Kings Landing

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Course Notes

Map scales are 1:5000 for white and yellow, 1:7500 for Orange, Beige and Brown, and 1:10000 for all other courses.
Contour Intervals are 5 meters (16.7 feet).
The map has been updated in 2023 and is accurate.

Course Setter Notes
Kings Landing (all courses): The original 260-acre Kings Landing Park map was merged with the newly mapped (2022) 960 acre Huntingtown Natural Resources Management Area (NRMA) which borders to the north to make 1220 acres of orienteering terrain. A small area of the new map was tested at a QOC SSS event this summer. Only the Brown, Green, Red and Blue courses will venture into the NRMA.

There is one paved road that bisects the Kings Landing Park. It is the entrance road and expect cars on this road. Runners should use caution crossing this road. The woods and fields are open and very runnable and visibility is excellent in both the park and NRMA. Don’t let the easy runnability lull you into a false sense of security. This park has some of the steepest terrain in QOC’s inventory. It looks benign on the drive in, but what you don’t see will give you burning thighs. Often the route choice presented will be a relatively shorter but steep route, or the long way around on less steep terrain and maybe a trail. Parallel errors have been known to happen in this park.

The terrain is classic ridge and valley, with broad, flat ridges, lots of deeply incised spurs and reentrants and large marshes. The slopes are steep and can be as many as four to five contours high. These steep slopes may be slippery if it is or has been raining or snowing. Spiked shoes and gaiters are recommended.

Some courses may cross a small stream or narrow marsh. Many streams are narrow enough to jump across, especially if you have long legs or are a good jumper. Most are shallow and if you can’t jump them, you’ll get just your feet wet. Some aggressive orienteers may decide to take a shortcut through a marshy area to save a few minutes. Sometimes the gamble will pay off, and sometimes it will backfire. Your choice! Be advised that If an area is mapped as uncrossable marsh (bold solid blue lines), you probably should consider it uncrossable (because it is!). Dashed blue lines or light solid blue mapped marsh may (or may not) be crossable. You should proceed at your own risk, but it may provide the fastest and shortest route to the next control. Your choice (again)! Marshy areas and reentrants may be bone-dry or boot-sucking mud depending on the amount of rain we get during the week prior to the meet. Please make sure to tighten your orienteering shoes or you might lose them in the mud if you opt for that route.

Unique items to the NRMA for Brown, Green, Red and Blue course runners only: While Kings Landing Park is well-maintained with some manicured areas, the NRMA is just the opposite. With the exception of several cultivated fields which are leased to local farmers, the entire NRMA is an unmanaged, unimproved natural area in the process of being reclaimed by mother nature, with traces of civilization dating back to both colonial times and farming in the 1930s-1960s.All advanced courses (Brown and above) will cross Cocktown Creek into the NRMA. There are no bridges or easy fording points across the creek. Depending on how much precipitation we get, the creek can range from a couple of inches deep to a couple of feet deep. Nominal width of the creek is 4-8 feet. Plan on getting your feet wet when you cross this creek. There is no way around the creek so find a crossing point you feel comfortable with, get your feet wet and carry on. There are several recommended crossing points drawn on the course maps shown as purple )(. These are not mandatory crossing points, just areas where you might find it a tad easier to get across the creek.

The mapped light green tends to be areas with saplings and closely spaced trees, and some small areas of thorns. The darker green tends to be areas of fallen trees or Mountain Laurel (a woody, stiff evergreen bush) that you can generally get through, though it will be at a walk and you may have to zig and zag around the stiff branches. The visibility is excellent throughout the park except in the Mountain Laurel thickets, in the central area of the NRMA, which are dense and will be fairly slow to transverse and can be disorienting. The Mountain Laurel in the center of the NRMA posed a difficult mapping problem. It is as accurate as I could make it, but the vegetation boundaries should be used judiciously and with caution when navigating in the NRMA!

All rides in the NRMA (there are no trails) are in the process of being reclaimed by mother nature. At least one of the mapped rides dates back to colonial Maryland. Some parts of the rides may appear more like wide, shallow erosion gullies but if you use your imagination, you can almost visualize the horse and wagon traffic transporting tobacco to market. Don’t expect to use the rides as a clear, quick running path as most are blocked intermittently with deadfall (again, your choice!)

Red and Blue courses will cross the one limited access paved road in the NRMA. It is virtually never used except by the rare park ranger visit or farmer. I expect no traffic on this limited access road and you should be fine to cross it or use it as your route choice dictates.

In the NRMA, there is a large amount of broken ground, particularly along the side of rides. Only prominent knolls are mapped, otherwise the map would look like it had measles.

Expect the usual mid-Atlantic ridges and reentrants, with some reentrant sides being very steep or tall, as are the banks of most creeks, and mapped as such. Being an unmanaged area, mother nature continues doing as she wishes, without human interference.

This map of the NRMA is a work in progress (and can only be field checked during the non-hunting season!) so any comments on improving the map are welcome.