Events

Here are the upcoming events for the St. Louis Orienteering Club.  For events that are open for registration, please go to our Registration Page.  Please register in advance in order to reserve a map and epunch stick.

Greensfelder Permanent Orienteering Course Map is located here.

2026 Membership Registration is now OPEN.  Standard membership provides a discount at each event (even cheaper if registering 48 hours ahead of time).  Subscription membership provides free entry to most events.  Review the membership page for details.

  • 2026-03-29 Forest 44 Conservation Area

    It’s been a long time since we’ve orienteered here. Forest 44 Conservation Area is known as the gateway to the Ozarks. One of the closest locations to St. Louis with a typical Ozark type ecology. Once a cattle ranch, it was purchased by the Missouri Department of Conservation in 1990. There are spring-fed creeks, a network of trails, and a mix of flat areas and large hills. This time of year will still have great visibility in the woods, but with a splash of color from the early blooming red buds. Come out and play!

    Date: Sunday, March 29

    Location: Forest 44 Conservation Area. East entrance parking lot. From I-44, exit 141 south. Turn west on Meramec Station Road, south on Hillsboro Road to parking lot on right. 653 Hillsboro Rd, High Ridge, MO 63049. *Note: There is a lot of construction and “road closed” signs. Despite the construction, you can get to the parking lot (it’s just past Kraus Farms Equestrian Center).

    Time: Courses open at 10:00 am. First start 10:00 am. Last start Noon. Courses close at 2:00 pm.

    Courses: 

    • Short (appropriate for beginners and families)
    • Intermediate (a challenge but not too long)
    • Advanced (long and challanging)

    Meet Notes: This area is popular for horse-back riding. Yield to any horses on the trails. Additional meet notes will be posted a week before the event.

    Meet Director: Mark Geldmeier

  • 2026-04-25 Night O’ & 2026-04-26 Middle Distance

    Two orienteering events in one! 1) a Night-O event on Saturday evening. The navigation is harder but it’s a ton of fun. 2) Middle course distances on Sunday morning. A little shorter but technical orienteering.

    Registration is open. There are three registration options so you can register for just one of the events or both. If you’re planning to camp in the group campsite, just put a note “camping” in the comments note.

    Meet Director: Eric Buckley

    Location: Hawn State Park. Saturday night start at group campground. Sunday morning start at day use area.

    Meet Details:

    There is no official meet hotel as we hope most people will camp (for free) at the group site; we had a great time staying up waaaaay too late around the fire last year. For those who don’t want to camp, I would suggest Farmington. There’s a Hampton and Holiday Inn at the intersection of 67 & 32. More budget minded folks can find a Quality Inn and Baymont half a mile further south on 67. The gate OUT of the campsite is automated, so you can get out even after midnight.

    Saturday: Registration opens at 7:00PM. Feel free to arrive earlier and get your camp set up as you probably won’t want to do that in the dark. We’ll start folks on the beginner or intermediate course as early as 7:30PM but encourage waiting until the sun is down to get the full night-O experience. Advanced course will start at 8:30. All courses close at 11:00PM. Reg and start at the group campsite (just north of the main campground).

    Sunday: Registration opens at 10:00AM with starts following shortly after. Courses close at 1:00PM. Reg and start in the day use area just west of the main campground.

    Course stats:

    Night (standard distance):

    Note that the night courses are slightly shorter than they would be during the day, but they are not “dumbed down”. The Red course is very technical. Orange is solid intermediate (similar to Adventure Racing difficulty). Yellow is fairly straightforward, but you will go off trail.

    Day (middle distance):

    Middle distance is intended to be the most technical orienteering and these courses reflect that.

  • 2026-05-05 – Summer Sprint @ Shaw Park

    Join us for the start of the Summer Sprint Series. As we get closer to summer, we move our events to smaller local parks sprint events which are intended to be shorter in length with more fine grained navigation.

    For this event, there will be two separate sprints. Everyone can participate in both.

    The first will be a traditional sprint – a point to point course that is designed to have winning times between 15-20 minutes. If you are walking the course, it may take as long as 40 minutes.

    For those of you who know the race director, he sometimes experiments with other formats during the summer sprint series. This course is only for fun, and the exact details won’t be revealed until the event itself. But – you should bring your GPS tracking device for this event – your Garmin, your Apple watch, or even your phone with an app like Strava or LiveLox.

    AND there is more: The SLOC Board spring board meeting will be held at the pavilion directly following the event. (~7:30 pm start) …. See more detail here

    Date/Time: May 5, 2026 – 6pm first start

    Location: Shaw Park, Clayton, MO

    Meet Director: Bryan Niehaus

    We will use Livelox for sharing routes for this event. If interest in sharing and analyzing your route, get setup using these instructions. https://stlouisorienteering.org/livelox-publishing-my-route-virtually-watch-event/

  • 2026-05-05 — Spring Board Meeting

    The SLOC Board spring board meeting will be held at the pavilion directly following the event. (~7:30 pm start) The Board meeting is open to all SLOC members and you are encouraged to attend and participate. At meeting, the business of the club is discussed and decisions are made – everything from creation of new maps, club merchandise, educational opportunities to support the community, and our financials. If you are interested in how the club operates, want to be more involved, have ideas that can make us better, please plan on joining us. It’s pretty casual – bring chairs or a blanket and your favorite beverage.

    Who are the Board Members?

  • 2026-8-29 Creve Coeur 4 Adventure Race

    It’s back for year 2. This USARA sanctioned adventure race will be once again located in Creve Coeur Park in St. Louis. More details to follow but mark your calendar for the date which has been reserved with the park. Registration to open in the late spring.