Welcome to the St. Louis Orienteering virtual Forest Park event. 

Expect the controls to be in the park by 5pm Thursday

Read the control descriptions – the text descriptions. You will not find #10 if you do not!

There will be an orienteering course setup this weekend where you can print the course map and run the course at your leisure.  Starting at 4pm on Thursday, August 27th you will be able to download and print a pdf version of the map.  The map will have a point-to-point orienteering course marked on it that includes the Start/Finish location as well as 12 additional locations to visit.  With a point-to-point course, you are expected to visit each location (control) in numerical order.  There are multiple route options to get from one control to another, so chose the route of your choice.  Once you see the map, you will see that you could visit all of the controls in a more efficient manner if you didn’t go in numeric order.  With this event, you are on your honor to go in order if you are going to submit your time for the competition. 

A couple of notes about the course and about Forest Park:

•   Forest Park is a busy park, and we will be putting out temporary controls on Thursday afternoon.  They will be small signs with the control number in a small ziplock bag.  We’ve made an attempt to keep them out of high traffic areas, but it is possible that these controls might get removed.  If you’re in the right place and don’t see it, just move on.

•   There are not any expectations that you would be in rough or wet terrain.  You should not need to go through any high grasses, and the rivers and lakes in Forest Parks are out of bounds.  As much as you may want to, you cannot swim across the lakes!

•   I have attached detailed descriptions of what you will find at the control location.  These descriptions are more detailed that normal orienteering controls because we’ve tried to “hide” controls from the general public so they hopefully will stay in place all weekend.   (specifically, look at control #10!)

There are currently many 12 foot tall arches throughout the course that have been added to the park for the Shakespeare Festival. These are NOT added to the map, but enjoy the arches!

If you want to run this like a real, hard core orienteering event, print your map but don’t look at it until you get to the start and you’ve started your stopwatch.  You can look at the control descriptions ahead of time. Of course, this is not required!

Email your results to Bryan.Niehaus@gmail.com with names and times if you’d like your results published on our website and you can see how you did compared to others.

When:

Start:  5pm, Thursday August 27

End:  8am, Monday August 31 (control will be collected sometime Monday)

Start / Finish:

The Start / Finish is at the Southwest corner of the Dwight Davis Tennis Center in Forest Park (out the outside of the fence).  There is a large parking lot just to the east of the tennis courts and it’s a short walk to the start / finish.

Parking Lot: Google Maps Link

Control Locations

Start/Finish:  The southwest corner of the tennis courts on the outside of the fence, near the corner light pole

1 Next to lake, landscape boundary

2  South end of stone wall

3  Boundary between field and forest (look at trees at edge of forest)

4  Boundary between forest a open field. 

5  Next to lake, vegetation boundary.  Very short trail to get to lake.

6 Southwest side of stone wall.  Walk down to stream and look left.

7  Vegetation boundary – open field and thick grasses

8  Bottom of stone wall

9  Dead tree in rough tall grasses. 

10 Eastern most tree in sidewalk triangle.   (from under the tree, look UP in the branches)

11  Distinctive tree west side

12  Stony ground east of river boundary. 

The Orienteering kites have been set! They’re actually wooden stakes about .5 meters tall.

Enjoy the free course from now til 9/14. You can email ke5nry@gmail.com with your results and course comments. Remember its a sprint, so we should see some 5 minute miles! 😉 wink wink

Let’s Orienteer!

Instead of having a traditional meet we are offering a do it yourself kind of meet. This event will be self timed, individual course. Starting Thursday July 30 til Sunday Aug 2, 2 courses will be temporarily set at Creve Coeur Park. The maps are posted below.

There are two courses available. A 5k “sprint” course and a 3k family course. Some of the checkpoints are the same. Once you download the map, print it and then head to the park.

The Start and finish will be at the north end of the parking lot just west of Mallard Lake(that’s the southern lake). It’s the same parking lot as the Lakehouse Bar and Grill

After you do the course, send us an email with your results and will keep em posted.

Below is one of the checkpoints you’ll be looking for. These temporary checkpoints are Orange and in a ziplock bag and stand 2’ high on the ground. Good Luck

Lets have some orienteering fun at Rockwoods Range. In lieu of a formal meet we are setting a challenge that starts today and ends 4/10. Complete this course anytime and post to results to either facebook or email jeffro1978@charter.net. Then we will post the results on our website. After this challenge will be another challenge in the same park using different controls.

4-5-20 Update: Roundhouse parking lot is now closed. If you want to do the course in it’s original format, you will have to park in one of the two parking lots off of Fox Creek Rd. to the West of the Range and navigate to the starting point. Have fun!

If you don’t have a map of Rockwoods Range, go to our products page and purchase one for $5.

This current challenge is going to be 7K long. Start and Finish will be at the western gate next to the gravel parking lot 300 meters south of hencken and allenton rd.

The Control/checkpoint order is 6, 27, 31, 9, 28, 13, 29, 16, 15, then Finish.

Course notes: there is a new gravel trail that looks more like the pic below. If you adjust your map to look like below it will help approach 31

Complete this course from our map and send us your results! Good luck!

This event is postponed. Please check back for a later date, maybe even in the fall.

The Boy Scouts are holding their annual Scout O. They have opened the beautiful park to the public for this event.

There will be a 60 minute Score-O and a beginner hike/run course available. $20 per person for adults. This is a free event for SLOC members.

Registration starts at 8:30 am

We will be starting the Summer Sprint Series in August. Look for a shorter self service event Thursday thru Sunday each week. For more info about each individual meet click on the event. We will post info as we iron out details for parks, meet directors, and courses.

Thanks for your interest and patience as we figure out how to keep everyone Orienteering!

The next challenge in our social distancing Orienteering challenge is here! Complete this course anytime between now and 4/23/20

Start at 11, then go 10, 8, 26, 25, 24, 4, 5, 7, 34, 33, 32, and end at 13!

We recommend parking at the south Greenrock TH gravel parking lot and walk to the start at checkpoint 11. Then once you’ve completed the course at 13 please feel free to enjoy your cool down hike back to your vehicle.

If your old map is like David Frei’s and is all marked up, you can purchase a new map from our website. An email will come with a map to print at your leisure.

Feel free to post your times and photos on our Facebook event page or email jeffro1978@charter.net

Hope you enjoy the course designed by David Frei. Yes that’s the name you yell when you get cut by a briar or your quads are burning from the small hill in front of you.

Boy Scouts are sharing a wonderful park to run side be side events for the scouts and the public. This is your yearly opportunity to explore a gem of a park.

Gary Thompson is back to set another awesome day in the woods. You won’t want to miss a truly great park for 8hrs! It’ll be a rogaine style event with an 8 hour time limit. Checkpoints are worth different values

Online registration only(below), last day to register for guaranteed shirt and map Feb 20. Last day to register for meet Feb 25

Lake of the Ozarks State Park picnic shelter

6:45 am pre race meeting, 7:00 am map distribution, 8:00 am race start. 4 pm all must be finished

Teams of 2-5 people(email jeffro1978@charter.net if want solo)

Safety Gear required: watch, cell phone, emergency blanket, nutrition for 8hrs

Quality Inn($70 approx., wifi, breakfast buffet, exercise room)

Holiday Inn Express($100 approx., wifi, breakfast)

Lake of the Ozarks Campground(restrooms and shower closed for winter)

Mcdonald’s(24hr) and Starbucks are within 15 minute drive

$75 per person(for club and non club members), includes event shirt, maps, post meet food

Register Here