okansas.blogspot.com

okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Underground Orienteering

Check out the map clip and photo from some underground orienteering in Finland. It looks intersting. It also looks like something we could do around Kansas City.

Kansas City is full of storage "caves." A NY Times article reported that Kansas City was a leader in underground space in the U.S.:

There are a few other areas of the country that have, or are beginning, underground industrial development -- including Indianapolis, Louisville, St. Louis and an area north of Pittsburgh -- but Kansas City has the overwhelming majority of the space in use.

One of the Kansas City "caves" hosts an annual road run. Check out a photo of the start.

I've run the Groundhog race once, but that must have been 20 years ago. Maybe I'll sign myself up for the 2007 race.

Park University has some underground storage space under the campus. I came across a map showing both the campus terrain and the underground area (the grey grid pattern area on the map is the storage).

There must be some other good options for indoor orienteering. Getting permission to use an indoor facility for orienteering might be difficult. Convention centers and shopping malls seem like good "terrain."

All this thinking and writing about indoor orienteering is making me crazy. What am I thinking? Why orienteer indoors when the forest is out there?

posted by Michael | 6:58 PM

Comments:

Every time I go to IKEA, I think about orienteering in it. I think it's the Swedish connection.

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:48 PM

here's a link to an underground orienteering map in Estonia: http://olle.sportnet.ee/files/kaart000207.jpg

# posted by

Markus : 3:37 AM

Probably one of the best places for underground orienteering would be Paris'catacombs and quarries. Here's an awesome map (19Mb zip file):
http://exploration.urban.free.fr/catacombes/Catacombs-map-v8demo.zip
And some pictures to get a feeling of the atmosphere:
http://www.fcosinus.com/Eva/catas/070500/ktaslide.html

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:43 AM

The catacombs look like a totally cool place to visit. I don't know that I'd want to have a race there, though. More fun to take one's time and see the cool stuff, rather than to bump into all those metal brackets. There are plenty of mapped caves around as well, which would be more complex and technical than the catacombs, but I think there are better place to orienteer. Like Spike says, why not orienteer in the forest?

# posted by

J-J : 10:56 AM

Spike - hows the weather out there? Are the races this weekend still on?

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:21 PM

The races are on. It should be a bit cold and maybe some ice in a few places, but nothing too bad.

# posted by

Michael : 6:09 PM

Here's a map of the underground caves in Kansas City. The "squares" are the pillars supporting the ceiling and you can theoritically run anywhere, not just on the main "gray" streets. Arrowhead Stadium is shown below for comparison. You must be an orienteer if you're thinking how to set a course in here. . .

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:47 PM

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