Get oriented

Forget the GPS — hone your map and compass skills

By DENNIS APRILL, Outdoors Columnist

In a world filled with precision location devices like On STAR and hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) units, outdoor navigation with a map and compass has almost been forgotten in some quarters.

Yet, this most basic of outdoor orienteering skill can get even the novice from one place to another in the most remote sections of the Adirondacks, and do so without battery power or depending on signals from 24 satellites circling high above the earth.

In celebration of map and orienteering skills, the Adirondack Orienteering Klub (AOK) is hosting an event at the Point Au Roche State Park on Sat., May 4 as part of National Orienteering Days.

For those unfamiliar with orienteering, the activity (it’s really not a sport, but it can be competitive) begins with a participant picking up a map at a registration desk, and using the map, along with a compass, to find control points in a set period of time.

In the AOK event at Point Au Roche (called a Score-O), entrants will have two hours to find 20 control points, and they can start anytime between 10 a.m. and noon.

Serious competitors will jog to the control points; the more laid back participants will walk, taking in the scenery or maybe even letting a child or two find a control.

I remember 10 years ago when I took my two children to AOK events at the Visitor Interpretive Center in Paul Smiths and the Brewster Peninsula Nature Trails in Lake Placid.

At each, I let them alternate finding the controls, which were orange and white bags hung in trees or lying on the ground. A couple controls were very well hidden in evergreen thickets. Every time we discovered a control bag, we punched our map, a different punch design for each individual control. At times we used a trail or hill as a landmark to help orient us.

This year’s AOK event organizer, Nancy Allen, expects to have several door prizes furnished by Brunton Company and MapTech. There is no charge to participate, and there will be a String-O course set up for preschoolers. Allen says, "In this activity, a child is given a map to follow, but there is also a string to guide the way along the short course."

Whatever "course" you decide to follow, orienteering with map and compass is a life skill for any age group.

For more information, contact Nancy Allen at 563-5038 or e-mail her at nancy.allen@plattsburgh.edu