Petrified Forest Rogaines
October 14-15, 2017

Writeup

We're excited to have welcomed a group of about 50 adventurous orienteers to our 3rd annual Petrified Forest Rogaines on October 14 and 15 at the Petrified Forest National Park near Holbrook, Arizona. For the past three years, we have had an incredible opportunity to practice our sport in such wild terrain. While the area is almost entirely devoid of trees, there are plenty of washes, canyons, cliffs, and interesting rock formations to go along with areas filled with petrified wood. We thank the national park management for all they've done to help us with our events.

Our 2017 version of the Petrified Forest Rogaines took us to the Jasper Forest area. With limited parking available at the event site, we were required to bus all of our participants to the start line each day. The extra transportation logisitcs were a little tedious but the operation went well. We were able to get all participants to the start line on time.

Saturday's course took participants south of Jasper Forest to the area around Martha's Butte. Martha's Butte is the home of the solar spiral, one of the most recognized features of prehistoric rock art in the park. The rocks around Martha's Butte and other nearby buttes are filled with other panels of rock art. Saturday's course gave participants a real taste of our native history.

Sunday's course was located in and around the Jasper Forest area itself. With some of the highest concentrations of petrified wood in the park, the Jasper Forest was an excellent are for participants to explore. We intentionally placed controls in washes and fields filled with petrified logs.

Saturday's event was won by Mark Prior from the San Diego Orienteering Club. Mark cleared the course in just over three hours. Not far behind was our overall winner Jan Lande from the Rocky Mountain Club. Andy Wentzel from the Phoenix Club and Sanna Sevanto from New Mexico also visited all of Saturday's controls. The Shabazians, Sharon Crawford, and Robi Mulford weren't far behind.

Four individuals also cleared Sunday's course, with Jan Lande, Andy Wentzel, Sanna Sevanto, and Troy Couture each visiting all the controls in under the 4-hour time limit. We also had good showings from a number of individuals and teams, with Charlie Shabazian, team Pack and Panthers, Sharon Crawford, Erik Ringnes, Team Tubac, and Team Whatever all scoring more than 600 out of the total 810 points available for the day.

Complete results are shown below. Overall winners were selected from individuals and teams that participated in both days' events.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for this year's Petrified Forest Rogaines. We look forward to welcoming you again next year.

• Saturday: Glenn Haselfeld, Harry Zulch, Andy Wentzel, Dan Yamashiro, David Thompson
• Sunday: Gary Hickey, Andy Wentzel, Dan Yamashiro, David Thompson, Ron Birks