Trailblazers Trailquest Round 1

24.03.2009

The area Des had picked for the event was centered around the Burntollet river and the Loughermore forest,
with registration, start and finish at the Ervey wood carpark. The area was splattered with 24 controls of values from 10 to 40 points. The 10 pointers mainly being near the registration and the higher pointers being in the more out of reach parts of the area - like the 40 pointer on top of Dunbrock mountain (altitude 396m and at least 3 km of pretty rough forest track to get to!)

8 teams set off with a 2 hour time limit, similarily 8 teams took on the 4 hour course. The registration carpark being situated almost in the bottom left hand corner of the map (most southwestern part of the area). ment teams basically had two choices - either head north for two 40 pointers located in the muff glen, picking up some 10 pointers on the way. or heading west for the higher control values around the Loughermore forest which had few controls en route. Looking back, the two hour competitors may have been caught out a bit by the lack of controls close to the start/finish. This may explain why all 8 teams came back over the time limit. It was a hard slog back against a stiff westerly for those who had cycled
off in the direction of Loughermore forest! The area seemed to suit the 4 hour limit better as this gave the teams more flexibility and a better sense of when to ‘cut and run’ for home.

As for results, there may not have been a great turnout but it was more in the way of ‘Quality’ over ‘Quantity’ with some realy impressive performances. On the 2 hour course Gordon Moore of team Soloeffort seemed to benefit from a bit of local knowledge and headed North for the Muff glen. Gordon returned 123 minutes later having picked up an impressive 220 points which turned out to be the best haul on the 2 hour course. Team Tube and spoon were 2nd with 156 points and team M&M’s were in 3rd place with 148. Lagan valley orienteers Alan Gartside and Wilbert Hollinger had a great battle for 4th. Both teams getting 180 points but suffering from penalties caused by the strong headwind encounted on the race for home Alan pipping Wilbert by way of fewer penalties. - he was 35 seconds less late! Well done to team Dromara 1 Martin and Alan who had a great start but suffered late on trying to locate control 230 in the forest at Loughermore, which seemed to suffer some map inaccuracies in places. They and the two junior teams Pocket rockets and the extreme team scored well but suffered heavily with the penalty system.