okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Monday, November 05, 2007
Meet notes and sharp sticks
A note from this weekend's race notes:
Beaver activity creates sharp stumps of varying sizes that remain long after the beavers have moved on. Please be cautious in areas that currently, or that formerly, evidenced beaver activity. These stumps occur surprisingly far up the hillsides above their constructions.
I don't usually read meet notes. But this weekend I had some time to kill and read all of the notes. I thought the warning about beaver-sharpened sticks was strange. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do about it. I guess it was a warning not to fall down on pointed sticks.
I took a few falls in the forest and, in fact, fell on one of those beaver-sharpened sticks. Fortunately, my forearm took the brunt of the stump and I came away with nothing more than a good bruise and a few cuts.
I know you´re constantly on the look-out for interesting articles about orienteering. Here´s a link that might be of interest to you: http://www.amhausken.com/artikkel.php?aId=181
The subject is the world´s first 'oil-rig orienteering'.
When I first read about the beaver stumps, especially this close after halloween, I was thinking that the course notes were written especially for vampires. If I were of the blood-sucking variety, I would avoid that section of woods completely.
