Category: Puzzles

Puzzle Friday: Southwest Spring Weekend ’21

Happy Friday everyone! This week’s puzzling excursion takes us to Arizona where, in a normal year, the annual Southwest Spring Week Orienteering Festival (SWSW) would have taken place. But, like most things over the past 12 months, this year’s festival was reduced to a mere Spring Weekend ’21 but that still beats no orienteering at all. Three great maps, 3 great events. Thanks to the hard working folks at Tucson Orienteering Club (TSN) for keeping the tradition alive and sharing their event with us.

Mark your calendars for next year! SWSW 2022 will take place February 19-27, 2022.

Puzzle Friday: Georgia Navigator ’21

This week we’re taking a look back at last month’s Georgia Navigator Cup down at Sweetwater Creek Park organized by the Georgia Orienteering Club (GAOC). In a normal year, the Georgia Navigator Cup is a national event drawing competitors from all over the country but with the coronavirus situation still firmly entrenched, the organizers elected to hold the event as a regional, non-sanctioned event for 2021. Hopefully the GNC will return as a national event in 2022.

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!

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!

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!

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.

Puzzle Friday: Rentschler Forest

Welcome to the end of the workweek fellow orienteers! This weeks puzzle looks back at the New Year’s Eve Score-O event hosted by Orienteering Cincinnati last week. Looks like a fun event! Thanks to the folks at OCIN for sharing the map and photos with us.

Let us know if you’d like to have your event highlighted for an upcoming Puzzle Friday feature.

Puzzle Friday: Black Hills State University

Happy New Year everyone!! Just a quick post to bring you a puzzle version of the January YMP Map of the Month: Black Hills State University in Spearfish, SD. We’ll be highlighting the Map of the Month in a future post, so stay tuned for more details on this brand new map.

Puzzle Friday: Oak Ridge NRE

Today’s puzzle takes us to the National Ranking Event at held Oak Ridge in the Prince William Forest Park in Virginia this past weekend. Thanks to Quantico Orienteering Club for hosting the event and providing the media used to create the puzzle. Have a great weekend everyone!!