Weekend of Orienteering in Prescott

Come join us for a weekend of fun in the cool pines near Prescott. We will be featuring 3 events over the weekend:

• Saturday morning FREE teaching clinic and short classic courses

• Saturday evening “Motola” style night orienteering

• Sunday 2-hour score-O

All event locations are in a Ponderosa forest, at about 6000 - 6500 foot elevation. Locations are a 15 – 30 minute drive from downtown Prescott.

• The Teaching Clinic is FREE
• Weekend Special - Sign up for all courses and get one course free. All fees are collected at the event site.

FREE Teaching Clinic (Big Juniper)

Saturday 13 May 2017, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM at the Big Juniper event site.

A free clinic to learn the basics of navigation with map and compass. After taking this ~1.5 hour class, you should be ready to try our “Wilderness Sprint” course immediately following at the same location.

Registration/check-in is from 8:45 – 9:00 AM, with instruction from 9:00 AM to ~10:30 AM.

Saturday Classic Courses (Big Juniper)

Saturday 13 May 2017, 10:30 AM – 2:00 PM at the Big Juniper event site.

There will be two classic courses offered on Saturday — a “Wilderness Sprint” course and a Short Orange course. These two courses are of easy and intermediate difficulty, respectively. The sprint course relies on strong “handrails” (e.g. trails and streams) to make navigation easier—also known as a Yellow course.

The Short Orange course requires interpretation of contour lines, and more off-trail travel. Each of these courses will be ~3 km or less in length.

For classic courses, you must visit the control points in the order shown on the map, and all points must be visited to receive a valid score time. All competitors must be back and checked in by 2 PM. Any arrivals back after 2:10 PM will be scored as a “Did Not Finish.”

Schedule:

Registration/check-in opens at 10:00 AM.

Courses open at 10:30 AM.

Courses close at 2:00 PM.

• Event Fees .

Night-O classic Motola course (White Rock)

Saturday 13 May 2017, 8 PM – 10 PM at the WhiteRock event site.

This event is intended to provide a less intimidating transition from day orienteering to night orienteering. This classic course is designed as three shorter loops, all close to Thumb Butte road, which can provide an easy path back to the start if needed. The navigational difficulty is mostly Yellow (easy in the day; intermediate at night).

A “Motola” is a type of race that is run as a sequence of loops. For this event, you will be presented the “Loop 1” map at your start time. Upon completing the first loop, your loop time is recorded and you will be immediately presented with the Loop 2 map.

Competitors can choose to complete 1, 2, or all 3 loops; there will be scoring categories for all 3. The idea is to complete as many loops as you can in two hours. Your score category is based on how many loops you complete. For example, if you run short of time on the 3^rd loop, your recorded time at the end of the 2^nd loop will be your completion time under the “2 loop” category.

All competitors must be back and checked in within 2 hours of their start time. Any arrivals back after two hours will be scored as a “Did Not Finish.”

Schedule:

Registration/check-in opens at 7:30 AM.

Courses open at ~8:00 PM.

Last time to start a course: 8:15 PM.

Course closes: 10:15 PM

• Event Fees .

Sunday 2-hour Score-O (Spence Creek)

Sunday 14 May 2017, 9 AM – 1 PM at the Spence Creek event site.

This is our newest Prescott map area, which features a lot of detail for small reentrants (dry washes), boulders and knolls (small hilltops). The area is filled with lots of small trails and footpaths, so there will be lots of route choices.

You will have 2 hours to find as many control points as you can, and the points can be visited in any sequence. The penalty for returning past the 2-hour limit is 10 points per minute.

Schedule:

Registration/check-in opens at 8:45 AM.

Courses open at 9:00 AM.

Last time to start a course: 11:00 AM.

Courses close at 1:00 PM.

• Event Fees .

Primitive Camping

Besides the numerous hotels and campgrounds in the Prescott area, there is limited primitive camping available in designated areas (some are quite close to the Big Juniper and White Rock event sites. See the Prescott National Forest brochure .

Big Juniper event site.
White Rock event site.
Spence Creek event site.