Weeknight Series – #4

Registration Open

When: Tuesday, June 9, 6-8 pm

Where: Queeny Park. Smith Shelter. Weidman Road entrance, take first left to large parking lot. Looks for banners and signs.

Meet Director: Zdenek Palechek

Meet Info: Yes, we were here a few weeks ago, but Meet Director “Z”, has some more hidden places at Queeny Park that he’d like to share. Plus, with the vegetation completely leafed out, the park will look completely different. We’ll be using the older “manual” punch for this one. Courses are open 6-8 pm but we should be setup and ready before then. Come out and play!

Weeknight Series – Opener (REGISTRATION)

When: Thursday, April 2, 5-8 pm

Where: Queeny County Park. Smith Shelter (Weidman Road Entrance)

Meet Director: Zdenek Palecek

Meet Info: A special opening event for the summer weeknight series. Yes, this one is on Thursday evening (the rest of the summer events should be on Tuesday evenings).

Meet director, Zdenek (or you can call him “Z”), has a little treat setup for us to enjoy at Queeny. It’s a short 10 checkpoint course, visiting all of his favorite locations in the park. If you know Queeny, there are woods, fields, ponds, and plenty of trails and manmade things to keep your navigation on track. This will be “rogaine” style, which means you can visit the checkpoints in any order, and you only have to get as many as you feel like.

He’ll be there before 5:00 for any early birds. Show up and start whenever you want. Yes, there might be a few showers or storms around, but we have a shelter to stay dry before and after. Come out and play!

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 Hwy 141 south. Turn west on Meramec Station Road, then south on Hillsboro Road to parking lot on right. *Note: There is lots of construction. The last half mile of road is completely torn up (it’s temporary gravel). Hillsboro Road is closed south of the parking lot (so you must come from the north). Easiest navigation directions would be to Kraus Farms Equestrian Center. The conservation area parking lot is right next door.

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

Courses: The Yellow course is the best option for beginners, families, and those that want to have an easy walk. Some are off-trail, but not far. The orange course has a mix of easy and difficult checkpoints. It may be harder than a typical orange course, but appropriate for adventure racers working on their navigation. The red course is for the more experienced participants.

Meet Notes:

• This area is popular for horse-back riding. Yield to any horses on the trails and/or let the riders know you are there.
  • All courses will require a creek crossing at the beginning and end. There might be dry spots to cross but getting your shoes wet is likely (and the odds will increase depending on the rain in the days before the event).
  • The map is old. The trail network is about 75% accurate. Some trails have been re-routed and some retired. The only update to the map was to clarify trails for the Yellow course.
  • The mapped vegetation has matured, but vegetation boundaries are still fairly close. The western half of the area has open woods with great visibility and good running.
  • There are numerous “watering holes” for cattle across the area. These are mapped as small ponds. You’ll visit several of them.

Meet Director: Mark Geldmeier mgeldmeier@earthlink.net

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.

Jefferson Barracks County Park isn’t really back in the woods, but it’ll have more woods than our summer events. Note: this event is on Sunday. If you show up on Saturday, you’ll encounter 200 cross-country runners!

Registration Open

Date: Sunday, October 19, 2025

Time: Courses open 11:00 am to 2:00 pm.  You can start at any time.

Location: Jefferson Barracks County Park. General Atkinson Shelter at the southeastern corner of the park. Use navigation software to follow directions to the shelter or look for orienteering signs along Grant road near Hancock Ave.

Meet Director: Mark Geldmeier

Courses: There will be three “point-to-point” courses. You have to go in order. -Yellow Course (Beginner) – 2.1 km, 7 CPs -Orange Course (Intermediate) – 3.4 km, 10 CPs -Green Course (Advanced) – 5.9 km, 17 CPs

About: Jefferson Barracks has a bit of everything.  Open grassy fields, wooded depressions, a small but challenging open woods section, a paved trail, prairie, and some sections of thick green.  Plus museums, monuments, and lots of military history.

With the late summer drought, the vegetation has dried out. Some of the green areas are more runnable than usual (mainly where there is bush honeysuckle).

Questions: Contact Mark Geldmeier (mgeldmeier@earthlink.net)