Papago Park Sprints/Motala

Sat, Jan 7, 2023

We had another sunny, warm, January day for our events at Papago Park. The great weather unfortunately attracted many other visitors to the park too. Finding a parking spot became a problem starting before 9:00 AM. By 11:00, even the parking lots at the Zoo were mostly full. Some who wanted to participate in our orienteering events were blocked by the lack of parking. In the future, we'll consider starting/finishing events at Papago Park earlier in the morning.

The courses this year were designed by Derek Drudge. There were three courses of varying distances with 10 controls each. Papago Park is fairly small but has spectacular scenery. Derek did a good job designing courses that used the entire west side of the park, including several of the massive buttes that make Papago Park so picturesque. A couple control locations were difficult to find due to the thick brush in the area. We'll consider map improvements for upcoming events to make the control locations easier to find.

We did get a nice turnout in spite of the parking problems, with 23 participants in our events. Participants were free to do 1,2,or all three of the sprint courses with a break in between. Or, they could do our "Motala" event that strings all three courses together with no breaks between.

We had 10 participants for our Motala event. Andy Wentzel finished the course (~8.3km) in just under an hour. Kimball Forrest, more than twice Andy's age and less than half his speed, was second about 25 minutes behind Andy. Paul Kent also had a nice finish in under 1:30. We had a group of regulars finish in just over 1:30, including Brian Durrell, Amber Tinstman, Dan Yamashiro. Gary Hickey and Kyle Seifullin had respectable times under 2 hours. Our friends from Team True North, preparing for an upcoming 72-hour adventure race in Florida, rounded out the field and with their persistence found all the controls in just over 3 hours.

Two teams had time to do Sprint 1 and Sprint 2. Regular participants from Team Cram Jam and Team Techo Tortoise completed the two courses with a nice tour of the park. We had two first time participants join us, with Jessica Pruitt having a great showing on Sprint 2 for her first time out and the Laughing Llamas completing Sprint 3. Several additional participants found most of the controls for the courses that circumnavigated the buttes in the park.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for our events at Papago Park. We're a small club that offers orienteering in the Phoenix area at a reasonable price. Our biggest payoff is having you wander around on the courses we've created. We hope to see you and maybe some of your friends at another event soon.