Orienteering at McKeldin Area of Patapsco Park

April 18th, 2004

Sunday the 18th of April started out hot.  It seemed as if we had skipped right over spring and started summer.  The temperature was headed into the upper 80's as we made our way to the McKeldin Area of Patapsco Valley State Park.  It was myself, Lisa and Brandi who were going to do some woods running to practice up on our navigation skills.  

We arrived a little after 1 pm and signed up to do the orange course.  We started out across the parking lot and entered the woods.  We went down hill into a gulley and then across a little creek and back up the hill.  We hit a trail and it led to the first control.  By then Brandi's cheeks were rather red and she was questioning her decision to join us on this endeavor. 

After the first control we skirted a field and went down to another creek to find the second control.  Back up the hill and getting to the third was pretty easy as the map was good and it was all field, road and trail.  We backtracked some and took all trails to the forth control, trying to jog a bit.  The heat was taking it's toll on all of us by then and Brandi was flagging. 

After the forth control, it was back up a pretty steep hill to a trail that led to the parking lot.  We passed the TA at this point and Brandi decide to sit the rest of the course out.  We replenished our water, sat Brandi under a tree and Lisa and I headed down a draw to the 5th control.  We continued down the draw to a trail and found the 6th pretty easy, but I made a mistake getting to this one which made it a little harder.  I decided to head up a road that we crossed to a parking lot and then take a bearing off that to the control.  Lisa suggested following the trail around, which would have been a little bit longer, but it followed the contour.  My way had a bit of an uphill which slowed us down.  Oh well, we got there never the less and I put another lesson learned into my mind book. 

Getting to the 7th control was a challenge.  It was in the middle of a cliff.  We decided to approach it from the bottom.  It was hard getting up the cliff, but we made it.  After that we went the rest of the way up the hill to a trail and followed it to the second spring creek to the 8th control.  To get to the ninth control, we just had to follow the path around some.  It was in a pit so we had to keep checking all the depressions when we knew we were close.  After that it was straight through the wood on a somewhat level to the last control next to a path.  We just ran a bearing here and it worked pretty well. 

Now we just had to get back to the TA and it was back down and then up a small valley to the road and down the road.

We finished in 1 hour 53 minutes.  Forth place out of eight in that course.

It was hot, but very fun.