We had a great turnout Saturday for the Hudson Valley Orienteering Club's (http://hvo.us.orienteering.org/index.php) orienteering competition at Westmoreland Sanctuary. Troop 4 had 10 Scouts competing, and each Scout competed in two events.
Orienteering is a fantastic sport, it combines multiple skills that are usually not found together into a single competitive experience. The scouts must be able to read a map to identify course and direction, make decisions on best routes, use clues to find objects, work as a team, all while running through the woods. Doing any one of those things while running is a challenge, doing all of them is really really hard. Some lessons from the day where sometimes the fastest way to an objective is not in a straight line. Going around obstacles can be faster than going through them. Breaking tasks down to be shared by a group is more efficient than having a single person responsible for everything.
The competition was stiff and the crowds large, but one of our teams pulled off the course record for the day on the White course. This is the second year in a row one of the Troop teams has won the White course. This course had 41 individuals/teams competing, Troop 4's three teams finished 1st, 8th, and 20th out of 41. One of our teams was made up of Scouts who never competed in an orienteering competition and they still managed to finish in the top half of the competition. They should all be very proud of their accomplishments.
The White course is 1.6km long, our Scouts also competed in the Yellow course (2.1km) and the Orange course (2.7km). The Orange is particularly difficult because the Control Points everyone is looking for were put off the trails into the forest increasing the challenge of finding them.
All the results can be found here:
To view the complete photo record of the day please check out the Troop photo site at:
