Thanksgiving Weekend Orienteering

We hope you'll join us as we burn off our holiday meals with two days of orienteering events over the Thanksgiving weekend. On Saturday, November 24, we'll present a beginner's clinic as well as 3 sprints and a motala at the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area just south of downtown Phoenix. All our events on Saturday are free. On Sunday, we'll continue the navigation fun with a 2-hour Score-O at our Bomboy Mine event site near Superior, AZ. We hope you'll consider joining us for a great weekend of navigation fun.

The terrain at Rio Salado is flat. The park is built around the channel of the Salt River just south of downtown Phoenix. If you've never been to the park before, you'll be impressed at what the City has done to offer a beautiful park in the middle of Phoenix. Because of the water supplied by the Salt River, the area is lush with vegetation. There are probably more trees in the Rio Salado park than in any other area in Phoenix.

The terrain at Bomboy Mine is more rugged. Located in the Tonto National Forest near Superior, AZ, the desert vegetation is at times thick with terrain that includes a mixture of rolling hills, rocky outcroppings, cliffs, etc. The desert fauna in places is runnable, but there are also areas with a high concentration of prickly plants to navigate through. On almost all parts of the map, terrain visibility is excellent. Water is available at the timer's table.

In order to promote pre-registration for our events, the Club has implemented a new pricing structure. Participants who pre-register for the event will benefit from our priority pricing. While on-site registration is still available, pricing for on-site registration is more expensive. In addition, we'll print some extra maps for each of our events, but we cannot guarantee a map for those who do not pre-register.

Pre-Registration
Pre-Registration is open until Thursday, November 22 at 11:59 PM. After the pre-registration closes, you can still try your luck and register on-site. We will have pre-printed maps for everyone who pre-registers. We cannot guarantee a map for those who register on-site.

Click here to pre-register.
Click here to see our fee table.

When: Saturday, November 24, 2018, 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM
Where: Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area

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 one or more of the Sprint courses.

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)

Schedule:

When: Saturday, November 24, 2018, 10:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Where: Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area

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.

Schedule:

When: Sunday, November 25, 2018, 8:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Where: Bomboy Mine .

People of all skill levels are encouraged to participate. You may start the Score-O anytime after the course opens at 9:00 am until 11:00 am. To get the full 2 hours on the course, you must start no later than 11:00 am. Everyone, competitors and recreational participants alike, must be off the course and checked into the timer's table by 1:00 pm when the course closes. The penalty for returning past the 2-hour limit is 10 points per minute.

Schedule: