for five minutes each, and topped it off with the worst possible route to three.
BEN CON (Sun-Red): My epic wipeout was on control 11, my GPS is on livelox, I don’t really want to look at it again, although it might be pretty funny to watch.
SHAWN (Fri-Blue): The entirety of my race on Friday. Beyond that, nothing jumps out to me.
IAN (Fri-Red): My silly mistake was hugging the cliff line and finding 10 when I was trying to find 9.
KEEGAN (Fri-Blue): Not buying new shoes. Oh you meant orienteering mistake. Then probably this one. Why I do that? So silly. Couldn’t I see the water? Who knows.
ZOE (Sun-GreenY): I made the brilliant decision of choosing right through the double slashed depression EVEN THOUGH I said to myself, “Hey, it would definitely be a better idea to go left!” I will take an ascent up scree over double slash in a depression any day! Except for Sunday clearly.
LILY (Sat-GreenY): On Saturday I ran the wrong way at the end of the trail. I never saw the earlier split and had issues putting the mental map together until I looked out across the pond to see a trail go in between two cliffs… 😐
We would be remiss to not address the rock in the room…Most memorable stony encounter?
ANNA: I was clinging to that rock and I got nervous, and shaky, and then worried about which way was up…and just straightened my leg and finished the rock scramble. [PIC 1 below]
BEN B: The one that rolled my ankle on day 2. I will find that rock and exact revenge, just you wait.
BEN CON: On the north end of the map of Bishop’s Land I almost mistook cacti for rocks and stopped myself from stepping on them, glad I did that.
GRETA: I don’t remember any specific rock encounters but I definitely was cursing the rocks on Saturday.
IAN: My most memorable rock encounter was a rock that somehow both gave me a flat tire and cut the side of my heel.
KEEGAN: Um, I don’t really know. Maybe the quarter-mile rock slide I had to scramble down on Sunday? That was lots of dun. Especially with my shoes falling apart. [PIC 2 below]
LILY: Rocks that I enjoyed: this interesting reentrant type rock structure under 8. 🙂 awesome handrail feature. [PIC 3 below]
ORIANA: Sliding down the shale at 40 min per mile pace from 1-2 on Sunday GreenY. [PIC 4 below]
SAM W: On the way to 8 on Saturday BrownZ, I ended up basically crawling across a narrow ledge between two massive cliffs above and below me. [PIC 5 below]
SHAWN: Point 11 on Saturday had an amazing view. It was right on the corner of the cliffs by the water and it was just great to see. I consider it a memorable rock encounter only because point 11 was on a rock… [PIC 6 below]
ZOE: The descent to 2 on Sunday GreenY. Thanks for supporting my future career as a mountain goat, Will. [PIC 4 below]
And now for some forward-thinking reflection: key takeaway from all this?
ANNA: I still need to work on my stamina to be able to race three races hard during the weekend. I had good flow state for the first two, but it was hard to summon the focus to keep it all going for the third.
BEN B: My key takeaway is that I need to improve at running fast in terrain. My navigation was spot on on Saturday and Sunday, but my speed was my limiting factor. I hope to be able to hit 6:30/km pace on longer races, as opposed to last weekend’s 7:30/km on the best day.
BEN CON: I think a problem with my races is that in both Classics I was falling apart at the end navigationally, much less so on Saturday than Sunday. I think this might be due to lack of electrolytes/hydration beforehand. Another thing I need to take away is to spend a little bit more time with my compass to make sure I’m headed in the right direction, my bearings weren’t the best over the weekend.
GRETA: One new thing I thought about was don’t panic at spectator and go controls! Taking time to look up and see where people are running/cheering near the spectator and finish controls and taking time to stop and process your map is ok even if there are people around.
IAN: My key takeaway was studying the terrain before you race thoroughly and make sure you can imagine it correctly and accurately.
KEEGAN: To avoid making a third mention of footwear in as many questions we will go with nerves and energy. I had a lot of excitement for this weekend and the fast terrain really urged me to run fast. I, however, frequently outran my navigation and made silly mistakes because I did not read my map/plan routes.
LILY: This weekend definitely cemented for me that I am a more running-based orienteer. Although I would have worse routes, I would also still be close to the winning splits on some controls. Improving my navigation skills is an ongoing process and running in such new terrain was a great way to work on navigating without hills.
ORIANA: Take a moment to reconnect with your map after a big cliff climb, shale scrambling etc.
SAM W: Allow yourself time to get into the map even if you think you don’t need it!
SHAWN: Course and route review was something that helped me greatly this weekend. After any race, no matter how good or bad it is, reviewing my exact route on GPS has been the best way for me to learn from my mistakes. It helps seeing others’ routes as well to know if a route choice leg was a good decision or not, in retrospect. This kept me from making the same mistakes the next day and I plan to continue those reviews in the future.
ZOE: My key takeaway is to get back into route choice training. While I may be able to execute most things (when I am mentally engaged), I have the tendency to not care about the most efficient route. I know that I could stand to shed a lot of time from making better route decisions.
Beyond the terrain, this past weekend was a time for community. (National events are especially a good time to finally meet the people behind those GPS tracks and Attackpoint logs you’ve been stalking…) Who is someone new you met??
ANNA: I went looking for spiders with Fjola!
BEN B: The Clemson team stayed Thursday night at my house and meeting everyone was really cool! There are certainly some promising orienteers among the bunch. Especially this “Lily” person.
BEN CON: I got to meet all the new Clemson orienteers which was pretty cool.
GRETA: I got to meet Oriana for the first time which was pretty cool and we did a super epic cool down together!
IAN: One person I met was Mikhail from Los Angeles orienteering club. He and Nikita both did well for their club team.
JULIA: I got to meet Mike Bruns from CROC who I’d recently met virtually doing the OUSA coaching certification course.
KEEGAN: The whole Clemson team. It was great to meet all of Lily’s friends and see new people getting involved with orienteering!
LILY: I got to meet the Christopherson sisters for the first time. Not only are they great orienteers, they also are sooo cool.
ORIANA: Very general but the amount of younger juniors there was very inspirational!
SAM W: I met Adalia for the first time!
ZOE: I believe this was the first time I talked to Sam Walker 🙂
Thanks for reading! Enjoy some action shots of the team below – you can browse many more event photos on the OUSA Facebook. Until next time, and happy orienteering 🙂
US National Orienteering Team 