CVOC Advanced Night Orienteering at Pocahontas State Park October 2015

Tools of the Trade

Last night was the Central Virginia Orienteering Club's Advanced Night Orienteering Course meet. The 20 points Score-O course was set in the woods in the northwest corner of Pocahontas State Park. The area had few man-made features other than an old forest road. This course was not for the beginner or someone with limited experience with a 2-hour time limit.  

We had a Waxing Crescent moon with about 22% visibility with temperatures in the 40's. What a great night for orienteering! 

From the start point control #, 1 was only about 20 feet down the forest road but took a right turn into a briar patch. That made control one hard to get to and find for some people. 

I remembered years ago I did a course in this same section and remembered that there are some steep gullies and most of the controls would be around these areas. 

In the daylight, this is an open and fast forest but at night it's time to slow down. I did not run this course other than on the forest road. It is just too easy at night to fall in a small hole from a pine stump that you did not see.

It is a little harder to read the terrain at night. I believe it is harder to figure out where you are when you cover a flat section. If you are not following a bearing then you could miss the feature because you are walking too high or too low.

Somewhere around control 6 or 7, I ran into a guy that I did my last event with. He had started the course before me and had overshot a control and was on his way back to pick up the missed control.  

We later made the mistake and followed the lights of another team and lost some time because the control was not in the location where we saw their lights. Just remember do not to follow the lights. They can be lost and so will you! 

Control 17 and 18 were our longest leg between features. Had to follow compass bearing and we were dead on the mark. 

Okay, I guess I should have talked about my lights. I used a Princeton Tec Remix which has a white light and two settings of red light with the power of 150 lumens that ran off of 3AAA batteries.  I also carried a Surefire Z2 Combat light which is a single output LED with a max output of 320 lumens. The Surefire for being a handheld flashlight was a great help. I only need to figure how to dummy cord it to myself. I dropped the light twice.

The way back to the start point was a little tricky because of the lights of the cars stopping at a corner and the front porch light of a house across the street which I thought was the lights at the finish. 

If you have not done night orienteering you need to build your skill up and give it a try. I had a great time and think it was one of the better courses that I have done.