Orienteering in Jamaica

13.4. Developing an orienteering map: in developing their own orienteering route, all participants successfully followed the principal of "identify the path of least resistance" — that is, they used areas of flat terrain, valleys, corridors, or contouring to traverse the environment. All avoided steep slopes and cliffs when mapping their routes. Nine of the ten participants had at least one error in the bearing they gave for their route, having the compass turned 1800 to send the user in the opposite direction of what was intended. The tenth participant, while having an error-free route, only developed a route along the road system of Windsor and the rectangle of Windsor farm. For the final field exercise, participants ground-truthed the orienteering route of one of their colleagues. One group followed the route as precisely as possible, finding that they had to hike along a rugged contour line of limestone talus; the second group recognized that the route should be re-oriented to hike along the valley floor.

13.5. Use of map to orient in the field: all participants successfully completed two orienteering routes that had been established in advance by the principal instructors (Annexes 3 & 4). Participants worked the route in pairs. The route took participants from a Class C road to a motorable track, along a trail (Guthrie Trail), and then off the trail to traverse a saddle corridor and descend approximately 200 m down a 500 slope to return to the main Guthrie Trail. As a demonstration of their proficiencies, it should be noted that the teams were within four meters of the Way Point I Control Station when they arrived at the bottom of the slope and found the trail. The two principal instructors were hidden in strategic positions to (1) ensure teams did not miss the two major changes in bearing in the off-trail portion of the route and (2) observe whether each member of the pair was working with the compass and map to navigate the route. The one participant who failed to successfully complete the training workshop was over-heard commenting that he would be lost were it not for his partner. With follow-up training, the instructors feel this participant would be able to master successfully orienteering.

14. DAILY SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES (From S. Koenig's personal notes)

In the morning, S. Stewart and S. Koenig identify on the 1:12,500 topographic map of Windsor (sheet 52C) a 3-km route to test workshop participants in their abilities to orienteer in Cockpit Country along a pre-determined route. S. Stewart determines bearings and distances from the map. During the ground-truthing, we discover that the roads and trail used for the exercise have more curves than appear on the map and that we will need to include additional way point / control stations to get the participants through the trails without just "trusting us to go in the general direction." In the afternoon, we set out to determine the correct bearings and measured distances so that participants may maintain straight line-of-site for way points along the roads and trail. Unfortunately, a 2-hour deluge left us huddled under banana leaves and we only got as far as the Guthrie trailhead, about 1/3 of the route. We returned to Windsor House about an hour