PWF Stumble

The area of PWFP for this event is quite lush with vegetation though there are still several areas with good, open running. The map hasn’t been updated in a few years and Mother Nature has made a few changes. Summer growth has made passing through denser vegetation a little more difficult. Some light green areas have expanded to encompass larger areas than depicted on the map. So, if a control is near a light green area, anticipate a bit more vegetation throughout the area. Runners on the Stumble will need to consider the medium green areas carefully when making route choices. The lack of rain in recent days has caused marsh areas to be mostly dry.

The White and Yellow course maps are using a 1:7,500 scale. All other maps are 1:10,000.

The Yellow course will take runners off the trail and into the woods for a few segments. If you are not familiar with using handrails, recommend checking-in with our instructors before heading out onto this course. Also, one segment may cause some difficulty for runners. Therefore, streamers will be hung to help guide runners through this area. A map showing this location will be posted near the registration area.

For all courses except White, runners will be crossing streams. Although there are good crossing points to keep your feet dry, there are some not so good choices where you will definitely get wet.

A word of CAUTION: The park is fully active during this event. The Yellow and Stumble courses will cross the main road (Scenic Loop Drive). Use care when crossing this road.

About The Stumble

In addition to the regular beginning and intermediate courses, this event will also have the unique “mass start” advanced courses. These 2 advanced courses contain regular orienteering course legs plus windows that contain a number of controls. The windows will vary in size and control density. As per normal window rules, you must visit every control in the window, but the controls inside each window may be taken in any order the runner decides.

Wondering what a "window" on an orienteering course map is? See the diagram below. The key point is that after a mandatory control (in this case, control 2), you can go to the three controls (A, B, C) in the boxed area in any order you like, before continuing on to control 6. Part of the fun is figuring out which way will be the quickest.

If you can’t make the 11:00am mass start for some reason you can run the advanced courses on your own just as long as you are finished by 3:00pm.

There will be a map exchange for those doing the Long Stumble. The Short Stumble and Long 1 maps are the same except that the Short Stumble ends at the finish and the Long 1 map ends at the map exchange location. That is to help ensure those doing the Long Stumble don’t accidentally punch at the finish. There will be refreshments at the map exchange location including some food items. Also, due to the length of the Long Stumble, runners can bring their own refreshments (energy food) bagged and marked with their name to the map exchange location.

Mass start races provide orienteers with several different and exciting challenges than they normally encounter during regular individual courses and The Stumble format allows for some strategy. So, we hope you’ll join us at this fun and unique event.