Navigation Overview for SORCAR

In SORCAR there will be two distinct legs—foot travel, and bike travel.  In the bike travel section navigation will be minimal and very non-technical.   The route will be mapped and the actual course will be lightly marked.   Major intersections will be marked with a Grass Roots Racing sign; smaller intersections will be marked with blue and white tape at the intersection with another blue and white tape confirming that you turned the correct direction.  An example of this tape will be available to view at pre-race meeting. 

Within the bike route, there will be a small section of navigation/orienteering.  This section is optional, but points are awarded for each control point that you visit.  Each CP will be worth one point and CP’s will be placed at trail intersections and other easy to locate positions.  Most CP’s will be visible from the trail on which you will be riding.  There will be a cut-off time at which racers will no longer be permitted to enter the navigation section.  If you want to get all the Control Points for the bike course, be sure to pay attention to your pace and to the time.  A compass and a working knowledge of its use would be helpful for this leg—but not necessary.  Good map reading skills will be most valuable.

The foot travel section will be all navigation. It will also be a ROGAINE and you will not be required to visit all CP's.  However each CP will carry a point value and the racer with the most accumulated points from both the bike and foot sections will be the winner.  Time will be used to break ties.  Racers will be given excellent orienteering maps produced by Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club.   An example of a section of these maps is posted above.  The skills needed to properly use these maps include a good knowledge of compass use (to help you “orient” yourself to the map and vice versa), and strong map reading knowledge.  Let’s talk about reading the map first, and then apply compass use to that. 

The combination of circles and numbers on this map indicate the location of a CP.  Along with these you will also have a clue that will help you more quickly locate the CP.  Looking at CP 9 you can clearly see that it is on a stream as indicated by the blue dashed line.  Looking more closely, it appears that the stream has a bend in it.  The clue for CP 9 is—in fact—"Stream Bend", so that CP should not be too difficult to find…..once you locate the stream.  We’ll talk more about that later.

But first look more closely at CP 9.  There are a series of curvy lines that are running through it.  These are called contour lines.  These depict elevation changes, but do take some practice reading to realize whether these changes are upward or downward.  In the case of CP 9 there is a clearly marked “blue” area west of CP 9.  This is a lake or pond.  The stream that is running through CP 9 is obviously flowing downhill to the pond or lake—so the contour lines are showing an uphill climb from the pond/lake.  The contour lines are also making an inverted “V”.  This is showing that the stream is in a depression or small valley.  Look at the map and see if you can locate any other inverted “V’s”.  There is a very obvious one west and south of CP 10, and a less obvious one at CP 8.  Both of these are referred to as reentrants and differ from streams on maps because they do not always have water in them.  A reentrant is—by definition—an angle pointing inward.  On a map, an inverted “V” shows a depression, so the “angle” is pointing inward.  A non-inverted “V” is an angle pointing outward—also known as a spur.  However, I like to think of a reentrant as a place where water—in the form of rain—collects and “re-enters” a larger body of water (lake, pond, or stream).  Both of these definitions make it easier to visualize what the land is actually doing when you look at a map.

So—CP 8 appears to be on a reentrant.  The clue confirms this because it is “Reentrant”.  If your starting point is at the bottom center of the map, the most obvious route to find CP 8 is to follow the trail (the black dashes) in a north westerly direction.  Travelling on the trail in this direction, you will hit an intersection with another trail. Shortly after you will come to a man made object (the x—this symbol appears in the index that will accompany the map).  If you count your paces until you hit the second man made object you will be getting a feel for the distance that you will need to travel from the second man made object to the reentrant that CP 8 is on.  Now you need only walk up that reentrant a similar distance and you should be able to easily locate the flag representing CP 8. 

To get to CP 9 from CP 8 you have two choices.  You could run back down the reentrant to the trail and follow north westerly to the stream.  You will know that you are halfway to the stream when you come to another man made object (the x).  It looks like a relatively steep climb to the bend in the stream (contours are close) and it looks like the stream is well defined (the inverted “V’s” are big). The distance from the trail to the stream bend is similar to the distance from the man made object to the stream.  It is important to always have an approximate distance in mind so that you do not waste a lot of time if you overshoot the flag.  If you feel you have gone too far, you probably have.

The other route from CP 8 to CP 9 is to "dead reckon".  This requires you to find the bearing from 8 to 9, which is done by using your compass as a protractor and measuring the “angle” from 8 to 9.  I can show you how to do this with precision before pre-race meeting, but if you look at the map you can see that the angle is almost exactly North West.  Using your compass, see if you can find the precise bearing.  When you have the bearing you can dial that into your compass and—keeping “Red Fred in the Shed”—travel overland from CP 8 and bump right into CP 9 (hopefully).  At the very least, you will bump into the stream and may have to explore a bit to find the flag.

To get from CP 9 to CP 10 the easiest route would be to run down the stream to the trail, past the three man- made objects to the trail intersection.  Continue a little further on the trail and you will find a power line (the yellow-ish swath on the map).  Follow that power line North and East.  When you reach the top of the hill (marked by the circular contour line on the map) you should see the flag for CP 10.  If you start to descend a little and the trail bends to the North, you have gone too far.

However the shortest route from 9 to 10 would be to follow a bearing East South East over land directly to CP 10.  This route would be the shortest and would require little change in elevation.  You would be alerted that you are approaching CP 10 as you ascend a distinct hill.

Study this document and practice reading the map and you should be able to do quite well at the SORCAR.  Good luck!