Black Knight - Get Outside Training Kelowna

Organizers: David Bakker (Event Director), David Bakker (Course Planner), Kevin Matrosovs (Assistant)

Map: Black Knight Takes White Tower

Results

Split Times

• Beginner/Intermediate - Several groups chose to take the shorter course option and drop controls 4, 5, and 6.
• Advanced

GPS Route Comparison

• Beginner/Intermediate - Several groups chose to take the shorter course option and drop controls 4, 5, and 6.
• Advanced - I spent around an hour and could not get the map and GPS tracks to calibrate nicely, making it almost unusable, so it is not posted here. Hopefully Postill goes better...

Description

Due to the exceptional global circumstances at the moment, we will not be having our usual events. Instead, we are setting up trainings that can be completed in your own time, any time, over the coming weeks. For all the trainings we will be hanging some flags in the woods for a few weeks, and individually emailing out maps. You print out the pdf to get your own map (or if you are very careful, keep it on your cellphone) to use.

We changed up the schedule a bit since it was easier for our organizers, and we got the Black Knight map done a little bit earlier than expected, so this event has been moved to the first one on the schedule.

There is a lot of climb, but excellent views of Rutland, Kelowna, and Okanagan lake. Courses are designed for maximum viewing pleasure - so enjoy it!

There is still some (rapidly melting) snow out there, so please be careful. There are a lot of deer on the map, but no evidence of any other large animals (other than some old cow-pies on the old ranch-land).

Courses

Both courses have a 250m walk to the start/finish from the parking lot. Serves as a good warm-up.

• Beginner/Intermediate: 3.9km in a straight line, but with a lot of climb. The course is technically much easier than advanced and almost always has a trail option for 90% of the leg, but often has a shorter cross-country route option. Has several excellent views. There is an option to cut it short to about half the distance, but the views are much less.
• Advanced: 6.3km in a straight line, but there will be a multitude of routes where you have to deviate from it. If you run a perfect race, expect around 7.5km, and if you make any mistakes, that distance racks up quickly. Technically challenging course requiring contour reading, routechoice analysis, and a mix of detailed and large feature navigation.

Locations

We are choosing training location very carefully to be locations that tend to have low public use to maximize social distancing, but are relatively close to the city to minimize travel. We will be on forested maps exclusively, and not using any of the park maps in the city that are already over-crowded. We have some new maps in the works, but will also be returning to some previously used ones.

Precautions

• Please stay home if you have any symptoms of illness.
• Only participate in orienteering activities with individuals from your immediate household.
• Stay at least 2 metres away from all other park/wilderness users and do not congregate at the trailheads or control sites.
• Do not touch the control(checkpoint) flags – just get within 5m or so.
• Walk/run with extreme caution to avoid any injuries.
• It is tick season! Check yourself when you're done and when you get home.

Cost

These trainings are being offered as a free mental health service to all Sage Orienteering Club members. Now is a great time to go for a run by yourself or in a very small group in the beautiful Okanagan nature.

How it Works

1. Register your Sage Orienteering Club membership online on Zone4. Payment and waiver are both online on Zone4 this year.
2. Register for the course of your choice and let us know how many of you are going. Send an email to the event director. We will email you a map individually.
3. Run the course whenever you want during the times when the event is open. If you are interested in comparing results & routes with others, record a GPS track on your smartwatch or phone.
4. (Optional) Upload a .gpx file (you can export this from Strava, Garmin Connect, Attackpoint, and many others) to our website which will calculate your split times. We will also then overlay all the GPS tracks onto the map together so you can compare routechoices with others. We might not be able to gather socially, but we can still talk about our routechoices digitally. If you do not have a dedicated GPS unit, you can use your phone using free apps such as these:
   • Android: GPS Logger
   • Apple: myTracks - The GPS-Logger

How You Can Help

These events are running entirely on volunteer manpower. We would love some help if you would be willing to pick up controls at a specified times at the end of each event, and handing them on to the next volunteer who will put them out.

Location