Team Stories – Smith & Smith

April 19, 2001

Smith & Smith (W.Smith, M.Smith)
2600 points
PC-6 hour
Eco-Endurance Challenge 2001

Point 1 – wet, wet, WET. Caught much of the field here – people were actually sitting on the ground drying out their boots. Deep water, but we realized that staying dry was not an option, so we just carried on, walking ourselves dry as we went.

Point #14 – entered woods a bit early, but lost only a few minutes in total.

Point #13 – approached from southwest, definitely the safest direction. A few extra trails and logging, but we lost no time.

Point #2 – this was a mistake. Considering the thick woods and all the lost elevation and expanded energy, this was definitely NOT worth the paltry 100 points. We didn’t even realize it was worth only 100 points until it was too late – otherwise we would never have gone for it. 20-30 minutes spent here for not much return.

Point #3 – took this from the end of the red trail to the southwest; could have been a tough one, but we were lucky to hit it straight on. Point #7 – this one gave us the most trouble…. It took forever to hit the red trail directly north of #3, and when we did we weren’t sure that we were even on the right trail. Then, there was a new road leading almost directly to the control. We started up it, knowing it was heading in the right direction, but then met another team who were lost, and this threw us off. We entered the woods early and lost 5-10 minutes searching a smaller, unmapped saddle to the south before heading to the correct location.

Point #6 – looked like it was dead easy, but in reality it was a bit tricky. The “opening” was pretty tiny! But we were pace-counting from the main trail, and knew when we were close to the control. From there we opted not to do #9, though if we had started on time, we would have done it I think. Only 1 km of trial in each direction – 20 minutes or less, no problem.

Point #11 – easy trail run.

Point #10 – another easy trail run.

Point #20 – easy location.

Point #21 – an easy spot to find, but coming from the west was a WET approach (waist deep in places…!)

Point #17 – easy, no problems. Here we debated whether or not we could get #16 and #15. We opted to be greedy, which was a mistake… Point #16 – like #2, we should NOT have gone here. The woods were so thick and the area so wet coming from #17 that it was a real waste fo time and energy. Definitely not worth only 100 points. By the time we got this one and climbed the hill, I was out of Gatorade in my Camel-Back and feeling really tired, so we opted to head to the finish, though Mike was still strong enough that he could have visited #15 as well en-route. Oh well – I went through more fluid than I had guessed I would. Optimally we would have gone: 1-13-3-7-6-(8)-9-11-10-20-21-17-15-14.

Will Smith

Will and Mike Smith are both members of the Canadian Orienteering Team and have competed internationally since 1993, representing Canada in Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, England, Scotland and USA. Mike will compte in the World Championships in Finland this summer.

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