Coon Bluff Night-O
Saturday, December 10, 2016

After a hiatus of a couple years, we decided to add a few night orienteering events to this year's schedule. The navigation during a Night-O is not difficult, at least not during the day. The challenge becomes much greater when you throw in darkness. Hills that are easy to see during the day become almost impossible to find if your bearing is off by 5 degrees. And small, parallel re-entrants may look larger at night.

Our Coon Bluff Night-O was a typical night orienteering event. We were almost embarrassed by how easy the control locations were. But navigating the easy course at night proved more difficult than we expected. No one was able to clear the entire course. Kevin Adams and Ali Crocker led the field by finding 10 of the 13 controls. Team Scorpions (Jeff Brucker and Degan Gurnett) and Gary Hickey weren't far behind with 8 controls. Everyone seemed to enjoy the opportunity to practice their navigation skills at night.

We'd like to give a special thanks to Jill Kyle for her help setting the course, directing the event, and picking up controls afterwards. Jill has a number of years of experience organizing navigation events. We look forward to participating in one of her events in the future.