You never know what kind of conditions you’ll get when entering the dragon’s lair. When we last attempted this starting HQ location, the roads were icy and the temps frigid. But this year was one of the best weather days you can get in the month of February. There were 68 intrepid racers joining the quest to placate the mysterious beast. But, alas, the dragon would not be tamed. No one was able to clear the entire course. Though everyone had great adventures and quest-filled stories to share.

Thanks to Gary and Ellen Thompson for all the effort and care they pour into making this event spectacular. The post-race banquet was plentiful, the fleece jackets smartly adorned, and the event details precise. Thank you to all that attended and made this so much fun!

Pictures courtesy of Kate Geisen and others. Lots more pictures on the SLOC FB page…

https://www.facebook.com/stlouisorienteering

Here’s the details of CP’s visited by every participant.

Congratulations to Brian Rodenbeck our overall winner. Thanks to everyone who assisted in making this a success including Brian Hey, Zdneck, Bryan Niehaus, and Hannah and Amber at Wyman for the use of the Enterprise Building and access to the property. It was a miserable day of setting the course on Saturday but was just about perfect weather for Sunday’s meet (and Monday’s course clean up). See below for full results as well as the podium for each division. Please let me know if you see anything you have a question about.

Babler Cold Nose O’ – 2026 Edition

A foreboding forecast led to this event being postponed for a week. Those of you familiar with SLOC events know postponement is very rare! We appreciate everyone remaining flexible with the event date and apologize to those who were unable to attend due to the change. The following week brought slippery, fluffy, snow-covered surfaces and single digit temperatures at the start, but also a stable forecast and beautiful sunshine. We’ll take it! Thanks to all of you for braving the slick slopes of Babler State Park.

Many thanks also to Rick Armstrong for invaluable course consultation, John Vogel for extensive control setting and pick-up support, and Eric Buckley for the awesome new map.

White Course

Individual

Catherine Kuehnle                        43:29

Tim Gutmann                                1:17:06

Kevin Paubel                                2 controls

Group

The Gordon Family                      53:57

Mitchell Gordon group                  55:41

Silver – Marquette HS ROTC       1:06:59

Clarice Pavlak group                    1:23:48

Orange Course

Individual

Steven Gleason                           1:12:24

Mary Piper                                   1:16:11

Mike Kraujalis                              1:36:52

Group

Sean Hoffman group                    1:20:00 estimated

Jacob Peterson group                  1:55:45

Hull group                                    2:22:28

Green Course

Individual

Eric Buckley                                 1:13:03

Ken DeBeer                                 2:10:38

Group

Haveman group                           1:46:53

Kelly Bailey group                        3 controls

Red Course

Individual

Brian Rodenbeck                         1:15:36

Zdenek Palacek                           1:20:07

Nathan Graves                             1:23:41

Matt Scherrer                               1:46:17

Nathan Goff                                 1:51:39

Jeff Sona                                     2:01:09

Robert Bart                                  2:44:46

Lara Houseman                           7 controls

Zach Althaus                                7 controls

Group

Justin Freihaut group                    2:13:27                   

Thank you to all who braved the favorable weather today at the 2025 edition of the St. Louis Orienteering Club’s Holiday O’ Meet!

Livelox: https://www.livelox.com/Events/Show/176818/Broemmelsiek-Holiday-2025

After a blast of early-season snowfall swept through the area region early Saturday morning, our Thanksgiving O-meet was forced to take an unplanned pause. With the snowfall leading to Cuirve River State Park’s temporary closure, this meant a last-minute rescheduling or the meet was required. Thanks to all the flexibility of our participants and volunteers, we were able to regroup Sunday morning and enjoy a crisp, bright day of orienteering through a winter wonderland. 

Results

Thank you to everyone who came out and competed on the rescheduled date. Congratulations to all finishers—conditions were still soft underfoot, but that didn’t slow down some impressive performances.

Acknowledgments

A meet like this is only possible because of amount of behind-the-scenes effort. A big Thank You goes out to Mark Geldmeier for his numerous quick communication updates and overall guidance, Derek Hebda for spending many hours in the woods meticulously verifying the course to ensure everything on the map matched the ground and Ken Debeer and Jim Huss for clearing the course. 

We look forward to seeing everyone at the next event—hopefully under calmer skies.

Thanks to Jeff and Carrie Sona for putting on a great event at Cliff Cave. And a shout out to Brian Rodenbeck for helping with everything from setup to control pickup. It was a pretty simple event, two hours to find as many of the CP’s as you could. Sounds easy. But the numerous depressions, sinkholes, and meandering trails can easily get you turned around. I’m sure everyone had the experience of dropping into one of the depressions confident the orange/white flag would quickly be spotted…only to find…nothing, Boo! But at least there were snacks, candy, and friendly conversation at the finish. Hope everyone had a great time!

After showers and thunderstorms the day before, we awoke to bright blue skies and cool temperatures. Arriving at the park, we were concerned about the “hunt in progress” signs, but orienteering participants are an intrepid lot, and everyone went out anyway! (the hunt didn’t start until the next day).

It was so much fun to see all the excited faces! Thanks to everyone that came out. Hope you had fun playing in the park full of varied terrain and so much history. A special thanks to Anne Schrupp for running the registration. Thanks to Jeff Sona, Carrie Sona, and the Washington High School cadets that helped put up banners and organize the registration table. Thanks to Brian Rodenbeck and Josh Borgmeyer for control pickup.

It was a warm and wonderful evening of orienteering in Kirkwood Park. Our hard working volunteers welcomed a mix of returning regulars plus many new bright-eyed faces to the sport of orienteering. We had a tremendous turnout of over 160 participants this year, almost doubling our normal volume. Thank you to all who joined us and navigated with curiosity and excitement. Your energy lit up the night! A big thanks to our SLOC and family volunteers who took the increased volume in stride. My apology on any map delays and on control #23 being on the SE corner of the lake instead of the SW corner of the lake. We hope to see everyone again next year for this annual St. Louis Orienteering Club classic! ~Mary Piper(Frei)

Preliminary Results:

Thanks to all of you, 80 racers over 38 teams who toed the line at the inaugural CC4 Adventure Race. On behalf of SLOC and the race directing team that put this event on, we are very grateful for your participation. Prelim results are posted. If you see any discrepancies, please report them to us at contourline@stlouisorienteering.org ASAP.

A few housekeeping notes. I’ve created a shared Google drive with pictures. If you have photos, please send them to me by email and I’ll get them posted. We also have several items in the lost and found that are pretty nice. Two Kanpas compasses, two more compasses, a pair of Prana pants, sunglasses and a waterbottle. This stuff is all in the gear box we bring to the meets so if you are the owner of these items please reach out or show up at the Kirkwood Night O scheduled for September 13th. There are several nice items in there from the Babler O meet earlier this year and other stuff along the way.

If you have any feedback for us, please share that too. While the race directing team has participated in countless ARs and put on many O meets, this was our first go at this type of race and as we contemplate both our near-term fall schedule and the 2026 landscape, we’d like to know what you are interested in seeing. And, we are always looking for volunteers to help with our regular meets so if you want to give back to the community and take the a lead, or even supporting role, in directing a race, we’d love to have you.

Many thanks and congratulations to each one of you!

Attached is a more detailed set of results with timing from each leg for those who want to go into a little more detail.

Livelox: https://www.livelox.com/Events/Show/164603/Marquette-HS-2025