Winter League Championships

COURSE NOTES

As of Monday, Camp River Ranch still had about 2 to 4 inches of snow on the ground across the camp, and there is plenty of new downfall in places that will slow travel both on and off trail. Trails are generally easy to follow, but flagging has been added in some places where the trail is obscured by new downfall.

The Terrain at Camp River Ranch is typical for western Washington: trails crisscrossing forested hills, with undergrowth that varies from open woods to thick “fight”. This is a girl scout camp, so cabin clusters and other infrastructure dot the venue, allowing for courses that quickly shift tempo between long off-trail navigation legs and quick technical legs in feature-rich areas. You’ll have to use a wide range of skills to be successful here – flowing through controls on short legs, navigating well off trail using contours to keep track of your location, and making the best decision for you to execute each leg well. Watch out for elevation changes when you’re making a decision about going straight or around.

All courses other than Beginner/Elementary/White should expect to go off trail. Full leg cover is recommended, although not required. Expect to get your feet wet with all the snow, and remember that you don’t know what is under the snow – it could be a depression! Have good attack points when you leave the trail, and use your compass and terrain features around you to keep on track. With the recent storm, there will be some new un-mapped stumps and rootstocks, so precision compass skills and pace counting will be your friend to find the mapped feature.

All courses will run through the girl scout camp challenge course area. There are “No Trespassing” signs up in this area. You may enter, but do not touch any of the equipment, and keep your head up to watch for cables between trees just off the trails.

Long Advanced (and on the full-length courses, Short Advanced, and Varsity) will encounter a trail at a junction with a yellow chain across it marking the boundary between Camp River Ranch and a State of Washington property. This is *not* out of bounds, you may go under/around the chains.

This map has only been used twice before, most recently in January 2016, and prior to that in February 2015. The map received a few minor updates for this event, but nothing major. Vegetation has become slightly thicker, but is generally in good shape and very consistent, read below for an explanation of what to expect. A prior version of the map is available on the COC map page: http://cascadeoc.org/map/camp-river-ranch/

The map uses what we like to call “Western Washington White” – there are some sections of truly open forest, but most white on the map will have about 50% groundcover with sword fern. The lightest green is more dense sword fern that may look thick, but is runnable as there is no other groundcover to negotiate. Medium green starts to see more deadfall, vine maple, and other less friendly brush (including some holly and blackberry) that will slow you down. Dark green should generally be avoided.

Either version of these courses will challenge you to find creative routes and use all the skills in your orienteering toolkit to navigate this classic western Washington terrain. We hope you enjoy the courses!

Eric Jones and David Vaisar