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Orienteering Club

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Summer Evening Event 3 - Macclesfield Forest

A summer evening event offering courses that are suitable for novices and for experienced orienteers.

Tue 14th Jun 2016

Type of event: Regional
Type of terrain: Forest
Info updated: 19th Jun

Results

Event Report

Thanks to everyone for coming – just over 100 of you.

 

Because of the deer calving season, the normal out-of-bounds areas were significantly extended by UU/National Park, and so we were constrained to use only a small part of the Forest.

Hence courses were short on length but long on climb.

This suited some but not all participants.

 

Apologies to those people who retired on the junior courses. I tend to think it’s the planner’s fault when that happens.

 

Despite being only 1.3km, times on Yellow ranged from 35 to 50 minutes: too long!

Legs 5 and 6 caused the biggest problems.

An issue in this part of the forest is that some ruined walls are intermittent and low sections may be obscured by seasonal undergrowth.

In the case of Yellow leg 5, this was compounded by the presence of (yet more) mountain bike tracks.

Also, linear features that used to join up no longer do so, due to erosion of the walls, and hence I found planning Yellow was tricky.

Should I have included more taped sections? Perhaps.

 

On Orange (2.0km), times ranged from 38 to 72 minutes: too long!

Everyone lost time somewhere, but the problems were spread across nearly all legs.

 

On Light Green and the senior courses there’s a fairly standard spread of times, but (as the times show) the terrain is challenging, especially at this time of year.

Congratulations to all those who did well!

Pre Event Info

Location

map

Nearest town: Macclesfield

Directions / Parking

Signed from A523 1km south of Macclesfield town centre. Then 5km via Langley to Forest Office.

Registration & Start Times

Registration from 17.30. Starts 18.00 - 19.00.

Course Information

White, Yellow, Orange, Light Green, Short Green, Green, Blue

Explanation of colour courses

  • White are very easy with all controls on paths. They are mainly used by 6-10 year olds and family groups.
  • Yellow use simple linear features like paths, walls and streams. They are mainly used by under 12’s and family groups.
  • Orange progress to basic use of the compass and route choice. They are ideal for novice adults or experienced youngsters.
  • Light Green are ideal for improvers as the navigational difficulty begins to increase and uses simple contours and point features.
  • Green are used mostly by experienced under 18’s and adults wanting a short but challenging course with a very hard navigational difficulty.
  • Blue are a longer, more physically demanding course in comparison to the green. The distances are more varied between controls and the course attracts experienced orienteers.
  • Brown & Black are very physically demanding and have a very hard navigational difficulty. They are for experienced orienteers only.
  • Score means visiting as many controls as possible in any order in a specific time, like 45mins.

Entry Details

Fees: £5.00 seniors and £2.00 juniors. Free SI-dibbers (but £30 if not returned)

Dogs allowed?

On leads in Car Park only.

Contacts / Officials

Contact: Alison Doyle 0161 366 5175

Safety and Risk

A comprehensive risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event.

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