Lake Needwood

To register for a classic White, Yellow, Orange or Brown course, click here --> WYOB REGISTRATION

To register for the Short or Long Stumble course, click here--> STUMBLE REGISTRATION

Who's Registered? WYOB registrants are listed here, and Stumble registrants are listed here.

Classic Courses:
None of the courses cross roads with potential traffic. All these courses were designed with dry crossings of Rock Creek. In no case will it be advantageous to attempt to cross Rock Creek anywhere else than at a dry crossing. Orange and Brown courses will cross some small streams and depending on rain and water levels one may get their feet wet crossing these small streams. There are some areas of thicker vegetation on the Orange and Brown courses but these areas are small and navigation choices exist to avoid most of this vegetation. The Northwestern portion of the map is the Needwood Golf Course, do not go on the course, courses are adjacent to it, but not on it.

Stumble Courses:
The Stumble is a mass start event first implemented by the Pennsylvania Orienteering club, SVO. Today’s Stumble will consist of two courses of approximately 7.2 Km (Short with 22 controls and 160m climb) and approximately 14.5 km (Long with 40 controls and 360 m climb). The format of this event is similar to the Bumble with “Windows” (3 on the Short course and 6 on the Long course) in which controls can be located in any order; for map examples, see the 2019 Short and Long Stumble maps on QOC's RouteGadget here and here). Where it differs from the Bumble, is that there are only the two courses with no differentiation as to color code, there are common mandatory controls that must be taken in order linking the windows and the windows themselves must be taken in order, you do not get to choose window order. Window controls will be indicated on the map by a letter designation, linking controls by a numerical designation. The distances between controls within a window are shorter that those of the Bumble (in other words the windows are smaller distance-wise). The majority of Window controls are point features, so some compass work will be required. Mapped Rootstocks, tend to be older and smaller, if used as control features they will be distinctive. I tried to keep the window controls in the more open runnable areas of the park, but in at least two of the windows, vegetation will play a role in route choice. But even there, careful use of the trail systems will avoid the nasty stuff. (becomes a bit of a different orienteering challenge). Both courses will have trail runs, lesser so on the Short course. The Long course will have more extensive trail runs (boring, I know, but I had to get you around Lake Frank somehow to get distance, keep the climb down and keep you out of the nastier vegetation.

There are four road crossing on both courses, roads that may have some degree of traffic. I have placed controls just prior to these crossings to get you to pause and look before crossing. Please be careful and look before crossing. The first crossing on both courses will require crossing a small stream and going through some vegetation just before the highway, streamers will lead you through, but look carefully before crossing the highway. The second crossing will be of Avery Road which may have higher speed traffic, again be careful. The last two crossing will be along the bike path-road intersection and drivers are warned to look for pedestrians and bikers.

The courses are designed to give you obvious dry crossings of Rock Creek, please look carefully at your map to find these dry crossings. However, you still may get your feet wet crossing several smaller shallower streams. Water levels in all the streams can vary considerably depending on the amount of rain just prior to the event, so be careful. Runners on the Long course, depending on their route choice, may have to cross a feeder stream into Lake Frank and you may get your feet wet here, but there are multiple potential relatively dry crossing points indicated on the map along that portion of the course.

Vegetation in parts of the park can be nasty and in some sections impenetrable The courses try and avoid the really nasty stuff by giving obvious trail route choices. In other areas one may encounter some brief areas of fight, but these areas will be brief and one will be able to navigate through or around the worst of it. The trails are well mapped and thanks to Nadim, the map has been recently updated to reflect current conditions in the park.

One other comment, specific to the Long course. On the final window one will have to punch the same control just prior to entering the window and upon exiting the same window.