Choose Your Adventure: City Park!
CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE
Saturday, October 1 at Woodland Park in Seattle, WA
Meet Director: Patrick Nuss
The Choose Your Adventure series is designed to be extra fun, social, and friendly for beginners, yet interesting for seasoned veterans.
At Choose Your Adventure events, everyone gets the same map with checkpoints marked all over it. Then, after a mass start, you can find as many checkpoints as you want, in whichever order you want! Just be sure to mind the time, since there’s also a time limit. Return to the finish on-time, or lose precious points for every minute you’re late. (Wear a watch!)
Choose Your Adventure is especially good for beginners, since if you can’t find a checkpoint, you can just skip it and keep going. Veterans are challenged by trying to identify the most efficient route to find all the checkpoints, and the mass start means head-to-head racing for some.
Thanks to the excitement-inducing time limit, everyone finishes around the same time, making post-event socializing a core feature of Choose Your Adventure events.
Come join the fun!
Is this your first event or do you want to improve your skills? Meet us from 10:00am – 11:00am for up to an hour of free skills instruction!
Also, join us at Phinney Community Center for our annual club meeting at 1:15pm!
Make it a weekend doubleheader! We have Choose Your Adventure: Corn Maze on Sunday, October 2nd!
COURSES
Course designer(s):
There is just a one-size-fits-all course for beginners through advanced runners. We’ll have a mass start and one map exchange. 12 checkpoints will be marked on the first map. Once you visit all 12 checkpoints (in any order you want) and return to the start, you’ll be given a second map with 12 more checkpoints (which you can also visit in any order you want). The total time limit is 75 minutes!
How does the scoring work?
All 24 checkpoints are worth the same amount: 1 point per checkpoint. The maximum score is 24 points. The first person or team returning with 24 points wins!
There’s a time limit of 75 minutes, and for every minute late, there’s a 1 point penalty.
Note for the map exchange: If you skipped any checkpoints from the first map, you cannot go back and get them once you take your second map. (This rule is to prevent an unfair advantage by collecting both sets of checkpoints during one loop.)
SCHEDULE
10:00am – Registration & Instruction Open
11:00am – Registration & Instruction Close
11:10am – Map Handout
11:15am – MASS START!
12:30pm – Finish & Course Closure
01:15pm – Annual Club Meeting (details below)
How does a mass start work?
After everyone registers and checks in, we go over the basic race rules and then hand out maps. Everyone has 5 minutes to plan routes before we yell GO!
PRICES
PRE-REGISTRATION PRICES
$17 base price
– subtract $5 for CascadeOC members
– subtract $5 for using your own e-punch
DAY-OF-EVENT REGISTRATION
$20 base price
– subtract $5 for CascadeOC members
– subtract $5 for using your own e-punch
What’s an e-punch?
An e-punch records your race. At each control, you’ll dip the e-punch into an electronic box, which will beep and flash as confirmation. After you finish, you’ll download the e-punch at the download tent and get a receipt that show which controls you visited and how long you took between each; these are your “splits.”
Part of the fun of orienteering is comparing your splits with people who completed the same course, and discussing the routes you took!
SIGN UP
Online pre-registration closes: 9pm on Thursday, September 29
Day-of-event registration is available by cash or check, made payable to Cascade Orienteering Club
LOCATION
PARKING
Use the entrance from N 50th Street and park in the large gravel lot.
CARPOOL
Looking for a carpool? Join the Yahoo listserv and share your request to find a ride.
THE MAP
Woodland is a wide-open park of gently rolling hills (lots of them), mowed grass, and runnable forests, interlaced with paved and gravel trails. It is a popular cross-country venue for its varied terrain and fall colors, and popular orienteering venue for the same reasons. It is the location for the club’s National Orienteering Week event each year, and a great place to start practice contour recognition and compass skills.
Read more on the map pageANNUAL CLUB MEETING
CascadeOC’s annual meeting! Pizza will be provided for club members who want to hear about what the club is working on! 1:15pm at the Phinney Community Center (6532 Phinney Ave N, Seattle, WA 98103).
SAFETY & ETIQUETTE
Return to the Finish
All participants MUST return to the finish and download their e-punch or turn in their punch card.
Even if you have not finished your course, you must still return to the the finish and confirm with event staff that you have returned safely.
Out of Bounds
Some areas may be marked out of bounds. It is imperative to respect these boundaries to maintain our relationships with land managers. Participants MUST NOT go out of bounds. Any participant caught going out of bounds will be disqualified.
Course Closure
All participants MUST return to the finish by course closure time. If a participant does not return by course closure, event volunteers will begin coordinating a search party.
If you need a long time on the course, start as early in the start window as possible, wear a watch, and be prepared to cut your course short to make it back by the course closure time.
Whistle
All participants MUST carry a whistle on the course. Complimentary whistles are available at the start tent (please only take one).
If you are injured on the course and need assistance, blow three long blasts to call for help.
If you hear a call for help, abandon your course to find the person in distress.
Voices
Part of the fun and fairness of orienteering is navigating your own course, so please be polite when you find a checkpoint and don’t holler that you’ve found it.
