Highland WOLF 2014Speyside, 27/28 September
This “Weekend of Orienteering in Lovely Forests” was organised by Badenoch and Strathspey Orienteering Club, and included the final event in the 2014 Scottish Orienteering Urban League, as well as the 6th Scottish Orienteering League event. Plenty of ESOC people went, with some great results.
The weekend’s events started with a Middle Distance race at Dunachtonmore, on Saturday 27 September. This area is next door to the Highland Wildlife Park, near Kincraig, and has varied terrain, including open grassy hillocks, marshes, birch woodland and some pockets of conifer plantation. Courses covered much of the area, with many controls and changes of direction. The weather was cool and dry.
ESOC members in the top half of the results for their course were:
Blue (72 competitors) – Andrew Lindsay 6th
Green (62) – Rona Lindsay 4th, Alison Cunningham 14th, Roger Scrutton 29th, Maggie Scrugham 31st
Short Green (19) – Alastair Lessells 2nd, Janice Nisbet 4th
Orange (16) – Rachel Brown 1st
On Saturday afternoon, the final event in this year’s Scottish Orienteering Urban League took place in Kingussie. Courses criss-crossed up and down hill through the complex street network, and most had a long leg with significant route choice. A stream in a deep valley added interest, and courses finished down a steep grassy slope to a park, with good spectating opportunities.
ESOC members in the top half of the results were:
Men’s Open (28 competitors) – Craig Nolan 3rd, Andrew Lindsay 12th
Veteran Men 40+ (26) – Mark Wood 9th, Keith Brown 12th
Veteran Women 40+ (28) – Helena Nolan 2nd, Alison Cunningham 4th
Supervet Men 55+ (18) – Crawford Lindsay 3rd, Martin Caldwell 5th
Supervet Women 55+ (10) – Janice Nisbet 2nd, Margaret Dalgleish 4th
Ultravet Men 65+ (8) – Roger Scrutton 3rd, Alastair Lessells 4th
Ultravet Women 65+ (6) – Janet Clark 2nd
Young Junior Women 12- (8) – Rachel Brown 3rd
The Scottish Elite Development Squad organised a great ceilidh on Saturday evening at Kincraig Community Hall, close to the event venues. The music was good, with energetic dancing, there was food (stovies and cakes), and a bar. In the interval, there was the usual raffle, with a wide variety of desirable prizes! The SOUL prizes were presented in the interval. ESOC winners were:
Veteran Women – Helena Nolan 3rd
Supervet Women – Janice Nisbet 3rd
Ultravet Men – Roger Scrutton 2nd, Alastair Lessells 3rd
Ultravet Women – Janet Clark 3rd
Junior Women – Kerry Wood 1st
Young Junior Women – Rachel Brown 1st, Megan Brown 3rd
Details of all the events in the 2014 Scottish Orienteering Urban League, and the final league tables, are available here.
SOL 6 was at Alvie on Sunday 28 September, and saw a bigger ESOC turnout, with many travelling up on the day for the event. Alvie is just north of Kincraig, and is a varied area, mostly coniferous forest of various ages and thickness, with some steep slopes and also vaguer parts. Longer courses visited the open moorland higher up, with great views to the Cairngorms. Towards the finish, most had a few tricky controls amongst crags and boulders at the foot of the slope. It was all fairly runnable and there were some fast times. The weather was cloudy and cool, but remained dry.
ESOC members in the top half of the results for their course were:
Brown (26 competitors) – Claire Ward 6th, Craig Nolan 10th, Ray Ward 12th
Blue (52) – Crawford Lindsay 18th, Tyler Morrison 22nd
Short Blue (44) – Alison Cunningham 5th, Alastair Lessells 18th
Green (36) – Maggie Scrugham 7th, Margaret Dalgleish 14th, Ian Pyrah 17th
Short Green (32) – Eleanor Pyrah 10th, Jim Clark 14th
Light Green (30) – Kerry Wood 11th
Orange (30) – Rachel Brown 5th
White (13) – Megan Brown 7th
The 2014 Scottish Orienteering League tables are available on the Scottish O League Table Archive page of the Scottish Orienteering Association website.
Full results for the above events are available in the BASOC results archive:
Dunachtonmore
Kingussie
Alvie
Other entries categorised under: Event Reports