The other weekend, if you happened to be at Pawtuckaway state park, you might have noticed a whole lot of orienteers congregating in the main pavilion and then dashing off into the forest. Among these orienteers were a couple Team members - Alex Jospe, Kseniya Popova, Isabel Bryant, Ethan Childs, Brendan Shields, and Ian Smith, to name a few. The Pawtuckaway Camping weekend is an annual event hosted by Up North Orienteers (UNO), and it's a really wonderful weekend. On the surface, it's a low key event where you can hang out with your friends, go for a walk in the woods, paddle your canoe, and go swimming. But enter the forest, and there's some cut-throat orienteering, both during the day and again during the "Wicked Hahd Night-o"!
Day 1 course.
The daytime scene is pretty chill. Copy your own courses onto the beautifully-printed offset maps, and then head out to confront the house-sized boulders and man-eating swamps. The forest is a wonderful mix of open hardwoods and old-growth pine, leading to some pretty quick per-km times if you know where you're going.
Sunset was beautiful, and was followed with a delicious potluck dinner, and then both a Vampire-o (for the young'ns), and the wicked hard night-o.
Results for the weekend.
