A beautiful occurrence during a rainstorm can be found in the woods. Take a seemingly temperate ancillary creek bed or the persuasion of a ditch, curious in location but otherwise innocuous. With rain brings them to life, their function suddenly apparent and stunningly simple. The normal still and patience of the woods, the chatter of squirrel activity, replaced with the collective notes of water navigating branches, fallen leaves, and rock-laden passageways known as reentrants. It’s this way with water.

Another occurrence you’ll find in the woods during a rainstorm is orienteering controls that were placed and carefully prepared before the rain. The lovely earth bank holding CP 12 is now a small pond. What of CP 8 you ask? It was placed across a gentle, beautiful, and meandering creek easily crossed by confident leap. Today, however, we find this creek busy ferrying the day’s rain and requiring its visitors to partake in what some would call wading. 

Thank you to the adventurous souls who came to play in the woods today. When they arrived they carried a countenance steeped in thought, clothing choices, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead. When they finished the course, all bore a wide smile, a countenance flushing with “I just did that”, and tales regaling this seldom experienced beauty of a rainstorm in the woods. 

The 2024 Babler O’ Meet hosted by Yvonne was another exceptional event to kick off the new orienteering season. With temperatures in the single digits and a light layer of snow highlighting the terrain, 20+ brave soles took to the hills to test their navigation and route planning skills.

Our many thanks to all the volunteers and participants for making this a fine event on a crisp and cold January day. There were great discussions of route choices, terrain challenges, frozen compass’ (actually frozen, not the awesome and aptly named team below), and eyewear selection along with anti-fogging methods. What a great group of fun loving people!

After a morning of moderate to heavy rainfall, the rain stopped just before the start of registration and held off until after the conclusion of the event. This we were thankful for! The results of the rain were predictable; nice and muddy conditions. We had a great group of patrons at this event, all willing and cheerful to explore a Jerry Young-curated course; a course designed to test your route planning with the unrelenting contours joyfully ready to levy judgement on your selection. With only one hour to obtain 26 available points, this was a challenging course indeed!

Our many thanks to those who came out to play in the woods with us!