May 19, 2024

September 21, 2025

Bitterroot Weekend: Larry Creek

Tis is our 6th NRE day in 4+ years of existence. In retrospect, we should have just had both days be NREs and paid the sanctioning fees. Just as much effort went into Day 2 as into Day 1, and the quality was just as good.

It's so fun to show off our terrain and our club to folks from across the country!

I think both of our course setters, Siri and Chris, did a tremendous job, providing competitors with a wide variety of challenges across two very different terrain types.

Alli was amazing, doing registration and start lists and downloads and a thousand other things, and managing all with a smile.

Emily, our event director, was everywhere. She directed the event, assembled volunteers, got permits, got buses, got toilets, rented, packed, and drove the Uhaul, but also ran the amazing snack table, booked the venue and cooked and served all the food for the dinner, built and organized the maze, and even managed to get out on a course on Sunday. Emily’s mom Brenda and husband Jeff helped with all things dinner!

Margy, Jens, Kat, Harvey ran the starts both days, dealing with many changes on the fly and with a great attitude.

Calvin stepped in to do many different things whenever they popped up, from putting out signs to running the maze download to control pickup.

Kara helped with registration and download and also served as the medical officer, wrapping ankles and pulling out chunks of wood from people's legs.

Loy set up and ran the finish. We did not have to worry about that at all, knowing that she was doing it.

Chris and Caroline Chitty, Euell and Liam Browne, Michael and Colleen, Greg Friedman picked up controls and water and helped pack everything up - no small feat.

Kathleen and Larry Dent were the Camel Crew: they schlepped all the water out to water stops for both days - incredibly important for what turned out to be a rather hot weekend.

And that's just the GrizO people!
The orienteering community is great in that everyone comes with an attitude of "how can I help?" and that was very much on display this weekend.

CROC's Jill, Julie, Rick, and David ran the White/Yellow start the whole weekend.

Jon Campbell updated the Soft Rock map almost in real time during (and after!) the course setting process, including running early on Saturday so he could do more field checking.

Jon Brady and Chris Cooper hung flags and woke up controls both days.

Peter Gagarin, Tim McLaren, Pepe, Greg Balter, John Harbuck, Bruce Christopherson, Roland Hansson picked up controls.

Cascade Orienteering Club let us borrow a whole 70 SI boxes, flags, and control stands, and Ing Uhlin transported them down to Oregon for me to pick up and back to Seattle afterwards.

Thank you to our NRE course consultant Linda Kohn, who did a great job working with Siri and helping her courses become even better with each iteration.

Thank you to everyone else who jumped in and helped with a myriad tasks. I am sure I am forgetting someone, and I apologize for that!

Ooph. Our orienteering community is awesome. We are really grateful to all of you who made the (likely long and inconvenient) trip to Missoula for our weekend of orienteering. We hope we made it worthwhile.

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Split times:  https://www.attackpoint.org/eventdetail.jsp/event_58812​

Courses and routes:  https://www.livelox.com/Events/Show/169219/Bitterroot-Weekend-Larry-Creek

Pictures:   https://photos.app.goo.gl/FD9FfBardAz3mLJs8​​

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