Linn of Tummel SOL

Scottish Orienteering League event

Sun 08th Apr 2018

Info updated: 10th Apr
Type of event: National
Type of terrain: Moorland, Woodland

Results

String results are here

Results are here

Winsplits are here

Routegadget is here

LOST PROPERTY: a pair of icebug shoes in a JOK Chasing Sprint shoe bag and Star Wars themed Buff left on one of the buses. The buff has yet to make its way back to Edinburgh but will be back later this week.  Contact Roger Scrutton by email to:   if either of these items belong to you or anyone in your family to arrange return.

ORGANISER'S COMMENTS: Roger Scrutton writes:  Despite the organisation of the event being approximately Plan E, on the day everything worked out well, including some beautiful spring weather, and I should like to thank all helpers and competitors for contributing.

Actually, the Assembly field is a beautiful field for an Assembly - great views, great run-in, space for tents, very nice venue for the String course etc, etc.  A few people had said they recollected the field being used for parking at previous Linn of Tummel events.  It's certainly in the best position along the Foss road for planning junior courses.  However, it is very lumpy, having at one time accommodated a shieling and therefore strewn with rocks just under the topsoil and grass.  With a bit of rain, this makes the surface quite difficult for driving.  The event was therefore a bit of a trial run for using the field for parking in the future, the hard-standing at Clunie Power Station no longer being available.  For cars it would probably work, but for camper vans and motor homes I'm not so sure.  A long period of dry weather before the event would help.

PLANNER'S COMMENTS: Jim Martin writes: Thanks to everyone who attended and helped out at Linn of Tummel on Sunday. In particular thanks to John (controller) and Roger (organiser) who made the day a great success. I planned the courses from white up to black and had great fun doing it. 

CONTROLLER'S COMMENTS: John Emeleus (KFO) writes:

Congratulations to ESOC for staging this event.  The club has an impressively large membership from which to draw support for this type of competition.  Roger, as organiser, had his work cut out in trying to solve the problem of arranging parking away from the area and then getting people to it along some rather minor roads, with many possibilities investigated.  From all accounts I received, his transport plan from Pitlochry worked very well.  Thankfully the weather on the day was excellent but I would like to think that we could have gone ahead with snow on the ground and even with the access road impassable in its final stages.  As it was, the weekend of the event was the first of my 4 visits when the area was snow free and I was pleased just to spot a slither of something hard-packed and slippery on the roadside as I drove up the hill to the assembly field on Saturday morning.

Jim worked very hard to produce the courses and was assiduous in responding to my comments and questions.  He gave people on the higher technical difficulty courses experience of some quite different types of terrain, and once the initial climb had been achieved much of the ground was relatively runnable.  No doubt post-event discussions will have been had about the pros and cons of using a high start for courses that didn’t need to be based on line features.  I had noted that of the 4 maps I have from previous events at Linn of Tummel only one showed a high start and I was happy enough to follow the decision to start all courses near the road.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the routegadget analysis of the courses.  It is always very instructive to get this picture of what happened out there.  Jim and I heard that some people’s navigation fell apart once across the road and this seems to have happened to an extent.  Competitors would certainly have been tired by this stage.  It is interesting and pleasing to see a variety of routes taken on some of the long and short legs

I note from social media a comment about the lack of long legs on the shorter TD5 courses, specifically Blue.  I apologise to anyone who felt that the middle distance style of navigation represented too great a portion of their course.  I thought Jim came up with some good, longer legs, but it now seems obvious that some courses got a different balance from others, which is something I overlooked and take responsibility for not dealing with.

There were also some other things I let slip through, notably that wet pit (211) on the open hill above the start.  I have previous bad form with pits but thought I’d made improvements in my approach.  I considered the site a fair challenge, with surrounding features, including the adjacent marsh, and even a slightly higher border to the pit, presumably the earth from when it was dug out.  The planner had placed the control marker fairly, with the top visible when nearby, but as I discovered on Sunday evening, when I visited to collect the control, it had been pressed down through use.  I then leant on it and saw it sink in another foot.  The older style T-bars used in Scotland since the mid-90s have a short length of metal butting outwards from the shaft, designed to stop this sinking into soft ground, not as I thought for a long time to help the planner get the thing into the ground in the first place!  I have taken note.

Someone told me that 204, the shallow re-entrant in the SE part of the area, was much closer than mapped to the stream junction below.  My control collection route also took me there and I can confirm this is the case, with the site only 25-30m from the junction, not 45-50m as mapped.  Apologies to people who felt they were on location and could not see the control, since you had to be standing in the actual single contour re-entrant to see the control flag.

No-one told me about problems with the map at 238, in the woods a few 100m west of the finish, and unfortunately I did not realise until the day before the event that the “middle crag” with the control on was actually not in line with the other two, as the map suggests, but 5-10m further north, and also not closer to upper crag.  I assume most people were just happy to find a control flag by this stage, however if you thought things a little odd in that location there is the reason.

Finally, an explanation regarding the rather easy control (242) near the stream junctions, on longer courses shortly before the road crossing.  This acted as a safety feature rather than a navigational challenge, to give you a fair chance of crossing the streams during or after any heavy rain, rather than leaving you apparently stuck the wrong side of a single, raging torrent below the control site.

I would like to thank ESOC for the opportunity to control here and I hope that the area will see plenty more events on it.

General Information

FINAL DETAILS now available. Start times are on Fabian4   EOD map availability (Course Information) and entry fees (Entry Details) are below.

TERRAIN: Linn of Tummel is a fine orienteering area comprising mostly open hillside with heather, crags, rock features and scattered birch trees with some larger areas of woodland.

FIRST AID: First aid will be available at assembly.  

MEDICAL CONDITIONS:  If you (or anyone in your group) have a medical condition that first aiders or health professionals should know about in the event of accident or illness during the course of the event please print off the Medical Form, fully complete it and leave it at Registration - in a sealed envelope with relevant name on it if possible.   You should complete a separate copy for each individual who has a medical condition.  Envelope (and forms) not collected by the end of the event will be destroyed.    

TOILETS: Toilets will be available at assembly.

CLUB TENTS: There will be space for club tents along the run-in and clubs are encouraged to bring their tents.

Location

Nearest town: Pitlochry

• Grid Ref: NN936582
• Postcode: PH16 5AN
• Latitude: 56.70436
• Longitude: -3.72971
• Google Map (aerial) - Bing Map (OS)

Directions

Car parking for this Linn of Tummel event will be in public car parks in Pitlochry, mainly the public car park near the railway station.  All competitors should therefore head for the Pitlochry town centre.   The grid reference and map location given are for competitor parking. They are for a business in Station Road, very close to the Pitlochry railway station, and are a guide only.  

Unfortunately, ESOC has lost its normal Linn of Tummel parking at the Clunie Power Station.  Without a suitable nearby parking field we have had to resort to bussing competitors from Pitlochry to/from Assembly.  Buses will leave from the public car park near to Pitlochry railway station (parking is free on Sundays) at approximately 30 minute intervals and the journey to Assembly will take 30-40 minutes. There will be a bus transfer point (with a single toilet) about two-thirds of the way to Assembly.  More information about bus times and specific collection point will follow later.  We apologise for these inconveniences, including the bus transfer which is necessitated by the Foss Road being single track with very few places where buses going in opposite directions can pass. 

Registration & Start Times

REGISTRATION and ENQUIRIES: This will be located in the assembly field which is about 5km west of Pitlochry along the Foss Road and will be open from 9.30am. 

START: A single start which is 200m walk from assembly field.  Start times will run from 10.30am to 2.30pm.  The start period has been extended to accommodate the travel arrangements.  

Course Information

There will be the usual courses offered at SOL events. Final course distances and climb are given in the Final Details (see link above).

Map numbers available for entry on the day (EOD) are given below

SOL competition rules plus a list of courses relevant to the full range of age classes in order to count for SOL points is on the SOA website

STRING COURSE: A free string course will be available.  It is adjacent to assembly.

Explanation of colour courses

• White are very easy with all controls on paths. They are mainly used by 6-10 year olds and family groups.
• Yellow use simple linear features like paths, walls and streams. They are mainly used by under 12’s and family groups.
• Orange progress to basic use of the compass and route choice. They are ideal for novice adults or experienced youngsters.
• Light Green are ideal for improvers as the navigational difficulty begins to increase and uses simple contours and point features.
• Green are used mostly by experienced under 18’s and adults wanting a short but challenging course with a very hard navigational difficulty.
• Blue are a longer, more physically demanding course in comparison to the green. The distances are more varied between controls and the course attracts experienced orienteers.
• Brown & Black are very physically demanding and have a very hard navigational difficulty. They are for experienced orienteers only.
• Score means visiting as many controls as possible in any order in a specific time, like 45mins.

Entry Details

Pre-entry is available via Fabian4 until midnight on Thursday 5th April.  After that it will only be possible to enter on the day of the event (EOD) and map numbers available for EOD will be very limited.  

Map availability for EOD will be shown on here as soon as possible after entries close.  

ENTRY FEES

Sportident (SI) electronic timing will be used.

Free SIcard (punching) hire, if required, but £30.00 charge if lost.

Contacts / Officials

Planner: Jim Martin (ESOC)

Controller: John Emeleus (KFO)

Organiser: Roger Scrutton (ESOC)

Safety and Risk

A comprehensive risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event.

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