Author: Clint Morse

2020 Iain Wilson Character Through Competition Award

Philadelphia, PA — The Wilson Awards, in partnership with Orienteering USA, is pleased to announce the winners of the seventh annual Iain Wilson Character Through Competition Award.  This award honors the memory of Iain Wilson by recognizing young athletes whose efforts demonstrate character through their commitment to growth and improvement in the sport as well as their contribution to the orienteering community through service and teamwork. This year’s announcement was delayed from spring 2020 due to the impact Coronavirus has had on training and competition.

We are excited to announce the winners, Bridget Hall and Keegan Harkavy  of New England Orienteering Club and Christiane Fletcher of Georgia Orienteering Club. Each athlete will each receive a $1,000  grant for orienteering travel and expenses. Additionally, applications for the 2021 Individual and Community Growth Awards are being accepted now through April 30, 2021 and can be found at  https://orienteeringusa.org/about/recognition/.

Read the full Press Release

Puzzle Friday: Smokey Glen

Good morning campers! This week’s puzzle takes a look back at last years QOC Bumble – the last event I ran before coronavirus set in. It was a really fun time… The Bumble is a goat-style race with a score-o twist – controls are arranged into windows, controls within a window can be visited in any order, but you must visit all controls in a window before moving on to the next window. Do as many windows as you like and windows can be done in any order.

This years Bumble (modified for COVID compliance) is tomorrow (Feb 6th) at Hoyles Mill, MD and as of this writing, there are still a few spots open. Pre-registration is mandatory and will close at 6pm this evening. Event link. Have a great weekend!

Overlook NRE & Letchworth BillyGoat

IMPORTANT UPDATE: As of September 6th 2021, the fall event is postponed and will now be held on May 7th, 2022. And Sunday’s goat event will be the 42nd running of the venerable BillyGoat. Mark your calendars!

Rochester Orienteering Club (ROC) is taking the optimistic route choice to the end of the Covid Pandemic and is scheduling an orienteering weekend September 18/19, 2021.  The following announcement is from Race Director Rick Worner:

“On Saturday we will host a one-day NRE middle distance event on a new map at Harriet Hollister Spencer State Recreation Area and on Sunday we will offer a GOAT-style event at Letchworth East so that people can enjoy a full weekend of activity in the woods.

The plan at this point is to start the Saturday event at 1PM to give people an opportunity to drive in on the morning of the event. Harriet Hollister is around 40 minutes south of Rochester, NY overlooking Honeoye Lake. It has a moderate trail system, interesting contour detail and very open woods. Mark Dominie is the mapmaker. Stina Bridgeman will be the course setter.

The GOAT event at Letchworth East will start and finish at an area outside the park gates to avoid any crowding in the park . Tom Roycroft is the course setter and plans to offer a long (10K+), medium (6-8K) and short (4-5K) versions of the courses. It will be a mass start at 9AM if Covid permits, otherwise it will be some sort of interval or socially distanced start procedure to comply with the OUSA and NYS Parks guidelines.

The park is open at this time of year and offers camping and cabins.  https://newyorkstateparks.reserveamerica.com/camping/letchworthstatepark/r/campgroundDetails.do? Motels south of Rochester are about a 45 minute drive and there are a limited number of motels closer to the park. With the early start on Sunday people should be able to head home by noon. We will likely wait until later in the spring to open registration to see how the vaccination process proceeds and to avoid having to refund fees in case we have to cancel the event. Due to parking and NYS  Park regulations we will likely have to limit the number of entries to 150 people. More on this as we get closer to the event.

We really look forward to seeing many of our orienteering friends again. Fingers crossed.”

OUSA Welcomes New Administrative Specialist

Orienteering USA would like to welcome Shawn Callahan as our new Administrative Specialist. A native of Virginia Beach, VA, he has been involved in the orienteering community for over 20 years with experience as a meet director, mapper and teaching orienteering with a number of clubs.

Shawn is currently the general manager of Adventureworks Wetland Ziplines in Virginia Beach and has held leadership positions in small business, non-profits and outdoor education programs. In these positions he’s put a strong emphasis on youth development and education initiatives.

Shawn starts today (Feb 1st) and will take over for Amy Winston, who will be leaving OUSA at the end of February.

Puzzle Friday: Crowders Mountain

Its the last Puzzle Friday of January and today we wander down to North Carolina to feature a permanent course map of Crowders Mountain State Park from the Carolina Orienteering Klubb (COK).

This map is one of three recent additions to the Orienteering USA Permanent Course listing in the Charlotte, NC area. The other two newly added COK permanent course maps are McDowell Nature Preserve and Reedy Creek Nature Preserve in Charlotte. There is also a regular event (w/ limited registration) at Reedy Creek scheduled for February 6th if you’re in the area next weekend.

Permanent courses provide year-round DIY orienteering opportunities and are a great way to explore new terrain when visiting other parts of the country. Are your clubs permanent courses represented on our locator map? If not, drop us a line at webmaster@nullorienteeringusa.org to get them on the map!

Upcoming OUSA Board Meeting: Feb 8, 8pm EST

The next meeting of the Orienteering USA Board of Directors will be held online via Google Meet on Monday, February 8th from 8pm-10pm EST. Among the topics to be discussed are: Updates and Review of upcoming NRE and Championship events, MTBO events policy for 2021 and review of the 2021 budget. More details and meeting link can be found in the Agenda.

Puzzle Friday: Rockhaven – Clinton Lake

Today’s cartographic puzzle takes us to the heartland and a recent event held by Orienteer Kansas (OK). The control descriptions included a couple of ‘special items’ (black ‘X’s on the map). Not sure I’ve ever been to a control quite like this one! Check out some of the additional photos by Gene Wee as well as the results. There are also some gps routes posted on the RouteGadget page hosted by neighboring Possum Trot Orienteering Club (PTOC).

Have a great weekend folks!

YMP Map of the Month – January 2021

As we head into the new year, Orienteering USA’s Youth Mapping Program (YMP) is moving ahead full steam. At last count there were seventeen (17) new maps in production by 17 different mappers, plus an equal number of remote field checkers serving as ‘eyes on the ground’. And the committee has more map requests queuing up!

This month’s featured Map of the Month is a 1:4000 scale map of the campus of the Black Hills State University in Spearfish, SD. It was created by YMP mapper Julia Doubson with field checking by BHSU Professor Christine McCart who heads up the Outdoor Education Program on campus. Professor McCart will utilize the new map in her PE 100 Orienteering Course as well as RECR 242 Outdoor Skills class. She also intends to share the map and resources with PE teachers in the local school systems.

If the map looks familiar, its probably because we ran this as our Puzzle Friday feature a few weeks back on New Years Day. You can check out the puzzle of this and other maps in our Puzzle Friday archives

Puzzle Friday: Buckeye Hills

Happy Friday everyone!! This week we’re headed down to sunny Arizona for the recent Buckeye Hills event held by the Greater Phoenix Orienteering Club – GPHXO. A big thank you to Ron Birks and Shane Lacanienta for providing media used to create this puzzle for you.

The event was originally scheduled as a Score-O plus an Adventure Race (foot & bike). Unfortunately due to last minute insurance issues for the cycling portion of the event the Adventure Race was converted to a Long-Foot-O extending beyond the confines of the Score-O map. Kudos to the meet staff for adapting to the situation and pulling off a great event. Be sure to check out their results page for a full writeup, livelox gps replay, photos, video and, of course, results.

OUSA Seeks Part-time Administrator

1/20/21 – OUSA Administrator position is no longer accepting applications. Thank you for your interest in Orienteering USA.

Orienteering USA seeks a part-time contractor to handle administrative functions. 

Duties to include:

  • Serve as the primary OUSA office contact.
  • Handle deposits, invoices, and check requests and interface with OUSA accountants to ensure processing. Work with Vice-President of Finance to review financial reports and maintain efficient processes.
  • Serve as OUSA membership administrator.
  • Administer the annual club recharter process.
  • Handle Safesport training requests and maintain OUSA Safesport certification database.
  • Provide administrative support to the Board of Directors and committees as necessary, including handling preparations for the Annual General Meeting.
  • Attend board meetings approximately quarterly and phone meetings with the finance team monthly.
  • Other duties as assigned

Candidate will work remotely and should have a computer with internet access and experience using typical office suite software such as Microsoft Word/Excel or Google Docs/Sheets. Basic bookkeeping/accounting knowledge is a plus, as is experience with GSuite and/or NeonCRM.

Starting contract rate of $800/month plus expenses, including travel to board meetings.
Anticipated start date: February 1, 2021

Please send resume and cover letter via email to Clare Durand, president@nullorienteeringusa.org.

Orienteering USA is the national governing body of all orienteering activities in the United States and is a member nation of the International Orienteering Federation. We support over 60 chartered orienteering clubs nationwide. Our mission is to: increase participation in the sport of orienteering (including rogaining/map trekking), teach map reading and navigation skills, promote enjoyment of, and respect for, the environment, and establish world-class competitive excellence within our national team programs.