okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Sketch maps
Drawing your own sketch maps is a good way to practice your orienteering. As you study a map and draw your own sketch map, you're forced to simplify. You also get a bit of extra time to study and plan your leg. When you run the course, you typically run cleanly and quickly.
Here are a couple of courses from a recent HOK training:
And here are some examples of the sketch maps (click on the maps for a larger image, if that isn't legible, try this link):
In reviewing the sketch maps, the common "mistakes" that showed up were:
1. Not enough focus on contours. 2. Too much focus on small trails. 3. Too many unnecessary details (small boulders, dot knolls, etc).