Saguaro Lake: 2-hour Score-O
Results
Saturday, January 30, 2021

With several days of rain during the week, we were a little worried about conditions for the event. As it turned out, the weather was bright and sunny and, with the exception of the parking area, there was little to no mud on the course. It turned out to be a great Phoenix winter day for orienteering. With the great weather, we also had a record turnout for our event with sixty participants joining us. Thanks to everyone who enjoyed the day with us. We spend a good deal of time designing courses and hanging/retrieving bags. Our big payoff is getting to spend time with you during the event.

We tried to design a course that would be long enough to be interesting for our big dogs yet still allow several to clear the course. After fires severely affected areas around the Saguaro Lake event site, the terrain has become very open with wild horses grazing the area. Participants were rewarded with contact with 20+ wild horses in the area as well as very runnable terrain.

Two individuals visited all the controls on the course. Andy Wentzel blasted his way through the course in just over 1:11. Marci Beard also cleared the course in 1:46. We'd like to get more people clearing the course, but we also don't want to spend time setting controls that no one visits. For Andy, we may need to drive to a distant point and put one bonus control just for him to run to. Mike Zampino and Brian Durrell both visited 19 controls. We had another group of 5 individuals that visited all but 2 or 3 controls. In one of the more impressive performances for the day, the all girl high school team AJ-1, a JROTC team from Apache Junction, also visited most of the controls to lead our team categories for the day.

On the other end of the scale, we had a number of teams and individuals joining us for a more leisurely day. Team Marrio, Lucy, Free Candy Van, and IDK took time to practice their skills and enjoy the wild horses in the area. Team Generation was helped by the map-reading and hiking skills of their three-year-old guide. We're happy to give beginners and families the opportunity to enjoy exploring nature on a nice sunny day.

Thanks again to everyone who joined us for our event. We hope to see you again soon.