February OUSA Member Spotlight: Eric Bone

On the left, Eric running the WOC 2012 Long Qualifier (photo courtesy World of O).

This is a transcript of an interview with Eric in February, 2025. It has been edited for clarity and length.

Cristina Luis: All right, Eric, tell me your orienteering origin story.

Eric Bone: My origin story starts in high school, my sophomore year. I was sitting in Spanish class next to one of my track and cross country teammates. She had a flyer from a teacher at the school who’s involved in Cascade Orienteering Club (COC) and decided he was going to try to recruit cross country team members for the Washington Interscholastic Orienteering League (WIOL). I leaned over and was like, “what’s that?” And she’s like, “yeah, I’m not interested in this.” And she showed me the flyer and I was like, “Okay, cool. This looks like a lot of fun.” And so I’m going to go to this lunchtime meeting in my freshman biology teacher’s classroom. He had brochures and maps and stuff like that and kind of just talked a little bit about what orienteering was about.

I thought, “This sounds cool.”  I brought home a brochure and showed my mom and my brother and said, “let’s do this.”

And so we went to the practice event that Saturday which was in a local park on Mercer Island, near Seattle. We were hooked. We liked it and just kept at it from there. So the school league was my start, and both my brother and I were in the league that first year. And then the next season we kind of got a bunch of our friends from the cross country team and the chess team and other friends of ours to join the Garfield High School orienteering team and we had I think 20-25 people or so. We were pretty good salespeople.

Yeah, it sounds like it. And so then obviously you took it far, you’re still on the US team. You must currently be by far the longest tenured member of the team.

Yeah. Possibly of the people on the team now. I think 1994 was my first year on the team.

So that’s pretty quick really from when you started orienteering.

Yeah. I mean, I took it quite seriously from the beginning. I quickly decided it was the sport I wanted to focus on and just worked pretty diligently at it.

So basically from the beginning you were just like, “this is it, I’m going to do this and I’m going to do it well?”

I mean, I guess I’m naturally a competitive person. And it’s not even competitiveness exactly. It’s more like I like to apply myself to whatever I’m doing, it’s more just like I’m a rule follower. I’ve always been a bad student, but I’ve wanted to be a good student. I’ve wanted to pay attention. I wanted to learn things… 

If you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it well.

I think it was easy for me to do that with orienteering because it gave me so much I just loved. It wasn’t even–some people say they love maps. For me, that wasn’t it. It was running around outside, it was just super exciting. And discovering new places.

So I think that was more because I was a runner before I was an orienteer, and I was more just drawn to the adventure aspect of it, just running around and jumping over things and challenging myself.

I mean orientering is always a challenge, it never stops being challenging…

Right. Right.

…because there’s always something new every time you turn the map over. It could be even if it’s the same venue, it’s a different course. I think that that kept me coming back. .

You talk about going to new places and adventures. What are your favorite places that you have traveled to because of orienteering? 

Yeah. I mean, that’s a hard one because I’ve been to so many places and I can’t even bring them all to mind. You know what I mean? There’s places that would be on candidates for my favorite that I’m not even thinking of right now. But I think the thing like among the WOCs that I’ve been to, I mean that’s an easy one. I just felt like Ukraine was an excellent WOC. because it was just so amazing to be in Kiev. And so that I just look back fondly upon that experience, in particular among the WOCs that I’ve been to. [Photo of Eric competing at WOC 2007, courtesy WOC 2007 photographers.]

There have been so many good times and so many wonderful experiences, visiting new places, but that’s the one that really sticks out because it’s different enough to be a really interesting place to go because of the Eastern Orthodox religion and the history. And I mean, it was just amazing in Kiev, I mean, of course, being the capital, I mean, it was just a great experience. Often when you’re orienteering, you’re off in some little dusty corner of the country. 

Right.

So being in this big city with all this history and culture and the infrastructure to explore and really enjoy it was a great experience.

So of all of these orientating experiences you’ve had, which one or ones are you most proud of? 

Boy, it’s so hard to pick something because I’ve had many runs over the years that have been really satisfying. I think I do really like the times that I’ve had a great performance and possibly won or placed. The first thing that pops into my head is winning four intercollegiate titles. That was something that was very meaningful to me at the time because I was really trying to get more consistent. At that time in my orienteering I was still making a lot of mistakes and so to be able to pull that out was not a given at all.

Those are individual varsity titles?

Individual titles, yeah. And we did, I think, win the team title as a University of Washington team a couple times if I remember right, but I’m not 100% sure about that. But the four in a row individual titles…

That’s some domination.

…it was like, “okay cool, I’m a legit orienteer, I can win things.” So that was a good experience for sure in terms of really being a confidence builder and feeling like I’d accomplished something as an athlete.

Just because of where I was at in my career, I still feel a lot of satisfaction about the North Americans in 2012 in Pennsylvania. I had a quite good run in the middle and I don’t think I won the race outright, but I think I was second overall or something like that. But I was the North American champ because the winner was Lacho Iliev from Bulgaria.

M21 Middle distance course at NAOC 2012 (from DVOA Route Gadget)

Yeah. That’s right.

So that’s another one that comes to mind. But the thing that I like is just finishing a race, whether I win or don’t win, and just knowing that I really had a really good run and just got into that state of feeling like I’m moving well. I’m really concentrated, I’m hitting things.

Even now that could happen for me and I would feel very satisfied with it but I wouldn’t be winning, just because my speed is not what it once was.

Right. I remember that you’ve always had a pretty analytical approach to how you did post race analysis. Do you still do that? 

I mean honestly nowadays it’s very impressionistic, I think there’s a time for different approaches in one’s development. I think there was a time when I would go through each leg and I would analyze it in great detail. I’d draw my route and I’d say, “I hesitated here.”

Okay, what was that about? I didn’t have a plan or I didn’t look. So, I’d be kind of dissecting things in minute detail and diagnosing things that lost 5 seconds or something. I’m not doing that so much anymore. Once in a while maybe I’ll go through a course with that level of scrutiny, but now it’s more broad brush, just kind of recognizing the patterns and saying , “okay, today I needed to work on X,” or “I wasn’t prepared in this way,” or something like that and then trying to do a little better next time.

So it’s pretty high level now I think versus the granularity that I used to approach things with.

And do you think that granularity is what helped make you good and consistently good?

I think it was part of it. I mean, I think you have to know how you have to be able to find patterns in your performance that are going to reveal areas for improvement or areas to focus on. And sometimes improvement just means having the right idea in your head when you start a race, it doesn’t necessarily mean, I went and practiced a skill a bunch of times.

It could mean that, but it might just mean going in with the right sort of prompts in your head, “today I’m going to compass” or attackpoints, or whatever the thing is that you need to think about to optimize how you’re running that day. I’ve always just been very interested in the mental game with orienteering, for a long time. I mean a lot of sports are very mental, especially when you’re trying to get to a high level, but I think especially with orienteering because you have both the running component and the technical component. And then the technical component can be subdivided into all these skill areas. And it’s different in different terrains. The interplay of performing the skill and your mental attitude that gets you ready to do that performance becomes very important. What kind of brain do you have on your shoulders when you’re at that start line? And is that the brain you need to do the things you need to do to be successful that day?

Cultivating the right mindset and of course the right physical preparation is very important too. if you feel horrible then it’s harder to focus on navigating.

Eric’s annotated map from WOC 1997 classic (long) qualifer. Eric says that during this time he was, “having a dissociative episode that made the orienteering extra challenging, so I wasn’t racing at my best.” Reading the notes on the bottom left you can see that he refers to this as being in a “peculiar, daydreaming state of mind.”

You mentioned “the brain you have on your shoulders when you’re at the start line”. So I have to ask you now–you’re sort of notorious for arriving at the start with zero extra time. And in fact the first year that I went to WOC as a team official my job was to make sure you got to the start on time. 

So you were the Eric Wrangler.

And I don’t know that I actually had any control over that. But at the time you told me that that’s part of how you like to be mentally prepared. What are you doing?

Remind me which WOC was that?

That was Denmark in 2006.

2006. Yeah. But did I make it to the start on time?

Yeah. I think you made it not necessarily on time, but before the next call up.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, on time enough.

Yeah. You ran up with your shoelaces untied. You said something about just needing to have things to do. You got there basically on time but you still had things you had to do. 

Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that’s par for the course.

Eric prepping for a training session at WOC 2009 (Cristina Luis)

So that’s on purpose.

I don’t know if it’s on purpose. I mean, I think it’s not exactly on purpose. I mean, I’ve had good runs when I’ve been late, missed my start. I’ve had good runs when I’ve been on time for my start or even a few minutes early. So, I think that’s not necessarily a strategic component of my preparation. I’d say more just has to do with the way I function. What I will say is that sometimes what I find is that if I’m just going through the motions and I’m just very mechanical about, “okay, what do I need to do to get myself to the start at X time?” Sometimes that kind of mentality can leave me underexcited or something or not ‘stoked’ enough or not dialed in enough mentally because it’s like a different track. Almost like–I don’t know how to explain it but I think there’s a timer in my head. There’s a level of work that goes into getting ready and getting to the start and I think there’s part of my brain that’s a little bit sleepy and a little bit kind of underactivated, and so there’s a ramp up to go from that state of activation to a high level of activation where you need to be for performing well and orienteering. So it’s possible, and I wouldn’t put money on this but, not that there’s any way to find out for sure, but it’s possible that there’s a sense in which having a little bit of urgency helps get to that higher level of mental activation. 

I was going to say a sense of urgency.

Yeah. Yeah.

It’s just not there until you make it.

So once there’s no leeway in the schedule, once it’s, “okay, I really have to go to make it to the start,” then I think it’s easier to crank up the level of mental activation.

Right. That makes sense.

Sort of nervous arousal or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. And there’s an optimal level for different people, I think for me it’s pretty high. And that’s also why I’ve done well in big races, because if you’re someone whose optimal level is lower, then when you get on a really big stage it’s going to be too much.

I think because I’m a little more type B, I guess, or something, that enables me to thrive on a higher level of nervousness. Or at least operate. I don’t know about thrive, but certainly function, versus shutting down or making silly mistakes.

Right, yeah, I mean I definitely experienced that, where it is too much. And that I never find the first control or…

Totally. Yeah. And I’ve experienced that too. I’m not immune to that either by any means.

I find that there’s a certain amount of stress that definitely enhances the focus. If I see somebody else, that helps me focus more, right, that there’s another person there. And so, for some people, it’s too much of a distraction.

Yeah. Right.

Like you said, everyone is different. Do you think people learn to perform better in bigger events because the stress level goes down or because they’ve learned to function with the higher stress?

I think it’s usually the former, but it’s possible that you can also just adapt and learn to cope with higher stress. But what I thought I heard from the sports psychologists that I’ve heard talk about this is that for most people it’s an innate setting to some degree. And so it’s more like your approach is more how to take pressure off if that’s what you need or how to dial up the pressure if that’s what you need.

I was just listening to an interview with a sports coach yesterday, actually, where he talked about helping athletes be less focused on the result and be more in the moment. And that is definitely one of the things that can change the level of stress when you are on the start line of a world champs race. If you’re focused on the process then that can help bring the level of stress down to where you won’t just blow up the first control.

Yeah. And you see that when you’re watching an athlete in a field event in the Olympics and they have their little routine that they do that cues them. They’re creating a kind of a sameness of the conditions. So, they’re like, “I know how to perform under these conditions.”

So their little movements and stuff kind of cue them into that very cultivated situation.

Right, and it brings them into, “I’ve done this before. I’m just doing the same thing. It doesn’t matter that there are 20,000 people watching me.”

Exactly. Yep. It just becomes rote.

It’s exactly the same thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that reminds me, I remember you would say–and I found this to be really comforting–that, “today is a great day because today we get to go orienteering.”

Eric doing some tourist orienteering in Vienna prior to WOC 2008. (Cristina Luis)

Exactly.

And I don’t know if you still say that, but I feel like that’s a great way to help bring it down for some people, it’s just saying, “I know how to do this.” Anyone who’s showing up at the World Champs has done this [orienteering] hundreds of times. More people are paying attention to these results, but it’s the same sport and you’ve done it before.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I don’t actually say that a lot, I say that occasionally, but that’s my attitude,…

I think that I liked it so much that when I heard you say it, maybe only once or twice that you said it, but you said it in such a prime moment, people are eating breakfast and they’re silent because they’re stressed or we’re getting ready to go and you’re just like, “It’s a great day. We get to go orienteering.” That’s just a great attitude.

Speaking of high performance events, you are on the National Team again. Are you going to be at the Team Trials?

I will be there.

Right. Gunning for a spot in Finland.

I’m gunning for a spot. I am not holding my breath for one, but to me it’s always fun to have the most competition that I can get.

Yep.

So to me I want to go to the team trials because that’s where it’s at. I want to go to races where other team members are there. So really for me I mean it’s still fun, if it stops being fun, I won’t be there anymore. But as long as it’s fun to me, that’s what it’s about. It’s like if I’m like, hey, this is the funnest thing I can do right now, that’s cool, I want to keep doing it.

Yeah. I signed up for the trials age group…

Yeah. Awesome.

Because yeah, it’s fun to test yourself against the fast kids.

Totally. Absolutely. Yeah.

You talked about how you love being outside and adventures and that’s what you do for work too, right?

I heard somewhere–maybe it was on this meditation retreat I did or maybe it was somewhere else–but I heard, and I think this is probably true for a lot of people, that when you really enjoy something you really want to share it with other people. To me having a company where I’m putting on outdoor events is just…I don’t know, I just feel so lucky to be doing this job, and that’s the work I do. I put on trail running races. I put on urban and wilderness navigation events, short rogaines. Mostly short, sometimes we do 24-hour ones, but those are more work, so fewer and farther between. But yeah, I just think it’s just fun to be able to support a community around those events and give people more options of stuff to do because I just know I’m just trying to put myself in other people’s shoes and say I know how much I appreciate all the rich offering of events that are out there. Including the ones you’re working on. Thank you for that. But, there’s so many great events out there and it’s just such a treat to be able to do. So, that’s kind of why I think I’m doing what I’m doing rather than quitting and getting a minimum wage job and probably on an average year making more money at it. Or at least as much.

I think that what you said about when you really enjoy something, you really want to share it with other people definitely resonates.

Winding down here, I want to know if you have tips for the younger orienteers out there who want to be the next Eric Bone, by which I mean they want to be successful and have longevity.

I think a lot of that comes down to doing what you enjoy. If you enjoy orienteering and you keep the focus on that enjoyment and you enjoy applying yourself and trying to be good at something, if you have that combination of traits, then that’s all you need, you just keep the focus on that. I think a lot of people, including myself, who orienteer are discerning and are very good at noticing differences and deviations and deficits in particular. So I think it’s easy to get into a mindset of focusing too much on the negative things.

I think for longevity and also for skill you need to be able to balance that out. I don’t want to just have a bad race and then have only negative takeaways from it. No matter how bad or how good your race is you can always have a balanced perspective. There’s always things that could have been better–maybe you just had a fantastic race and maybe that’s the time to just be like, “yes this was awesome!” But most of the time there’s always something you could have done better. There’s always something that was good about it. And even if you didn’t do anything right, you were out in nature, you were having fun, you were doing something that’s good for you, that you enjoy. So, I think for me that’s the game right there.

It’s doing something that you really love and that provides all the motivation you need, just the fact that it’s such a fantastic thing and then you have the right attitude toward it, which you can cultivate. I mean, it’s all about how you think about it and it’s all about mental practices, about purposely being balanced. Let’s say you’re someone who works with a coach, and maybe your friend tells you, “Gosh, you’re always complaining, you’re always saying, ‘I had a bad run,’ even when you’re placing really well, or whatever. Maybe it’s time to make a practice of finding something good to think about, too. I don’t know. That would be my advice. But as with most free advice, it’s take it or leave it. It’s worth every penny you paid for it.

It’s interesting that you went for the mental side, the attitude, as opposed to “do more cross training” or “take more rest days”, or whatever. Earlier, you talked about the change in how you analyze races and whatnot, and the big theme seems to be the mental side, the attitude.

Yeah. All of those things are important, too. And it’s situation dependent, that’s going to vary person to person, but I think the most general advice I can give is the advice about just enjoy it, enjoy it and cultivate the approach that you’re there to have fun, and that you enjoy it. And if you enjoy competing, great.

If you don’t enjoy competing, then don’t worry about how well you do. Just enjoy the experience. So, yeah, you just have to make it work for you.

That seems like very good advice, not just for orienteering but for many things in life, right?

Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. I mean, I’m not good at many other things, so I couldn’t say for sure, but right.

Okay, I need to congratulate you on somewhat recently becoming a father, right?

Quite recently in terms of the history of my life. Yeah, I became a father in April of this past year.

I guess it’s a small percentage of your lifespan.

Yeah. So, we’ve got a nine and a half month old now, his name’s Andrew and he likes the outdoors. He has not been on a course yet. He has been to an orienteering event just to meet people and hang out. He enjoys people. So he was happy about that. He was happy to meet some more folks and he’s a social guy and so he enjoyed it.

And soon he’ll like beeping…

Yeah, hopefully. I mean, we’ll see. I’m just prepared for him to hate orienteering and for him to do something else…

Right? But every kid likes the beeping…

At least we’re going to do some beeps, I think, one of these days. So, yeah, we’re going to do some beeps, for sure.

And I mean, he’ll definitely be doing some more cheering in the backpack before too long here. We just haven’t really gotten around to taking him around a course yet in the backpack. But I don’t think It wouldn’t mean anything to him at this point. Pretty soon he’s starting to have opinions about things and he’s starting to be more perceptive… 

For sure! Eric, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me.

I’ve enjoyed it. Yeah, Thanks for choosing to do a profile on me. 

EYOC 2025 Team Selection Criteria Published

The 2025 European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC) will be hosted in Brno, Czechia
from July 17 – July 20, 2025. Orienteering USA’s EYOC Selection Committee will choose up to 4
(four) young athletes from each of the following categories for a maximum total of up to 16
(sixteen) to represent the USA at EYOC. All interested athletes are invited to apply.
● M16 – Men born in 2009 or later
● W16 – Women born in 2009 or later
● M18 – Men born in 2007 or later
● W18 – Women born in 2007 or later

Participation at EYOC 2025 is sponsored and organized by Orienteering USA’s Youth Development Program, as a young athlete development opportunity. In order to be considered a candidate for 2025 EYOC Team, a junior born in 2007 or later must be a member of the Orienteering USA’s (OUSA’s) Youth Development Program (YDP), and by extension, a member in good standing of OUSA. Applicants who are members of OUSA, but not yet a part of the YDP will be added to YDP upon their applications to EYOC 2025 being received.

Please submit an application for selection to YouthSelection@nullorienteeringusa.org by 11:59 pm Pacific Time on March 23, 2025. There will be no team trials races for selection.

2025 US EYOC Team Selection Criteria

2025 US EYOC Team Selection Application

YMP February Map of the Month

The Youth Mapping Program February Map of the Month is Santiago High School in Corona, CA. The school’s AFJROTC (Air Force Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) program uses this map to train Orienteering Team members, for school competitions, and as part of an orienteering lesson aligned with California Common Core State Standards. According to Senior Aerospace Science Instructor Michael H. Manney, the best part of having the map is that it “allows students to be introduced and practically practice orienteering on an approved OUSA course map.”

The map above includes controls added by Santiago High School for their orienteering lesson.

Have you received a map from OUSA’s Youth Mapping Program? We want to hear how you’re using it! Let us know here.

Announcing the 2025 US National Orienteering Team

The Selection Committee (Peggy Dickison, Matt Smith, and Will Enger) is pleased to announce the 2025 US National Orienteering Team.

The committee received 55 applications and 45 athletes were selected to the National Team, earning a place on one of three squads: Elite, Performance, and Junior. Those athletes on the Elite Squad are those who we would expect to make up the WOC Team if the trials were held now. Performance athletes are those who in any given race can perform at the Elite level and may develop into an athlete capable of competing for the WOC Team. Junior athletes, those under 21, are only eligible for the Junior Squad. They are eligible to compete for the WOC and the JWOC teams.

We welcome six new members to the Team, one returning member, and one promotion from Performance to Elite. 

Look for these Team members in the US Team Blog, helping at NREs and local events, and coaching. All are fine representatives of orienteering, and we look forward to seeing what they are capable of this year.

Congratulations to all the members of the 2025 National US Orienteering Team!

2025 US National Orienteering Team

  • Elite Squad
    • Lily Addicott – Promotion – GAOC
    • Greg Ahlswede – DVOA, Escondite (Spain)
    • Joseph Barrett – NMO
    • Evalin Brautigam – WCOC
    • Alison Campbell – DVOA, STAG (Scotland)
    • Alison Crocker – CROC
    • Thomas Curiger – OLC Kapreolo (Switzerland), OK Orion (Sweden)
    • Sydney Fisher – EMPO
    • Bridget Hall – NEOC, MNOC
    • Keegan Harkavy – NEOC
    • Thomas Laraia – MNOC
    • Anthony Riley – DVOA
    • Danny Riley – ECO
    • Ricardo Schaniel – Bussola OK (Switzerland)
  • Performance Squad
    • Diana Aleksieva – QOC
    • Eric Bone – COC
    • Jessica Colleran – COC
    • Shawn Mather – USMAOC
    • Kirsten Mayland – DVOA
    • Alex Merka – QOC, OB Říčany
    • Dylan Poe – ICO, OCIN
    • Oriana Riley – DVOA
    • Mathew Rogers – New to team! – COC
    • Collin Thompson – New to team! – USMAOC
    • Grace Zoppi – SMOC, COC
  • Junior Squad
    • Ben Brady – GrizO
    • Danny Buchholz – COC
    • Anna Campbell – TSN, NEOC
    • Ben Conley – GrizO, COC
    • Ben Cooper – COC
    • Kate deBlonk – New to team! – GrizO, NEOC
    • Ian Dunlap – OLOU
    • Mori Finlayson-Johnecheck – NEOC
    • Anna Green – New to team! – SMOC
    • Ludvig Hagwall – Järla Orientering (Sweden)
    • Sophie Howes – COC
    • Min-Jae Kuo – New to team! – NEOC
    • Greta Leonard – COC
    • Kendal O’Callaghan – New to team! – RMOC
    • David Rogers – New to team! – COC
    • Jackson Rupe – COC
    • Adalia Schafrath-Craig – New to team! – BOK
    • Paige Suhocki – DVOA
    • Samantha Walker – QOC
    • Zariah Zosel – COC, GrizO

2025 OUSA Rules published

The 2025 OUSA Rules document is now available in the OUSA Library. Note that sections A.35 and A.36 were combined, so any rule references in other documents that were A.35 through A.44 will need to be changed. 

Please send any comments, corrections, or broken links to rules@nullorienteeringusa.org.

Notable changes from 2024:

  • In accordance with the vote at the AGM, punching rules were changed in the Foot-O section
    • Manual punching has been removed and replaced with “Only IOF electronic punching systems may be used”
    • Contactless punching is now required to be enabled, but competitors must not be required to utilize it. (i.e. you need to let someone use a non-Air stick.)
    • Changed some punching rules language to better match IOF rules.
  • Intercollegiate and Interscholastic sections were merged and language changed for consistency.
    • Added the possibility of mixed teams that cross IC/IS classes. 
    • Teams are now consistently defined as having 2 to 5 competitors. Scoring section updated to state that a team of 2 will be scored as though they had a third person who scores DNF.
  • Club Team classes at Jr. Nationals changed
    • The only championship Club Team class at Jr. Nationals will now be a mixed team class. Removed Club Varsity, Club JV, and Club Intermediate from the Championship list. It is not necessary to offer these classes. If offered, they are not eligible for championship awards.
    • Removed requirement that Club Teams must not be eligible as a School or JROTC Team. Competitors may run for both their club and school and/or JROTC unit. With the mixed Club teams, it is anticipated that Club teams will likely have differing rosters than School and JROTC teams. 

The Lookback: 1979 World Orienteering Championships

US Team for the 1979 World Orienteering Championships in Tampere, Finland. From left to right: Pat Dunleavy, Peter Gagarin, Steve Tarry, Linda Taylor, Jim Pugh, Virginia Lehman, Mikell Platt, Sharon Crawford, Eric Weyman, Beth Skelton, Betty Anderson, Gail Gagarin.

Shortly after sending out the December, 2024 OUSA Newsletter I received an email from Jim Pugh with the 1979 WOC team photo you see above, and the suggestion to include it in an upcoming newsletter. This seemed like a great idea. With a few more photos from Jim, plus some stories and maps from Peter Gagarin, this little look back into the past was born. Enjoy this peak into the US team’s past!

–Cristina

Map of the Individual courses for WOC 1979, annotated with routes for the top men and women.

Some memories from Peter Gagarin from the World Orienteering Championships in Tampere, Finland, in 1979 –

The team was selected at Team Trials in May at Quabbin (days 1 and 3) and Mount Hermon School (day 2) in Massachusetts. Women: Sharon Crawford, Beth Skelton, Betty Andersen, Linda Taylor, Virginia Lehman. Men: Eric Weyman, Mikell Platt, Steve Tarry, Jim Pugh, Peter Gagarin. Many of us lived in the Northeast and we got together on several weekends for training before heading to Finland in late August.

It was really hard orienteering. The forests were hilly with lots of thick vegetation; the ground was very soft and hard to run on. There were just two events, individual and relay, with the maps for both drawn at 1:20,000. And yet we had some excellent results, especially from our women. Sharon Crawford was 32nd out of 69 in the individual, certainly one of our best results ever, and the women finished 10th out 17 in the relay, which I think is our best ever. Eric Weyman was our best in the men’s individual, 53rd of 78, and the men finished 14th out of 19 in the relay. [Link to results on the IOF webpage.]

The women’s relay team was really something. Beth Skelton ran the opening leg, a good run for her, and then Sharon on the second leg had her usual good run. Third leg went to Betty Andersen, though that was in doubt until the last moment – she had taken a fall in the individual, landing on a stump someplace on her ribs, and was really hurting. But she wanted to run. I put her through some sort of test that morning to see if she really could run and she passed, and so when Sharon came in, off went Betty on the anchor leg.

There was no GPS in those days, no TV from the forest. I think there were a couple of radio controls, but at the finish you just wait, as the better teams keep coming in. And then there she was, 10th, first of the English-speaking countries, ahead of Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain, plus France and Poland for good measure. It was really amazing.

I ran just the relay, first leg, not perfect but a good run. It was raining. My map case wasn’t sealed, and the map got wet, and the ink for the courses wasn’t waterproof and it started to run, but it held up just well enough to tell where my controls were. The ink kept running for quite a while after I had stopped running, so it looks almost impossible to read now. It wasn’t that bad.

Map from the men’s relay at the 1979 World Orienteering Championships.

The map for the individual shows the routes of the medalists and my map for the relay is shown. Also, just for comparison, the next map I went orienteering on back home, Estabrook Woods in Concord, Mass. Quite the difference.

Map from a local event at Estabrook Woods in Concord, MA later the same month as WOC.

2025 Desert Orienteering Festival Event Recap

Jan 18-20, 2025

Events:

  • The Adventure Trek (2 hour score-O)
  • The Maze Middle
  • The Night Goat
  • The Classic

Host: San Diego Orienteering
Venue: Anza-Borrego State Park, Borrego Springs CA
Event Director: Mark Prior
Event Website

Results, Maps and Photos

Crowdsourced photos by Sasha Savine, John Crowther, and Amy Winston in the Orienteering USA Facebook page album.

If you have photos from this event and are willing to share them with the wider OUSA community please reach out!

January OUSA Member Spotlight: Stephanie Ross (OCIN)

This is a transcript of an interview with Stephanie in January, 2025. It has been edited for clarity and length.

Cristina Luis: Right, let’s start with an introduction. 

Stephanie Ross: I am Stephanie Ross and I live in Northern Kentucky, just a little south of Cincinnati. And my home club is Orienteering Cincinnati [OCIN].

Ok, now I would like to hear your orienteering origin story.

I came to orienteering because I needed to learn how to navigate in order to be a better adventure racer. And I think I first started orienteering probably in 2004, I would guess. I did my first adventure race in 2002 and directed my first adventure race in 2003. I thought that because I’ve done one, I must be able to create one. 

That’s the confidence all organizers need.

Yeah, overconfidence. I think that I met some adventure racers who did orienteering as well, and they introduced me to orienteering and that was probably 2004ish.

So, I say that I’ve been orienteering for about 21 years and probably have been active with OCIN as a volunteer probably since 2007.

And what keeps you orienteering?

Well, I guess I love orienteering because it’s something that you can just continually improve on. You just are never perfect at orienteering and so there’s room for constant improvement and growth, especially when you go other places. I love to orienteer on vacation and orienteer on different maps, different terrain because that’s just a constant learning experience. So that’s a lot of fun. And because of course the longer you do it, the better you get. It helps make up for some of the physical decline. I’m getting slower. 

Yeah, I’m getting physically slower than I’ve ever been and yet, I can still be somewhat competitive in my age group because my navigation just continues to improve over the years. And I’ve always liked logic puzzles and I’ve always enjoyed puzzle games and orienteering kind of feels like that to me.

It’s interesting how many people who orienteer are sort of perfectionists because it’s so hard to be perfect. You’re like “if only I could have a perfect run” and it just never happens.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. Another thing actually that I should mention about why I love orienteering is because it is now what my husband Ben and I do together. It’s “our thing.” 

You mentioned that you like to orienteer on vacation. What are your favorite orienteering vacations? 

So Five Days of Italy, the year that World Masters was in Italy, just a couple years ago, whenever it was right before World Masters. And World Masters was great, but the Five Days of Italy was in the Dolomites and that was just such a spectacular venue. It was amazing and the orienteering was terrific. We also really enjoyed a recreational orienteering week in Iceland. We did that on our way to World Masters in Denmark, I think. 

2018.

Stephanie and Ben at the Opening Ceremony of World Masters Championships 2018 in Denmark.

Yeah that sounds right. And orienteering on a lava field was really unique and spectacular. And then my other favorite, and I’m not saying this just because you’re the one asking… You can ask anybody, I say this every time. I love orienteering in the desert. And so Southwest Spring Week is one of my favorite orienteering events.

Totally not a plant. I did not pick you for that reason to go first.

But I mean, we’re coming back this year for the third time.

Well, and that’s why. There aren’t a lot of places that we go to repeatedly like that because it’s a big world. There’s lots of places to go and places we want to see, but we love coming back to Arizona because I just think orienteering in the desert is spectacular. It uses such a different skill set than we use orienteering in Kentucky and Ohio in our ridge and valley system. 

And you get a lot less muddy.

It’s true. When I talk about where we’re going to retire to, one of the things–my mom laughed at me. I said, I want to retire someplace where I can lay down on the ground and not get eaten up by bugs and just like I want to live in the desert basically is what I’m saying without coming out and saying that. She’s like, “Why do you want to live someplace you can just lay on the ground, what does that even mean?” I’m like, “No, I don’t want things crawling on me.”

You don’t want chiggers

I don’t want all those things. I just want to be able to lay down on the ground and take a nap.

I think that’s valid. That is good. Hashtag lifegoals.

Yeah, if you do adventure racing, you probably understand that better because we end up laying on the ground a lot. 

That’s true. There are a lot of photos of adventure racers just laying on the ground and

Exactly.

–and not in the way an orienteer does with the Euro flop after you finish. It’s not like that with adventure racers. It’s time for a nap or like one of your teammates is fixing their bike tube so you’re just laying there.

You’re just catching Z’s whenever you can. Curled up in a fetal position with your bike helmet on.

Right, yeah! There’s a lot of pictures of people with mud and a bike helmet, like on the ground. 

Stephanie with her teammate Sara Dallman in an Adventure Race.

Speaking of, what is your current involvement with adventure racing? Obviously you orienteer a lot but you kept your adventure racing roots I take it.

Yeah, I’ve still got a foot pretty firmly planted in AR. I’m on the board of the USARA [US Adventure Racing Association] and I’m also the nationals coordinator. So I’m helping organize the US Adventure Racing National Championship. And I’ve been involved with that national championship in one way or another on the organizational side since 2010. So I’ve stayed heavily involved in that. And then to help grow that sport among women I started the Women of AR, which is just an organization that exists on Facebook, basically. It started as a way to try to encourage more all-women teams to go to nationals.

I started in 2017 setting up a scholarship for women who wanted to compete at nationals because we hadn’t had any all-women teams go to nationals before that. So, that has really taken off. And this past year, after we established this Women of AR race team with a big prize for the top women’s team at nationals, then it really blew up. We had 14 all-women teams at nationals this past year which was three times our previous record. So that’s really blown up, and it’s been really cool to see what started as just a Facebook group has really grown in the real world.

Do you think that some of what you do for Women of AR would also apply in the orienteering world?

Yeah, it’s interesting because I think one of the biggest challenges to getting women into the sport of AR is the navigation piece. So I think that if we could take some of those ideas and apply them to orienteering and get more women orienteering then we could also get more women adventure racing. And I’m really happy for women to do either one.

My passion about it is getting women back into the outdoors. And that kind of comes from I guess my AR origin story which was I spent my 20s basically really overweight. I drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney as they say. And by the time I hit 30, I was just like a poster child for unhealthy living. So, 30 was kind of a big turnaround point in my life. I think just when I hit that age and I weighed over 200 lb, I said, “Okay, this is not a good trajectory for me.”

And so it was turning that around, from a health perspective, and starting to live a healthier lifestyle that I ended up running and then I ended up adventure racing. And so it all kind of led from there. But it’s because I felt like I basically wasted my 20s inside a bar that I feel so passionately about helping other women get back outdoors because to me that’s what really was special about all those lifestyle changes.

A lot of people will look at the weight loss and the fact that I stopped smoking and those were all big, key things, but for me, what was really life-changing about it was it got me back outdoors. And so I feel really passionately about helping women find their own adventures outdoors. And for me, that’s been orienteering and adventure racing. So that’s naturally where I want to take women because I think both sports are really empowering. I think they really have been key to reconnecting me with nature and obviously I think they’re really special sports and they offer a lot.

So, yeah, I think if we could get some of the things that we’ve done with the Women of AR group, one of the things in particular that would probably translate well into the orienteering space has been an ambassador program. The idea of it is we had women apply to be ambassadors and then we selected eight from around the country. We really tried to focus on geographic diversity and other types of diversity in who we selected. They are how we are taking this from a group that lives on Facebook to the real world.

One of our most successful events from one of our ambassadors up in New York, Shea Coleman, she organized an event that was Orienteering for Trail Runners. And that’s what she called it, Orienteering for Trail Runners. And she had 60 people come to this event!

That sounds great. 

Yeah, it’s fantastic.

So, as someone with feet firmly planted in both adventure racing and orienteering, what about the view each one has of the other? Obviously not everyone who likes orienteering would like adventure racing and vice versa, but what would you say?

What would I tell orienteers about adventure racing? It’s that if you orienteer and you go do an adventure race, you’re already well ahead of 75% of the field just because you know how to navigate. So, you know, it can be intimidating adventure racing because of the mountain biking and the paddling component, and the gear requirements. There are a lot more barriers to entering for adventure racing than there are to orienteering, but it’s super fun because you have opportunities to let your brain rest for a little bit, whereas with orienteering, it’s so intense while you’re orienteering. You can’t really let your brain rest.

With adventure racing, you have plenty of opportunities to let your brain rest and you get to actually enjoy more of the scenery around you. With orienteering, it’s often really hard to enjoy the scenery and the terrain where you are because you’re staring at your map and you’re just not taking the time to be able to look around. Whereas, if you’re in an adventure race and you’re paddling down the Shenandoah River, you have plenty of opportunity to look at the scenery around you. And if you’re adventure racing, if you’re doing it with a team, there’s that whole dynamic and aspect that’s different and it’s a way to enjoy a place with other people in a really special way.

You bond with adventure racing teammates like nobody else, and that’s a really cool part of the sport.

Probably one of the biggest distinguishing characteristics between the two, right? And if that’s what you really love, especially in North America, you won’t get that. 

Yeah. 

And do you encourage adventure racers to try traditional orienteering?

Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things I really love is whenever you see in the adventure racing discussion forums or any of the groups or pages on Facebook, whenever you see a new person hop on and say, “Hey, I’ve heard about adventure racing, I want to get started. What do you recommend?” Ninety percent of the people who respond will say something about “find your local orienteering club.” And it makes me so happy to see because it’s true, I mean, the navigation component of adventure racing is the thing that is going to help you succeed more than any other thing you can do. And so, how do you learn to navigate? Go find your local orienteering club.

Because where else can you go and find experts in the sport that you want to pursue who are willing to tell you everything they know for absolutely free and then, maybe they’ll charge you 10 bucks to go do their race afterwards.

Orienteering is the best deal out there, right?

Right. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think we always realize how good we’ve got it. 

All right. I should have maybe asked you this earlier, and it’s maybe the least interesting thing, but what do you do outside of orienteering? 

Oh yeah, that is the least interesting thing!

That’s not to say that you’re boring, but we’re primarily interested in orienteering here. However, it’s also nice to see you have a life outside of this. Not all of us do, but you do, right?

That’s only because no one pays me enough to maintain a household to orienteer and adventure race. If I could orienteer and adventure race professionally, that’s exactly what I would do with my life. But as it is, I have to be an attorney because that’s what pays my mortgage.

And what kind of attorney are you?

I do insurance defense work. Yeah. Not only is my job boring, but I practice in one of the most boring fields that you can imagine, which is insurance defense. Actually, it’s not true. It’s not boring. That’s not true.

It doesn’t sound boring to me.

It’s true. I defend workers compensation claims. And so basically people who get injured and sue their employer or who don’t get injured but say they did and sue their employer, I represent the employer. And so it’s actually pretty interesting day in and day out. 

Is there anything else you want to share?

Yeah. When I talked about this being the thing that Ben and I do, it’s not merely going to events but also volunteering for Orienteering Cincinnati. To me volunteering and being an active member of the club is part of being an orienteer. I would just encourage people, number one, it just makes the experience that much more enjoyable. We went to the Georgia Navigator Cup last week and we had such a terrific weekend because in between racing, we were going to dinner with friends from the club and friends from other clubs and we were playing games and all of those things around the race itself that we enjoy because we know people in the community.

Stephanie and Ben doing control pickup at a local OCIN event.

So, you’re going to feel a lot more connected to the orienteering community if you volunteer. And I think it’s your civic duty. If you enjoy orienteering or adventure racing, then you owe it to the race directors and to your club, especially if orienteering clubs aren’t making money. It’s not like they’re paying anyone to go out there and put on these events. We’re all volunteers, and the events don’t happen without volunteers. So, I strongly encourage everyone to do it, not only because it’s a great way to enjoy yourself more when you go to events and to feel connected to the community, but because you owe it to them.

I’m glad you had both sides of that. I also find that it’s fun to volunteer because orienteering is a kind of a lonely sport. And other than comparing routes afterwards, another way that you can actually make it social is by being part of the crew that helps out. Right? We don’t have the teams on the course so much like adventure racing but you can be part of a team doing stuff and that’s fun.

All right, I’m curious what you have lined up this year on your schedule.

Definitely coming back to Southwest Spring Week and we are going to World Masters in Spain. And looking forward to making a trip of that. That has become our big vacation each year, going to World Masters which is in Europe most years, and so that becomes our big vacation. Last year we went to the Pacific Northwest Orienteering Festival. That was our big vacation. But, we’ve gotten into the practice of taking two weeks and going to a big orienteering event and then we either go early or stay late and do some touring and touristy stuff around that. And it’s become a really great way to travel. It’s a great way to build a vacation and see new places and places in ways that you wouldn’t otherwise. That’s the other amazing thing about orienteering. You know, we went to Latvia. Latvia was never going to be on our list of places that we would go to. We went to Latvia because that’s where World Masters was, whatever year. It was an incredible country. We loved Riga. And not only do you get to see a country that you might not have thought of going to, but you see it in a way that nobody else sees. When you go orienteering, you get to go to the places that tour guides are never going to take you to.

Stephanie and Ben in Arizona at Southwest Spring Week.

I mean, even locals haven’t been to some of the places you’ll go to, right? 

Exactly. So, we’re excited that World Masters is in Spain this year and it’s up in the northeast corner of Spain near the border of France in the Pyrenees area. So, we’re going to spend some extra time and do some touring around the Pyrenees with that. And World Masters, for anybody who doesn’t know about that, you’ve got to be 35 to be competing.

Even if you don’t fit within that category, you can still go and do the recreational courses. And I also want to emphasize that just because it’s called World Masters Championships or US Masters Championships or whatever, it doesn’t mean that you’ve got to be a World Champion to go do it. I mean, Americans across the board, we just are not competitive on the level of the Scandinavian countries and a lot of the European countries. But that’s okay. I mean, it doesn’t matter to me that I’m going to be in the bottom third every single time, right? You just check your expectations. And that’s not what it’s about.

What to me World Masters is about is seeing people out there in the 100 plus age group. The oldest runner at any World Masters we’ve been to was a Norwegian man. He was 103. And he’s still out there orienteering. And what’s really cool and inspiring is to see some of these people in these really advanced age groups who are going out there and doing whatever it takes to still go orienteer. So for example, there was a 90 plus woman from Finland, Sole was her name, and she was going out there. She had one of these huge magnifying glasses like the Sherlock Holmes magnifying glasses that you would hold.

Like a caricature of a magnifier.

Exactly. It was enormous. And she would take that out there to read her map to go orienteer. And there was another man that we saw in the 80 plus age group. And I saw him take off from the start line. He was using a cane and I thought, he probably in his younger days was a really fast, competitive orienteer. And here he is saying, I don’t care that I can’t compete at that level anymore. I don’t care that I need a cane to go out and orienteer. If that’s what it takes for me to still be doing this in my 80s and 90s, then that’s what I’m going to do. And I just find that so inspirational.

I’m fighting with my dad to use a cane so that he doesn’t fall and injure himself as he’s going from home to work, and here are these people saying, “If it takes a cane for me to go out there and still orienteer, I’m going to be humble enough to go do that.” And I get choked up. I literally will have tears in my eyes standing at World Masters watching these people cross the finish line. And it’s such a really cool unique experience to see, because you go to one of those events and there are three or four thousand runners at and at the Masters Championship you’re talking about three or four thousand people aged 35 and older all the way up into their 90s and 100s.

That’s just so inspiring and makes you want to just keep moving.

And they do a really good job at World Masters of staggering the age group finishes, it’s a real showcase of how much of a lifetime sport orienteering is.

Yeah, it’s really cool being able to honor those runners and cheer for them as they come in. It’s super special.

Georgia Navigator Cup/Masters Nationals Event Recap

Jan 17-20, 2025

  • Friday: Middle Distance NRE
  • Saturday/Sunday: 2-Day Classic (including 2025 Masters Nationals)
  • Monday: Mal Harding Extreme-O
  • Host: Georgia Orienteering Club
  • Venues:
    • Fri: Red Top Mountain State Park
    • Sat-Mon: Sweetwater Creek State Park
  • Event Directors: Fred Zendt (Fri-Sun), Daryl Remick (Mon Extreme-O)
  • Course Designers:
    • Fri: Ron Hojnowski
    • Sat/Sun: Austin Fowler, Fred Zendt (Sat), Siargey Pisarchyk (Sun)
  • Event Website

All photos by Evalin Brautigam for OUSA.

Results, Photos, and Maps

OUSA hosted a course review video online a week after the event.