Schedule Detail

Sun - Jun 05, 2011 - French Creek State Park East: Navigate → 🌎   Score-O
Event Director: Frederick Reed
Course Setter: Frederick Reed and see choices to Volunteer to help at this event 🙏

Notes: 3 hour Score O. Details on Home page

ED/CS Notes:

French Creek East can be tough, especially in the summer, but it is one of the most interesting maps around. The table-top size (slight exaggeration...) 1:15,000 scale map covers enough area to make a 3 hour tour of all the interesting parts a challenge for even elite runners. There is history, deep reentrants, rocky knolls, beautiful clean woods, and "some green stuff".

We're going to try a score-o that covers all these good things, and the great part is that you get to pick which ones (unless you are going for them all). The intent is to provide a good mix of map reading, physical challenge, and puzzle solving. You can do it alone, or go for a more social feel and invite some friends along. This would be a good opportunity to introduce someone new to orienteering as part of a group, or for existing orienteers to challenge themselves with more advanced controls.

For those that have not done one before, a Score-O uses a map with many controls but no marked courses. Each control has points associated with it reflecting the level of challenge of finding that control. You have a fixed time, three hours in this case, to gather as many control points as you can. The penalty for arriving late is a subtraction of points for each minute you are late, and is generally so severe that finishing even slightly late can wipe out all your gains. In other words--don't be late to finish!

Time: Registration from 10AM to 10:45. Mass start at 11:00 AM--be at start ready to go at 10:50 for instructions. There is a 3 hour time limit to return to finish (same area as start) with severe time penalties.

Where: Parking and registration on the southwest part of the French Creek pool lot. Start and Finish will be between the pool and the lake dam, where hopefully we can secure some picnic tables for post event socializing.

Course: 30 controls spread around the 1:15000 French Creek East map. Some controls are technical advanced controls, but most are probably intermediate (Orange level) depending on which direction you approach from. There are sufficient easier controls on the nearer side of the map that someone comfortable on a Yellow course would probably enjoy a full three hours of challenge. Unless they are up for a potentially frustrating adventure, this is probably not an event for beginners. There will be no separate beginners courses. Elite level runners might be able to get all 30 controls.

Registration: I'd like to make this as painless for everyone as possible. Obviously, everyone showing up at the same time is going to make registration (normal and epunch) a real bottleneck. To help avoid that, I encourage everyone to pre-register using this form. Pre-registration does not require absolute certainty about attending and no money is involved.

The Map: is relatively old, and more ephemeral features like vegetation and trails can be misleading. I've tried to put controls in nicer areas, but in between them you will have to adapt to the actual conditions and focus on the stable parts of the map like contours, streams and boulders.

Maps: There is a fixed supply of offset printed maps for use at this event and another later this year. We have printed 100 maps, which is hopefully a reasonable estimate that covers this event and leaves enough for the later one. We'll figure out something so that people that register in advance get a printed map. People that show up without pre-registration may end up drawing in their own controls, assuming there are blank maps available.

Other Activities: The pool opens Memorial Day, so you might want to bring your suit and take a dip! (additional fee required...) Bring along a picnic and stick around--this is one of those times when you'll get to talk with everyone when you finish. If you like barbecue and blues, the Chester Country Blues Barbecue is at a horse farm on Rt 23 near the park from 2PM to 7PM. http://www.chestercountyblues.com/<-Wrong: the barbecue is the day before, on the 4th.

Map Location:

Previous Results from this Map:
  Jul 14, 2013

Unless otherwise noted:

Pre-registration is recommended, discounted, and open until Thursday night, before the event.
Day-of-registration is available, at $10 for beginners, and $20 for other courses.

All starts are from 10:00am until 1:00pm unless otherwise noted. Follow the text directions and look for Orienteering road signs as you near the park.

Legend
W	White, beginner level 3km or less
Y	Yellow, advanced beginner 2.5 to 4km
O	Orange, intermediate 3.5 to 5.5km
Br	Brown, Short Advanced 3 to 5km
G	Green, Advanced 4.5 - 7km
R	Red, Longer Advanced 6 - 10km
Bl	Blue, Long Advanced 8 - 14kms
Sc	Score-O
Sp	Sprint-O
Adv	Advanced
	E-Punching
	Confirmed Event
	Special Event
Example O-Signs: