Orienteering:
The Art of Staying Un-Lost

By John Bartholomew

Photo copyright Jerry Rhodes

Variety, it’s said, is the spice of life. Perhaps you’ve been feeling the need to spice up your regular workout routine lately. Maybe you’re just the adventurous type who likes to explore new parks and trails. In either case, read on! The sport of orienteering may be that welcome change you’ve been looking for.

Orienteering is the sport of map and compass navigation. It began in Scandinavia in 1919 and today tens of thousands of people around the world in some 60 countries participate in this sport. Orienteering came to the U.S. in the 1960s, and its popularity has been growing here ever since. On an orienteering course, your goal is to follow a marked route on a special map to visit a series of locations. At each location you’ll find an orange and white flag and a paper punch with a unique pattern. Return to the finish with the right set of punch marks on your card, and you’ll have finished your first orienteering course.

Where to Start
The Columbia River Orienteering Club (CROC) is based here in the Portland/Vancouver metro area, and holds one to two public events each month. It’s easy to start — all local events include short beginner’s training clinics and beginner’s courses that are entirely on-trail, typically one to two miles in length. At the advanced end, orienteering is a running sport, with courses up to eight miles in length; most of our local event participants, however, are walkers on easier courses, so you’ll be in good company even as a first-timer. Typical attendees at a CROC include such diverse groups as families and scout groups to trail runners and adventure racers building their navigational skills.

At the start of an orienteering course, you’ll receive a detailed color map of the park, including contour lines (like a topographic map), trails, and roads, but also smaller features like boulders and fences. You might start your first beginner’s course at a park shelter in a clearing, waiting with the other event participants. The course starter signals you to go and you’re off, leaving the others behind to wait for their start slot. You stop to check your map, orienting it to north, and then head across the clearing and into the woods on the trail you’ve just chosen to follow. Two minutes later, your trail joins another, and there at the intersection is your first orange and white control flag. Punch your card, orient your map once again, and you’re off on another trail to your next control. Most active adults can easily finish a beginner’s course in under an hour.

While beginner’s courses are short and straightforward, advanced courses are longer and can require significant off-trail navigational skills. If you’re interested in something harder than a beginner’s course, but not too hard, then an advanced beginner or intermediate level course can provide a fun mental challenge and a good physical workout, as well. Orienteering is truly a sport for all ages and ability levels, as you can enjoy it competitively on your own or recreationally with friends at a level you’re comfortable with.

Where to Go from Here…
Our club’s National Orienteering Day event is a great place to experience the sport of orienteering, where CROC places an extra emphasis on supporting first-time participants. This year, the event will be held at Champoeg State Heritage Area on Saturday, September 18 from 11am to 1pm. If you’d like more information on our sport, please visit the CROC website (www.croc.org) or the U.S. Orienteering Federation website (www.us.orienteering.org).

If you find that you enjoy orienteering on foot, CROC also holds an occasional bike, kayak, or cross-country ski orienteering event. There’s also an endurance form of the sport, where participants compete in 8-, 12-, or 24-hour categories — for the dedicated distance walker/trekker, it can be the perfect day out covering hill and dale with map in hand…but I’ll save that for another article…

John Bartholomew is an avid hiker and orienteer, competing at the local to the international level for the past 10 years.