Club Championships – Planners Comments
David W reports:
Well we were lucky with the weather – me putting them out on Friday and you all finding them today. I even managed to find a non-cancelled parkrun within 15 minutes drive.
After all the work put in by Paul (map) and Charlie (permissions) it would be a shame if we didn’t get a WML booked here for next year or early 2024. Would need to be late Autumn, Winter or very early spring (there are eco constraints). The improvement in runnability and visibility between early November and mid-December is striking.
Photo album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8375z6TtVfLBQP5X8
Shatterford is a quiet woodland – it is a walk-in venue rather than a park-and-stroll location. In 5 visits I’ve seen just two horse riders. While it is pretty in the summer/early autumn, and I intend a re-visit in the spring as I am guessing there will be flowers, it is in December that it matures orienteering-wise. From a planning point of view the stream dividing Bodenham property from FE land is a challenge. There is a bridge but this has its own problems (leading outside the competition area, a big climb/descent and a need for a fence crossing). Also the physicality.
Arley Wood Camp: I hope you all visited the Roman Camp (which is based on an original Iron Age settlement). There is very little one the Internet and nothing on the OS until you zoom into the LIDAR
Please find linked here my suggested routes – clockwise (5.8km) and anti-clockwise (5.9km) climb ~250m. These are for someone who wants to make a stab at getting them all. On balance I think the navigation is easier clockwise – approaching more controls from the “gimme” direction rather than the “tricky”.
“#7 is missing” – I did not anticipate that having a control on one of the two buildings would cause such trouble – I guess its a case of the larger being very visible and the smaller not and the controlcoming at the very end of the race where folks are going into oxygen debt while attempting to get 10 extra points