Grizzly Orienteering's February events at Playfair Park consisted of a night orienteering event on Saturday night followed by a day event on Sunday morning. Contrary to the organizer's expectations, the night-O proved more popular of the two, more than double the attendance of the day event! Another sign that Montanans love a good challenge.

 

Despite the extra tough navigation at night, the fastest times on three of the four courses were set during the night event: Randy Tanner on the Advanced course (in a blistering 35:29 for the nearly 5km-long course); GrizO newcomer Melinda Balchan on Advanced Beginner (28:11), and newcomers Mary Curry and her family on the Beginner course (25:33). On the Intermediate course, Loy Koch had the fastest time during the day (34:09), beating out 12-year-old Isaac Jones by over three minutes.

 

These were our first events to feature electronic punching and timekeeping thanks to a generous donation from Quantico Orienteering and equipment loans from Cascade Orienteering and Orienteering Cincinnati. After some technical glitches, electronic timing ended up working great. We are hoping to offer live results at future events. You can see the split times from the Playfair Park events here.

 

A huge thank-you to all our volunteers for making these events happen! We got help with control hanging and/or pickup from Randy Tanner,  Loy Koch, Jared Hearing, and Tom Facey. Jared, along with Taylor Coon, helped staff the registration table. Laura and Bob Hunt helped with setup, takedown, and just about everything in between during Sunday's event. Tom Facey was everywhere on Saturday night, keeping everything going while we were battling the technology. Randy and Tom also jumped in and helped with beginner instruction on Saturday night. We could not do these events without you!

 

Finally, a big thank-you to Missoula Parks and Recreation and Missoula County Public Schools for granting us the right to use their land for our events.

 

Take a look at some of the pictures from the weekend's races here. Check out the course maps, too: Beginner; Advanced Beginner; Intermediate; Advanced.

 

Our next event is currently scheduled for March 21 at Blue Mountain.