Orienteering Exercise

This week’s class focused on using the compass skills we learned a few weeks ago in a real world setting. The location is the Priory on the south side of Eau Claire, WI just south of Interstate-94. The area is mostly wooded and is now the present site of a dormitory and the UWEC children’s center. There were maps made in an earlier blog which show the location and include a detailed account of the study area. 

Orienteering is defined as “a sport in which people use a map and a compass to travel along a route they do not know as quickly as possible” – MW dictionary. For this exercise we were given a compass, two maps with grids both in meters and degrees, and a list of checkpoints with coordinates in decimal degrees and meters. There were a few steps included in the orienteering exercise. 1, plot the coordinates on a map. 2, head to starting point and figure out azimuth and distance to first point. 3, send a “runner” ahead to a specified point. 4, a pace counter will count their steps as they head to where the runner is. This is to help estimate how much further the checkpoint is. 5, once the team arrives at a checkpoint repeat steps 1-4 for the next one.

 

Figure 1. Our pace counter on his way to where the runner was. Avoiding brush as the pace counter was difficult because it meant that his count may be inaccurate. The pace counter needed to be able to count only steps which reached the runner on a bee-line.

Figure 2. Calculating the distance traveled from the last point and the azimuth to the next point.

My group was given a list of five checkpoints to reach and an issue we ran into right away with plotting the points was that the grid for the map in degrees used seconds and minutes whereas the coordinates given were in decimal degrees so one of the group members spent extra time to convert the decimal degrees and compared his points to the points on the map in meters and found they were very similar. 

Figure 3. A map showing the location of the checkpoints with lines drawn to show the direction to each point.

Once the maps were filled with the checkpoints we started the exercise. From the starting point one member found the azimuth, my job as runner was to run ahead and help clear a path. Then the pace counter followed. The first point was easy to navigate to but we quickly learned that this exercise was not going to be fun.

Figure 4. The location of the second checkpoint was at the bottom of a ravine located under fallen brush and logs. Getting in and out of this ravine was a tremendous ordeal and not something fun.

The underbrush in the forested area was a lot thicker than I had anticipated. Luckily I wore jeans and appropriate shoes to keep my legs free of scrapes and scratches from all of the barbed bushes. Climbing out of the ravine from point two I started to slip so I reached to grab something, not looking, and grabbed a branch of something that was filled with barbs many of which broke off and stuck in my hand. A day after the exercise I found a barb still stuck in my thumb so I’m sure there are a few more barbs on me somewhere. 

We have been with the same group for almost every exercise this semester and building up our trust in one-another throughout the semester was vital to this exercise as it would have been easy to get frustrated in these conditions. The temperature wasn’t a factor as it was a nice 70 degree day but it felt worse as we began to get sweaty from walking about a mile over the rough terrain of the Priory.

Figure 5. A much smaller ravine than at point two. In the background you can see someone in a green shirt for reference of how large this ravine is. Even though this ravine was easier to cross than the last one it still helped to make the course more challenging as we were on our way to the third point.

The next time we do this exercise it would be beneficial to have a map with labeled contours instead of just contours. Since the points came with an elevation we could have estimated our height to see if we were closer or further from a point. A shirt with long sleeves and light gloves would help out with preventing cuts and scrapes. One of my friends decided to cut his jeans into shorts right before starting the course which turned out to be a major mistake for him as his legs we severely cut up by the end.