Orienteering Raleigh NC

Backwoods Orienteering Klub, founded November 15, 1978 sponsors events and teaches orienteering in the North Carolina piedmont, around Raleigh, NC.

We invite you to try orienteering with us. Everyone is welcome at all our events. We always offer beginning, intermediate, advanced and expert courses (routes through the woods) at every Regular event.

Lake Crabtree Open Sprint, June 26th

On June 26th, we are having an Open Sprint at Lake Crabtree Park. Starts are at the Dogwood Shelter (35.838807, -78.792700). Courses will open at 10am with a beginner class at 10:30am. The last starts will be at 12:30pm and pickup will start at 1:30pm. Registration is now closed.

Everyone is invited. There will be a White course for beginners and a “Yellow” sprint for those ready for a bit more challenge but not quite ready for a full sprint. Neither of these courses will take you deep into the park, but the Yellow sprint will take you off the trails.

For advanced orienteers we are offering a smorgasbord of fun courses. Try one or all. There will be two regular sprints, each offering a short option which you can switch to mid-course if the weather is too hot or if you plan to try the extra courses.

The third type of course will be a Score O covering every control placed out, but with a total distance about 2.5km to clear it. With such a short distance, the course will also have a short time limit of 22 minutes and 30 seconds. For those of you doing the math, that’s 9 min/km. Penalties are 5 points in the first minute over and 1 point per minute thereafter.

The final course for the most intrepid orienteers is what we’re calling Memory-O. In this event, maps showing the subsequent leg are hung at the control and the competitor must memorize their route and run to the next control location without having any map. The maps will mostly be blanked out, showing just enough of the map to orient to north and get the competitor to the next control.

Here is a sample of a leg from a control 1 to a control 2:

Memory-O will start at the Start control but will not have control punches at every single control nor will control box numbers be shown. Competitors only punch their fingerstick at those controls that have an SI-box.

For the Memory O, if you want to try it but don’t feel super confident, leave a note when you sign up and the meet director can bring extra folded, sealed maps with the full course on it for competitors to “break open in case of emergency”. If you do end up using the full map, this will be noted on the results and you will scored behind competitors who did not do so.