Check out the Events page for information regarding our upcoming Adventure Racing Retreat on 4/9. 

Phoenix Orienteering club is offering their bi-annual Land Navigation class on 4-7 & 4-9. www.Phoenixorienteering.org.  

Ready to give Adventure Racing a try though feel like you could use some extra training?  Racelab offers training to both new athletes, and those looking to hone your skills to move to the next level.  Check out Racelab.com for more info on their Adventure Racing Program. 

How can I practice my Orienteering?  While it isn't necessary to know how to Orienteer in all AR's, it's good to know and fun to learn and it is very common in AR.  There are many books and a couple of videos on this that can help.  Better yet, go to an Orienteering event put on by the Greater Phoenix Orienteering club or the Tucson Orienteering club: http://www.phoenixorienteering.org/ & http://www.tucsonorienteering.org/  It's inexpensive, and they usually offer a beginners clinic before their meets.  

Ready to take your paddling to the next level?
Nancy Kanu at CanyonsAndCoastlines.com can help you get there. 

Email: RaceDirector@SierraAdventureSports.com for more info.  

Learn to Navigate with No Fear

Learn to Navigate with No Fear 
Adventure Racing (AR) has been called an "Extreme Sport" since it showed up in the US in the mid 90's.  While some elements of AR such as sleep deprivation, exceptionally long distances and out of the ordinary disciplines may be considered extreme, AR is more than anything a battle with your own mind to keep moving forward in surroundings your not familiar with.  Another area of AR often considered insurmountable by many is the prospect of having to navigate on your own as many, if not most AR's do not have a marked course for you to follow as you would find in triathlons, bike or running races.  Navigation doesn't have to stand in your way of giving this incredible sport a try, and we'll show you how you can do it beginning with a very elementary lesson.  
Most AR's begin with your needing to use a map to find your way.  The map itself can seem quite daunting with so many different pieces of information.  The map below is one that is commonly used in AR's.  While most companies that create maps will tell you that their map is "The best", the truth is, nearly all topographic maps (maps that show elevation changes) are based upon those created by our own U.S. Geological Survey department.  A topographic map is one that contains "contour lines" to illustrate changes in elevation.  
Contour lines are all those squiggly brown lines all over the map.  Where there are no squiggly lines, the ground is relatively flat.  Where they are very close together, there is often a steep change in elevation.  Let's plot some coordinates and we'll further illustrate how these lines show elevation changes.  
On the left hand column of the map, find the letter B and the blue horizontal line that corresponds with it.  Now, on the bottom of the map, find the number 3 and the blue vertical line that corresponds with it.  Do you see where they intersect?  Those two lines should come together just below the letter "D" in the word "Dalton" and just a little up and to the left of the number "1000".  By finding that point, you've essentially just plotted your first coordinate, though using very simple coordinates.  Before we get more heavily into coordinates, let's first talk about some of the map attributes near your coordinate.  
First, you may be wondering what the number "1000" means near your coordinate.  That's how high that area is above sea level.  Looking to the left and down from your coordinate, you'll find the number "1254" with an "X" to the left of it.  The "X" represents the top of the peak, and the number is the elevation of the top of that peak. The number "1000" you'll notice is right in the middle of a dark brown line.  That entire contour line is at the level of 1000 feet.  If you glance around other areas of the map, you'll find that there are many of these "1000's" and a few "1200's".  Where you see the "1200's" is where the elevation is 1200 feet above see level.  If you can find a spot where they are relatively near each other, you'll notice that there are a number of lighter colored brown lines in between the darker brown lines.  The lighter brown lines represent different elevations as well.  The elevation change from one brown line to the next, regardless of whether it's a dark or light color is 20 feet.  Not all maps however are the same.  Some maps have 50 foot contours, and others 250 feet.  
In areas where you find that the lines are closer together, the rise of the hill is much more steep.  If they are so close together that they run into one another, it's either very steep, or it's a cliff.  Where the lines are very far apart or non-existent, the area is flat.  If you look for the area where the vertical line 5 and horizontal line D (Coordinate 5, D) come together, you'll see the Brackett Field Airport where there are just a couple contour lines.  Near the right side of the airstrip you'll find the contour line "1000", two more lines crossing through the middle vertically, and one more off to the left of the airstrip.  They are so far apart the area is nearly flat as there is only a change of less than 60 feet from one end of the airstrip to the other over quite a distance.  
This is not the case near our original coordinate (3, B).  Because the contour lines are much closer together, we know the slope of the hill is much steeper.  If you look down and to the left of 3, B you see that the lines grow very close together.  This area is one where travel up and down would be quite difficult and probably not rideable on a bike.  

Scale
Keep in mind, the closeness of the contours is relavent only when you also consider the size of the area the map covers.  This is a 1:24,000 scale map which is very common in AR.  It gives you a lot of information and would be like zooming in really close compared to most contour maps.  Other common map scales are 1:50,000, 1:100,00 and 1:250,000.  In a 1:24000 map, 2.64 miles is represented in just one inch of map.  Consider that the airstrip in the map is nearly a mile long.  The 60 feet difference from one end to the other is almost unnoticeable.  

Plotting Coordinates

Let's take another look at plotting coordinates.  In the example above, we used a simple system of 2 intersecting coordinates to represent a point.  If we took the distance between the letters A & B along the left column and split it in half, we could call the midpoint A.5.  Looking at the bottom of the map, we could split the area between 2 and 3, with the midpoint of 2.5. {Insert Map 2}  The intersection of A.5 & 2.5 would be in a steep walled canyon as represented by the many contour lines.  If you were standing at this point and facing to the northwest (up & to the left) you would be looking at a gulley that has been carved by thousands of years of rain.  In a flash flood, you'd likely be washed away, because all the water would be rushing downhill from all around you.  Now, if you turned to the southeast (down and to the right) you'd be looking right at the freeway.  
You could continue to slice each square up with lines by adding to the left hand column A.1, A.2, A.3, etc.  {Insert map 3} until it would be difficult to see the underlying map, and that's exactly what a coordinate system does for you.  As an example, you can see that the intersection of A.7 & 2.3 puts you atop a mountain with a small reservoir, the elevation of which is right about 1200 feet above sea level.  Just to the south of the reservoir (below it) you'll see contour lines creating a small oval and a kidney shape.  This means that next to the lake, the elevation rises about 20 feet or so creating two small hills.  
Unfortunately, the coordinate systems we use aren't nearly as simple as these represented above, though they do follow the same logic.  The coordinate systems you find on most maps were created so that you can pinpoint any spot on the earth.  In the early part of the century we used mainly Latitude and Longitude, which you've probably heard of.  The intersection of Latitude and Longitude lines tell you where you are in relation to the equator (North or South) or Greenwhich, England (East & West).  It uses a system of Degrees, minutes and seconds to tell you exactly where you are.  
More frequently as time goes by, and almost exclusively in Adventure Racing, you'll see a different system used.  It's commonly referred to as UTM which stand for Universal Transverse Mercator.  That terminology and a dime might get you a stick of gum!  The nice thing about UTM coordinates is that instead of using degrees, minutes & seconds, the numbers actually represent distance in meters.  We could spend another page explaining how they work, but suffice it to say, they work well and are easy to understand once you plot a few.  Let's take a look at a UTM coordinate: 
11S     0425,806 E
           3,770,436 N
We've put a space between the "11S" and the rest of the coordinate as it's a static number that won't change for this lesson. The earth is broken up into 60 different maps, and "11S" is the one in which our example falls.  It's a very large area, so you won't often see it change in a race in which you're traveling on foot.  The "E" at the end of the first coordinate stands for "Easting" & represents how far you are east or west of a given point on the earth.  The "N" is the Northing, and represents how far you are north or south of a given point.  You won't likely have the need to know from where the "given points on earth" are, so we won't spend the next two pages explaining it.  You'll also often see the leading zero dropped from the first coordinate.  So, you're left with these numbers along the edges of the map: 
425,806
3,770,436
Because the top number is the "Easting", we'll be plotting this along the bottom of the map as moving from left to right along the bottom of the map would be the same as East and West.  The bottom number is the "Northing" and will be plotted along the left hand side of the map as going up or down would be the same as North or South.  All this assumes that your map is aligned with North at the top, South at the bottom, East on the right, and West on the left.  99% of all maps are, so it should be easy to remember.  
Going from left to right along the bottom of the map, you'll see 425,000 in the corner and 426,000 to the right.  Going from bottom to top along the left hand side of the map you'll see 3,770,000 in the corner and 3,770,100 above it.  These numbers also have a blue tickmark and a blue dotted line to aid you in seeing how the coordinate is represented across the entire map.  
{Enter Map4}
In our example, the first 4 digits on the left and the first 3 digits on the bottom aren't changing.  Or, said another way, only the last three digits of each number changes.  You see, there are 1000 meters between each of these major lines.  Each individual digit represents 10 meters, or about 30 feet.  If you went from the bottom corner straight north for 10 meters you would have gone from 3,770,000 to 3,770,001.  If you walked all the way from the bottom of the map north to the first blue checked line, it would be like taking 1000 big steps in a straight line or walking 10 football fields.  Sounds like a long way, though it's really not.  If you were running in a 5K, you would have just run 1K of the way.  
Now imagine if you subdivided these like we did before.  What number comes midway between 3,770,000 & 3,770,100?  You probably already figured it out; it's 3,770,050.  You could subdivide it further and you'd add 9 new coordinates along the left hand side.  They would go: 3,770,010, 3,770,020, 3,770,030, etc until you reached the blue checked line that represents 3,770,100.  
A lot of maps will have only an occasionally tick mark along the edge representing larger jumps in distance like 10,000 meters or even more.  With a ruler you can always draw in your own.  Now that you can figure out where a coordinate lies, try figuring out where the following coordinate is:
425,806
3,770,436
Plotted correctly, the intersection of your two lines should be in the kidney shaped contour line just below the tiny reservoir.  Got it?  

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