Fort Tuthill (Flagstaff)
Beginner's Training, Sprints, Night-O

Pre-registration

Start Location

The beginner's clinic and practice course are free.

Standard club fees apply to the sprints, Motala, and Night-O. Click here to open a page with more information about our club fees or see the fee schedule at the bottom of this webpage.

The Beginner's Training is a hands-on course teaching basic concepts used for land navigation and the sport of orienteering. Participants learn techniques to navigate using only a map and compass (No GPS!) and practice the techniques on a practice course near the Flagstaff Extreme office.

The training is open to participants of all ages and at all levels of skill and fitness. Our goal is to teach some of the basic navigation concepts that you can then use to participate in future orienteering events. If you're looking for a fun new and different way to enjoy the outdoors, please consider signing up for our class.

Course Content

Students walk up to two kilometers while learning and practicing land navigation techniques used for orienteering. The field training covers compass use, interpreting topographical maps, and several methods of getting from point to point using only a map and compass.

We will provide participants with a) a topographical map of the class area, b) course materials, and c) over an hour of orienteering instruction. We know you will be so excited about what you learn that you will join us for one of our many orienteering events. (See Event Schedule)

Sprint Events

We're excited to present three shorter Sprint courses on Saturday. The Sprints are easy to intermediate difficulty, often relying on strong “handrails” (e.g. roads, trails, and streams) to make navigation easier. Each Sprint is less than 3 km long.

The Sprints are classic courses where participants visit the control points in the order shown on the map. All points must be visited to receive a valid score time. The last time to start any of the sprint courses is 12:00 PM. All competitors must be back and checked in by 1 PM. Any arrivals back after 1:10 PM will be scored as a “Did Not Finish.”

For those of you who need a little more excitement, we're offering a Mini-Motala. A Motala is an event that strings two or more individual events together to make a longer endurance event. Participants in the Motala will run all three sprint courses. We will not only record times for each individual event but we'll also record a combined time for all three events.

Night-O

The Night-O is intended to provide a less intimidating transition from day orienteering to night orienteering. The Night-O course is just like a Score-O with one main difference - the course occurs at night. Participants have two hours to visit as many destinations as possible. The course is designed so that all destination markers are located close to Thumb Butte road, providing an easy path back to the start if needed. The navigational difficulty is mostly Yellow (easy in the day; intermediate at night.)

We will have a pre-race briefing at 6:45 PM. We'll hand out maps at the briefing, giving you a short amount of time to plan your route. All participants start together (mass start) at 7:00 PM. All competitors must be back and checked in by 9:00 PM. Time penalties apply to those who arrive after 9:00 PM. Any arrivals back after 9:15 will be scored as a “Did Not Finish.”