The final meet of the year was held Saturday, December 9 at Stewart Gulch East.
Although weather forecasts had predicted either rain or snow for Saturday morning,
the precipitation pretty much stayed away from the meet site (except for a few
intermittent sprinkles). The higher elevations on the map (especially the north
faces) were quite slick with hoarfrost, but the majority of the area was runnable
(if somewhat frozen) until later in the day, when melting made the paths very slick.
All things considered, conditions were pretty good for December.
The Intermediate and Advanced courses were set as a score course (12
controls, any order, various point values), with the only difference being
the time limit -- the Intermediate course had a 90 minute time limit, while
the Advanced course had a 60 minute time limit. I didn't think that it was
possible to get all the controls in an hour -- Sergey proved me wrong. Jeff
Black came close until the end, when a persistent mental error (and a
somewhat flakey map) combined to have him waste a huge amount of time on his
final control. Ole and David Bergset came back shaking their heads, with
Ole's map hanging in tatters. However, they did manage to explore most of
the map in the process :-) . Frank Kruesi gave it the ol' college try, but
the treacherous footing proved to be too much, resulting in his giving up
quite a bit earlier than usual.
The Beginner course was a somewhat difficult 2.3km loop (with an icky 85m of
climb). Masha Velichko did an admirable job of leading her father through
the course.
Meet Results: Advanced Course Score 105pts max, 60min limit, 1pt/min penalty Time Raw pts Adjusted pts Sergey Velichko 51:50 105 105 Jeff Black 73:17 85 72 Intermediate Course Score 105pts max, 90min limit, 1pt/min penalty Time Raw pts Adjusted pts Ole & David Bergset 77:45 80 80 Frank Kruesi 64:30 25 25 Beginner Course 2.3km 85m climb Time Masha & Sergey Velichko 48:30