Mason Neck

The map has received a significant update starting in late February, with fieldwork occurring through the first week of March, the focus being on updating the mapped rootstocks. Unfortunately, the last day of fieldwork happened to be the day of the major windstorm that took down so many trees in Prince William Forest Park, forcing the cancellation of the planned training weekend. More fortunately, Mason Neck was much less affected. Nevertheless, while all rootstocks 1.5m high or higher may have been mapped as of early March, there are almost certainly a few new rootstocks in the terrain that came down on that day or since and that weren't among the dozen or so new rootstocks detected and added to the map during the subsequent course design process. Summing up, you can now once more count on mapped rootstocks existing in the terrain but you can't quite count on all rootstocks (let alone less than 1.5m high things having the appearance of rootstocks) you see in the terrain being on the map. Navigate accordingly.

The previous 5 foot contours dating back to the origin of the map in 2011 have been replaced with 2.5 meter contours, supplemented by formlines more or less throughout the flat, inland portions of the terrain and more selectively along the shores of the marshes and creek on the north side of the map, where there's more relief. The new contours and formlines are derived from LiDAR data collected in 2015 and provide a clear improvement in the depiction of subtle contour detail (wherever there is subtle contour variation as opposed to subtle near total lack of contour variation).

Orange and all advanced courses will be printed at 1:10,000. White and yellow may be printed at 1:7,500. Due to park restrictions on where courses could go, the white course is slightly more adventurous than the norm, featuring a short distance following a non-trail handrail as well as a few controls in open woods, visible from the nearby trail, but slightly farther away from it than is usual.

A number of former colliers huts (or equivalent shelters for people doing something other than making charcoal, there being no evidence in the form of charcoal platforms of any past charcoal production in the park) have been added to the map and some are used as control locations. In the terrain, these are slightly raised round platforms, perhaps 6 to 8 meters in diameter, surrounded by a shallow ditch. On the map, these are depicted as a circular/pentagonal dry ditch - five brown points evenly spaced around a common center point. They will also be described as a ditch in the control descriptions.

A couple of distinct trees have been added to the map despite being surrounded by vast numbers of other trees, one of which is used as a control feature on all advanced courses. The tree in question is both unusually large and, depending on your taste ruggedly/grotesquely charismatic - complaints over being asked to pick out a single tree in the middle of a forest are not anticipated from any sighted person.

All courses will involve two or more crossings of paved roads within the park, as well as crossing and/or travelling on paved paths shared with cyclists and other visitors to the park. The speed limit on the roads within the park is quite low but please exercise due caution whenever you see fit to cross or run along a paved surface regardless. Not that you can totally relax on dirt trails or in the woods either - the woods are generally very fast but there is more than enough small to medium sized deadfall to present a tripping hazard, and the leaf litter often quite effectively conceals the occasional small declivity that can easily throw you off your stride or even entirely off your feet.

Traffic and unavoidable slightly uneven terrain aside, Mason Neck is pretty unhazardous but the weather has been warming up so a reminder of the advisability of always performing a thorough tick check after orienteering seems in order.

The courses should present no temptation to intentionally stray into any of the out-of-bounds areas marked on the map. Please don't get distracted and do so inadvertently.

That all said, please enjoy the challenge of navigating the subtle near-flatness of a truly unique terrain in QOC's portfolio of maps.