Friday, March 29, 2013

Upcoming Orienteering

Get outside and enjoy things!


The cherry blossoms are out and the sun is shining.  It's time to get out and hunt for things.  One of the best choices when the weather is good is orienteering.  Orienteering runs year-round of course, but when the days get longer you get different types of events in a wider variety of locations.  Here are some of the ones I'm looking forward to the most:

Cascade Orienteering Club puts on classic orienteering events year-round, including a very nice winter/scholastic series that takes place in parks around Puget Sound.  But they go much further afield in the summer, as their events calendar makes clear.  Their calendar includes events from all over the Pacific Northwest and beyond (many of which are not put on by Cascade), in case you want to drive to Bend for a weekend or fly to New York for the US Orienteering Championships.  But closer to home, they are putting on events in Fishtrap Lake (near Spokane) and Salmon La Sac (near Cle Elum) in June.  Both are beautiful locations, although with highly different terrain.  I particularly like Fishtrap Lake, located in what is known as the channeled scablands - think Grand Coulee minus the giant dam, and lots of sagebrush.  This terrain is much more open than a Northwest forest, so you can typically see a lot of the features from a distance and can more easily judge the best route to where you're going.  And it's very pretty.

All this, plus mussels


Much closer to home, Ft. Ebey (near Coupeville on Whidbey Island) is well-known as one of the most scenic (and easily accessible) areas on the Sound, plus they have great shellfish nearby (Penn Cove mussels and oysters).

On Wednesday nights in the summer, the Sammammish Orienteering Club puts on a series of evening events at Eastside Parks.  Depending on your tolerance for crossing floating bridges during rush hour, these are usually quite enjoyable events that also usually include a free picnic meal afterwards.  My favorite spots are Big Finn Hill Park in Kirkland, partly because there's no floating bridge involved, and Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island:  only half a floating bridge to cross (you can take the express lanes from Seattle, because you're going to Mercer Island), plus it takes place at the height of the hot season (ha!) right next to a swimming beach.

Meridian Geographics puts on a number of races, including the Street Scramble series, the Seattle Night and Day Challenge, and at least one rogaine (this year, the  Rock Creek Ramble).  Rock Creek Ramble is also in the channeled scablands, and Night and Day is hard to pass up, but I'm going to miss both this year.  Of the Street Scrambles (urban scavenger hunts, basically), Fremont Oktoberfest should be awesome, since I always set the course.  Queen Anne is coming up tomorrow, and should be hilly fun.  Either you relish the hills and staircases, or you have to think ahead as to how to avoid them.  Gig Harbor is also hilly (and free!), but the most intriguing to me is Anderson Island, a small island in the South Sound.  I've never been there, and at roughly 2 x 3 miles in size, it seems like you should be able to cover most of the island in three hours.

Similar to Street Scrambles are the Hood Hunts, which are smaller in scale and (nearly always) free.  The season opener is in the North Creek area of Bothell (by UW Bothell, although I'm not sure if that will be part of the map).  There will also be two events in Edmonds:  May 18 (which is a fundraiser and thus has an entry fee), and August 21 (which is the usual cost:  nada).  My pick for the best of the Seattle Hood Hunts is Montlake, because it looks like you'll get to explore at least part of the Arboretum.


Photo credits

Ft. Ebey: ethicalcannibal via photopin cc

Friday, March 22, 2013

Corey's Back: Big Dig #2

Look for this apple core if you like shoveling



Cedar Grove Compost is back with another Big Dig contest.  Just like last year, you look at participating retailers for a small poster with a picture of Corey, the anthropomorphic apple core pictured above.  Input the code on the poster at the form on the Compost Days website, and get a coupon for a free bag of compost, and a chance to participate in The Big Dig, where you dig around in a big pile of compost for more interesting prizes.  Last year I won a garden consult and a gift card at Sky Nursery.

A few things have changed since last year.  First of all, there will be 3 Big Digs instead of just one, on 3 successive Saturdays, one in Lynnwood, one in Ballard, and one in Rainier Beach.  Probably as a consequence, the sites with Coreys are more spread out, reaching all the way up to Arlington, with sites on the Eastside as well.  Less dramatically, almost all the Corey sites this year are stores with Garden sections, so there's no need to go looking for bulletin boards in the back of restaurants like last year.  And the codes this year are no longer 4 digit numbers, but rather things that can be composted (which probably means you can guess some of them without actually visiting the locations).

Unfortunately, as of this writing, many of the sites that are supposed to have the Corey posters up do not.  I've visited 10 of them so far, and only 5 have had the posters available.  4 of the missing 5 didn't have any sign that the promotion was underway, even though it was supposed to start last weekend.  So either put things off for a few days, or be prepared to be disappointed.


Vital strategy point if you get to dig:  wear pants you don't mind throwing out


Strategy


Strategy-wise, it's a no-brainer to go to your nearest location and get the code, as it basically gets you a free bag of compost (coupon mailed later, so you can't do it all in one trip).  But let's assume you want to participate in the Big Dig.  You should probably read the rules, which contain a number of interesting wrinkles that might affect your strategy.

First of all, you can enter up to 30 times, and each entry increases your chance of being in a Big Dig, so you should enter as often as you can.  There are 3 distinct drawings for the 3 Big Digs, so if you can attend all 3, the logical strategy is to get your entries in as soon as possible so that you have as many chances to be drawn as possible (entries that aren't drawn stay in the pool of entries to be possibly drawn later).

But actually, it's not clear this is the best strategy because of another rule:  unclaimed prizes in the first Big Dig will be buried in the second Big Dig.  And unclaimed prizes in the second Big Dig will be buried in the third.  So maybe you want to be drawn later, since later Digs will have more good prizes.  A lot of this, I think, will depend on how they run the Big Digs.  In last year's contest, they basically let people dig until they found a prize chest.  The new rules say the diggers get 90 seconds, and, if they don't find a chest, they just get another bag of compost.  Given how difficult it was to find prizes last year, I suspect this will be relaxed; the first box wasn't found last year until about the 5th minute of digging, and I doubt they're going to let the first Digs finish without someone winning a good prize.  Still, I would rather be in the 2nd or 3rd Big Dig than the 1st, as I suspect they're going to have many details to iron out and you might not want to be in the Dig where they do their initial ironing.

Personally, I can only attend one of the Big Digs, so I'm going to time my entries accordingly.  If you can't attend them all, you should do the same.  The first drawing (for the March 30th Big Dig) only includes entries received by March 26.  The second drawing (for the April 7 Dig) includes entries received by April 2.  The deadline for the last drawing (for the April 14 Dig) is April 10.  So if you definitely want the second Dig, save up your entries and submit them March 27-April 2, and if you want the third dig, only submit them April 3-10.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Adventure Run tonight

The puzzle-hunt-contest season for the year really gets underway tonight, with the first First Thursday Adventure Run of the year.  The format is simple:  they give you a map with a dozen or so checkpoints, and at every checkpoint you get a raffle ticket (or 2 or 3 or 4).  The raffle starts an hour after the event starts, so you want to be back by then if you want to win prizes.  If the past is any guide, there will be dozens of prizes worth a collective few thousands of dollars.  Plus you can drink a good beer while you wait, and there's an after party with another, smaller raffle.  Since many of the checkpoints are within a few blocks of the start/finish (at Road Runner Sports, Green Lake), you don't even have to run.

Here are a few tips to maximize your chances of winning:


  1. Buy a T-shirt.  If you buy a shirt, you get double tickets.  Last year, the shirt cost $24, which is expensive, but you got a nice technical shirt as well as a pint glass, and if you go to only a few runs, odds are it will pay for itself with a gift certificate or two.  Also, you can loan the shirt to a friend or spouse if you can't make it.
  2. Go to the runs where fewer people are likely to show up.  They give out the prizes whether people are there or not, so your best odds of winning are early in the year (when fewer people know about it) and/or on a day when the weather is bad.  They have a bag check, so pack a few extra layers and change into some warm clothing while you wait to collect your loot.
  3. Attend the after party.  If you buy food and/or a drink at the after party (the details here are hazy; ask if they don't make it clear), you get a raffle ticket.  Typically there are only a couple of dozen raffle tickets here, so your odds are particularly good.  On the other hand, if it's in the middle of summer and the after party location is packed, feel free to skip it.
  4. Poke around the vendors before the race starts.  They have raffle tickets to give out, but you may not want to 'pay the price'.  The price is usually that you put your name on a mailing list, but it could be something as simple as trying a free sample or as complicated as checking out a pair of loaner shoes to run in.
  5. Figure out how to organize your raffle tickets.  When the raffle is going on, you can't rifle through your tickets quickly enough to tell if you've won.  A popular strategy is to get a long strip of tape and tape them into one long band of ticket 'ribbons'.  I used to do this, then decided a better solution was to  just record the ticket numbers and colors (e.g., White 2743).  But writing while running is difficult, so this time I'm trying to use my new Android phone to my advantage:  I downloaded a speech to text app called ListNote, and hope to speak the numbers into the phone as I go.  This will save me some time if it works.  Whatever you do, group your tickets/numbers by the color of the ticket, as they are announced that way ("Blue 7387").
    Another way to save time with tickets is to separate them in advance.  Each ticket comes in two halves.  For the raffle, you hold on to one half, while you turn in the other.  Rather than spending time at the finish tearing up your tickets, you can do it while jogging or waiting for stoplights, but you have to be careful.  You should have 2 containers, one for the halves you want to keep (doesn't matter which half) and one for the halves to turn in.  They usually give you a ziplock bag that works for 1 of the containers; bring another one or something similar for the other.  Also, if you get multiple tickets at a checkpoint, you want to separate the ones you turn in, but keep together the ones you keep.  If this is too difficult to handle while you're jogging, best to just finish early and do it at the finish line rather than potentially spoiling all your tickets.
    Finally, be sure to protect your tickets from water (rain, sweat, Slip and Slide checkpoints [those come later in the year]).  Don't just shove them in your pocket
  6. Visit the Secret Checkpoint.  One checkpoint is revealed only online before the event, and it's usually worth more than 1 ticket (and hence, worth visiting).  Often you will need to say a 'password' to get the tickets.  See the Facebook event page for the location and password.
    Cascade Orienteering Club also has an 'orienteering' checkpoint, which you can checkout on their Facebook page in advance, or by visiting their tent in the start/finish area before the event begins.
  7. Have a route planned.  This requires a bit of knowledge, and it helps to have run a few of these before, but the checkpoint locations are usually at businesses only, and there are only a few possible business districts nearby.  The most popular locations have been the businesses near Ravenna Blvd/Green Lake (i.e., the start), north Green Lake (i.e., Duke's), Phinney Ridge, Stone/45th, Tangletown, 65th and Latona, and Roosevelt near 65th.  Can you run around Green Lake in an hour?  Can you run around the lake and climb Phinney Ridge in an hour?  Those are often the two best routes.  Another good basic route is the south side of Green Lake, down Stone to 45th, to Tangletown, then Roosevelt and back.  Note that the nearby checkpoints are often mobbed at the start and quiet near the end, and Roosevelt is close enough to get mobbed easily, so ending with Roosevelt and the checkpoints near the start is usually a good idea.
    Also note that they usually reveal the location of the after party in advance, and that place usually has a checkpoint.  So with that checkpoint plus the Secret Checkpoint you know at least 2 locations for sure.
  8. Group locations based on the number of tickets they will give you, and evaluate your route based on that.  If Roosevelt gives you 5 tickets and Phinney Ridge 4, and you can't do both, you probably want to skip Phinney Ridge.
  9. If you have a smartphone, register in advance.  They will mail a link to the map to your phone, which will save you having to write down the locations.  Supposedly it will also route you to locations, but I doubt that's very useful.
Check-in starts tonight (March 7) at 5pm.  Run is at 6pm.  Raffle at 7pm,  After party at around 7:30 at Tacos Guaymas.  Hope to see you tonight!