We, the Navigators, Remember
Posted Sun, July 25, 2010 - 10:21 PM
hawaii, orienteering
(photo by Will Kyselka)
The Hawai‘i news
has been busy lately with the news that
Mau Piailug has passed away at the age of 76. He was the navigator of the
Hokule‘a on its maiden voyage from Hawai‘i to Tahiti, a teacher to David Lewis, Nainoa Thompson, and many others, and largely responsible for ensuring the
survival of traditional Polynesian oceanic navigation into the 21st century.
Although my wary personal relationship with water may keep me from ever setting foot on a voyaging canoe, I'm still amazed by what he, his peers, and his
students have been able to accomplish.
Knowledge can be a fragile thing, at times. Thank you for keeping it alive, Mau.
William O'Brien - New and Improved!
Posted Thu, April 22, 2010 - 9:04 PM
orienteering
Sunday was the orienteering meet at William O'Brien, on what's basically a completely different map than the one we had three years ago.
Two years I entirely redid the base contours using LIDAR from Washington County, and last year Kevin T. came to town and quite a bit of
field checking and vegetation remapping. So now it's back to being pretty accurate, although there's still an excessive amount of raspberry
vines that, if you're not careful, leaves you looking like you lost a battle with an angry cat.
My legs were still a little cashed from the Trail Mix the day before, and staying up until 4:30 AM the previous night didn't help matters
either. However, I am no longer allowed to claim certain things
as extenuating circumstances.
Read More...
Terrace Oaks Meet
Posted Sun, April 11, 2010 - 8:38 PM
orienteering
The local 2010 orienteering season is officially in full swing! This weekend was the meet at Terrace Oaks Park in Burnsville, set by
none other than my fellow Gnome Hunter, Dave Swanson. Terrace Oaks is a small but fun park with surprisingly large hills and a mess of confusing
trails. Its main drawback is that it's fully infested with buckthorn - pretty much the whole map apart from open areas is medium green, and you
have you protect your eyes as you sometimes swim through the undergrowth. Nevertheless, it's still often faster to cut corners between trails
rather than running all the way around.
I ran the 6.5 km Red, and in a small park like that, Dave had to set a "superball" course to get the requisite distance. There were 19 controls,
all E-punch, and I was bouncing from wall to wall, so to speak.
Map of April 3, 2010 Terrace Oaks course - Click to enlarge
As usual, race details below the fold.
Read More...
A Sprint at Forest Park
Posted Tue, March 9, 2010 - 9:58 PM
orienteering, video
Last weekend I headed down to St. Louis with a dozen other MNOCers for the
Gateway Grunt
orienteering weekend - a sprint at Forest Park on Friday, a middle distance and sprint at Hawn State Park on Saturday, capped off with
the 16-kilometer goat-style "Grunt" on Sunday. After the success of my
Possum Trot
video, I was definitely planning to wear my
helmet cam
for all the races. So here's the first installment - a full, unedited video of the Friday sprint. It works a lot better if you bring up
the map and follow along.
It's a large video, so give it a couple minutes to load, and please excuse the rough audio. There is one epithet at about 4:55 in,
when I realize a silly parallel error, but so far the video has proven I'm much less... expressive than I think I am on-course.
Click on the still frame to play.
We, the Navigators - Part I
The day before I left Hawaii, Annie and I were browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble before she headed to work next door. I was perusing the
local interest shelves and I bought this book for the plane ride home:
Its author, David Lewis,
has had years of experience sailing the world's oceans. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he undertook a study of
the fast vanishing art of indigenous navigation across the open expanses of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. He sought out native navigators across the
Pacific and learned many of their techniques in the most effective way possible - by actually voyaging with them for many days at a time and essentially
becoming apprenticed to them. In 1976, as part of the bicentennial celebrations in Hawaii, he was one of the crew members who sailed the
65-foot voyaging canoe Hōkūle‘a (which is the Hawai‘ian name for Arcturus)
from Hawaii to Tahiti using only traditional techniques, no instruments, and no Western knowledge.
In the book, he details the essential techniques he learned from these very competent navigators, and tries to convey the completely different worldview
that informed their practice. In particular, none of the navigators he worked with were ever really able to understand nautical charts, something we would
consider absolutely basic to the task. Nevertheless, it was pretty amazing to find so many correspondences between the navigational techniques of the islanders
and the techniques many of us use every time we run an O-course, or do an adventure race.
More detail (much more!) below the fold.
Read More...
Just Another Winter Day
Posted Sun, January 10, 2010 - 6:54 PM
orienteering
The first orienteering event of 2010 this afternoon. It was our usual winter format - a mass start, 90-minute score-O - which meant that
everybody would get back at about the same time, and there wouldn't be any late finishers holding up control retrieval on these short winter
days. The morning started out a bit raw, in the teens with a southwest breeze.
Map of January 10, 2010 Lake Elmo course - Click to enlarge.
As usual, much much more behind the link.
Read More...
Possum Trot Video
Posted Sat, January 9, 2010 - 9:10 PM
orienteering, video
For your viewing pleasure. It's a little bit bumpy, but that's the nature of running on uneven terrain.
Click on the still frame to play.
Possum Trot XIII - Part I
Knob Noster State Park, in the beautiful state of Missouri, was the site of my first Possum Trot, way back in 2002. I think it was
just me, Ian, and Brian May at the time, and the other two had decent runs there. Which means Brian won, by a lot. In contrast,
I was overwhelmed by the map and the course, and ended up DNFing. But it was only my second year in the sport, and I was wasn't quite
in peak shape yet :) This year, I could rightly say I had a little more experience, particularly with Missouri style ridge-and-reentrant
terrain, and felt good about going back.
Sunday course - Possum Trot XIII at Knob Noster. Click to enlarge
And I ran well. Well, for the first 27 controls. I wasn't worried about the navigation this time, I was worried about the competition!
Read More...
What's That Running-in-the-woods Thing You Do Again?
For all the times I've been asked that question. This is some raw video from last weekend's Possum Trot.
Click on the still frame to play.
Some notes:
- I used an open back on the camera case, so the wind noise is pretty bad (who knew there was so much turbulence in front of my head?) I'll have to
try running with the closed back and see if that improves the audio.
- The Hero HD has a 1080p mode with 135 degree FOV, which I used in this video. There's also a 720p with 170 degree setting, which I want to try
for the next event. Then maybe I can get people to vote on which FOV they prefer.
- The weight is about the same as a typical headlamp, although concentrated in the front since there's no battery pack in the back. I could feel the difference
after dropping it off, but I think that was more because of the tight straps then the actual weight.
- It's almost funny how similar this looks to a video game. Bouncy video, darting looks, plus regular map consultation. (Maybe I could complete the
comparison by recording a paintball game?)
- Wait for a more-produced version too, with soundtrack and maybe some map overlays. Woo!
By the way, watching this is a LOT of fun, and I'm really tempted to wear this camera for a lot of the stuff I do... yes, I'm a geek. With pride.
Wow!
Posted Wed, November 4, 2009 - 9:04 PM
orienteering
Some of the most beautiful woods you will ever see.
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