Outdoor Recreation

TESTING YOUR WITS IN THE WILD Finding Your Way with a Map and a Compass Is the New Wilderness Getaway

Scrambling down a brushy hillside, dodging tree limbs and boulders, I worked my way toward the bottom of the ravine. The point circled on my map seemed to correspond with the dry streambed below, but when I broke through the brush bordering its banks I found nothing. All was silent and still. Checking my location again, I decided to move upstream along the south slope.

Wrong choice. Fallen logs broke my stride, and the steep terrain tested my calves. The higher I climbed without finding anything, the more I doubted my position. Sweat rolling off my brow, I finally turned and bushwhacked back down the slope, past the point where I'd turned uphill.

TESTING YOUR WITS IN THE WILD

There, just below, a small orange-andwhite marker stood out against the green scrub. I rushed to the triangular control, marked my scorecard with the orange plastic punch dangling inside, then consulted my map, and set my compass for the location of control No. 2.

That's how I began my orienteering career in Arizona. I'd navigated my way through the cool, rain-washed forests of the Pacific Northwest and among the rolling hills of New England, but the competition sponsored by the Tucson Orienteering Club was a surprise.

Expecting flat, desert terrain covered with brush and saguaros, I found myself amidst the tall pines of the precipitous Santa Catalina Mountains; instead of Competing beneath a scorching midday sun, I ran in crisp mountain air.

Orienteering puts a person in close communion with the land. It's a sport combining running, hiking, and map-reading, taking competitors off trails and roads and into terrain they would otherwise never see. Hidden canyons. Dark forests. Remote meadows blooming with wildflowers.

Competitions in orienteering began as military exercises in Scandinavia more than 80 years ago. Soldiers took a map and compass into the woods and found their way point-to-point along a designated course.

Later these exercises evolved into an organized sport practiced by thousands in Sweden and Norway. Orienteering is as popular in those countries as baseball is in the United States.

Introduced in the U.S. by Scandinavian immigrants 30 years ago, the sport gradually spread across the country. The U.S. Orienteering Federation, organized in the early 1970s, now boasts more than 200,000 participants in 33 states.

In Arizona the first orienteering meet was held in 1983 at Tucson Mountain Park. John Maier of Tucson, an avid backpacker, read about the activity and wanted to participate. But when he contacted the U.S. Orienteering Federation, he learned that the nearest club to Tucson was in San Diego.

"I decided to organize one on my own, just from what I'd read about the sport in books and magazines," Maier explains. He set up a five-mile course through the desert terrain leading to 10 controls, where competitors punch their scorecards. His maps were photocopied from park-service handouts..

"I made a lot of mistakes," Maier admits. "The course was much too long and difficult, and people had a hard time reading their maps. I took their advice and applied it to the next meet, which we held in the Catalinas. People loved it."

In less than a decade, the Tucson Orienteering Club has grown from a handful of devotees to more than 80 active members. College athletes, senior citizens, housewives, families, and business executives all participate. Meets are held every third Sunday, often attracting more than a hundred competitors. All are open to the public.

I saw no one at my first three controls, though I knew the woods were teeming with hikers and runners like myself, clutching compasses and maps, eyes alert for clues.

Like scavengers seeking hidden treasure, we carefully follow our maps' directions, then thrill to find a control marker perched beside a boulder or resting in some ravine. Gold or silver could hardly excite us more. Well, maybe. At my fourth control I struggled. The exposed roots of a fallen tree circled on my map as the location of the control gave up no treasure. I went around and around the spot, climbing uphill and then down, certain I'd followed the right course but unable to find the orange flag. Ten minutes passed, then 20, and still I tramped over the steep slope. About to give up on ever finding the fourth control, I spotted three other orienteers scaling the hillside above. We hailed each other and gathered to compare positions. I had circled one set of rootstock on my map; they, another. We set off toward the spot marked on their maps. When the orange marker came into view, we all began to run.

Orienteering maps show more detail than regular trail maps and include more features than a topographical map. Special symbols mark the location of boulders, fences, ditches, and cliffs. Others indicate small knolls, cacti, anthills, and cave openings. Even changes in vegetation open land, forests, clearings, sandy ground are identified. Each feature on the map is a clue for finding your position and locating controls. The more features a map has, the more interesting it is to orienteer. At the starting line, competitors copy the location of controls onto their maps from a master map. Then they race or stroll out into the wilderness. Whoever completes the course with the fastest time is declared the winner, provided he or she found the right controls in the correct order. (Recreational, or untimed,

TESTING YOUR WITS IN THE WILD

entries also are popular with teams and individuals.) "It's very much like a treasure hunt," says Keith McLeod, a tireless supporter of the sport in Arizona. "Finding those controls and com-pleting a course successfully gives you a sense of accomplishment that's rare in today's world." McLeod, a tall and lanky Tucson business consultant, refers to orienteering as "the thinking sport." Competitors must make decisions (choices of direction) under stress in strange territory. The sport tests wits as much as stamina.

"The parallels to the rest of our lives are pretty clear," he says. "You identify your objective and then commit yourself to achieving it. It's the same whether your goal is completing an orienteering course or getting a job or whatever.

Locations and terrain vary, but some orienteering activities are routine. Competitors who plan ahead navigate their way through the checkpoints with time to enjoy the scenery along the trail.

Success is in the journey, not the destination."

I recalled those words as I crossed a lush mountainside carpeted with Indian paintbrush and sunflowers. Slowing to watch a chipmunk scur-ry across a fallen log, I noticed how sweet the pines smelled and took pleasure in the cooling breeze that crossed my sweaty brow.

Along a narrow path, I met up with Bob Kelley and Steve Krieski, at the time coeditors of the Tucson Orienteering Club newsletter. They were running the course as a team, as many club members do.

"There should be a dirt road on the other side of that clearing," said Krieski. "We can follow it down to the fifth control."

Kelley, taking a reading on his compass, noted, "It should be due east of this rootstock about 200 meters. Probably on that slope over there."

Kelley and Krieski traipsed through the Catalinas like deft woodsmen. As soon as they punched in at the fifth control, they were off toward number six, glancing at their compasses and talking about the terrain as they went.

I tried to tag along, but they were too quick for my fumbling attempts to fix our positions on my map. As I stopped to get my bearings, I watched them disappear through the brush.

Talented orienteers read maps the way musicians read music. In a glance, they get a mental picture of the landscape: its contours, obstacles, trails, and boundaries.

Top competitors read on the run, with a thumb marking their position, and plan their approach to every control. A few seconds of indecision can cost a championship in a national or international meet.

At the finish line, orienteers invariably gather to compare maps. "What route did you take to that control? Where did you cross that reentrant? How did you get past that thicket?"

My map, once I've charted the course I took, is a mass of wavy red lines. More than once, I lost my way and spent precious minutes backtracking to find the right marker. The course had challenged my willpower, but, in the end, I'd located all eight controls.

Most orienteering meets offer a selection of three courses: a basic course for beginners, an intermediate course for those still learning, and an advanced course. Participants compete as individuals or as a team. Finishing times range from less than an hour to more than two.

So far, the Tucson Orienteering Club has developed two maps of city parks and eight maps of the surrounding Tucson area.

Two sites are on Mount Lemmon, and others are between 2,400and 5,000-foot elevations. Higher-altitude areas include Palisades and Bear Wallow in the Santa Catalina Mountains, Rosemont Canyon along State Route 83 south of Tucson, and the ruins of the town of Helvetia in the Santa Rita Mountains. Other sites include Bajada Loop in Saguaro National Monument West, Cave Creek on Route 83, and Cottonwood Wash near Benson.

"We use the desert maps throughout the winter and our mountain maps during the hot summer months," explains John Maier.

The Phoenix Orienteering Club holds land-navigation games monthly around Arizona, in the high country during the summer and desert during the winter.

Permanent "trim courses" also have been constructed by the parks departments in Tucson and Phoenix. Located at Greasewood Park in Tucson and Papago Park in Phoenix, these courses have several dozen permanent control markers scattered among the saguaros and paloverdes. Visitors may pick up a map at park offices and follow one of the established courses or create their own course by selecting a combination of controls.

Trim courses are used by schools and Boy Scout troops to teach orienteering skills, by competitive orienteers for training, and by casual visitors looking for an entertaining outing.

Not bad progress for a sport that just got under way in Arizona a short nine years ago.

Orienteering Federation, P.O. Box 1443, Forest Park, GA 30051.

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