Orienteering at Jackson Park (“Hend-O”)

Description:

Join us for an orienteering meet on a NEW MAP of the largest municipal-owned park in Western North Carolina, the beautiful and diverse Jackson Park in Hendersonville!

This place is fantastic, and boasts a wide range of terrains to both challenge and entertain — baseball diamonds, hiking trails, tennis courts, disc golf course, picnic and playgrounds areas, and wide open fields. There are three distinct, gentle hills, each a shaded and mostly runnable canopy of mixed hardwoods crisscrossed with a web of footpaths. My favorite part may be the network of mowed paths through shoulder-high wildflowers and grass in the river basin. It’s a joy to be there, and you and your family will love it.

Courses
Beginner (distance TBA, expected finish time < 20-40 minutes)
Intermediate (distance TBA, expected finish time < 40-60 minutes)
Advanced (distance TBA, expected finish time < 90-120 minutes)
Schedule
10:00am – 1:00pm : Open start window. Arrive any time, check in, and begin your choice of course(s)
3:00pm : All participants must be off the course
3:30pm : Controls pickup parties divide and conquer to retrieve flags and timing boxes (MANY THANKS to volunteers!)
4:00pm : You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here
Cost
These events have been donation-based until now, and I’m grateful for all the contributions. Going forward, Northline Navigation and WNC Orienteering Club events will have meet fees as follows, and are subject to change over time. When WNCOC implements its annual membership structure, deep discounts will apply.

Day-of payment – cash only
$12 per course map
Pre-pay online via debit/credit through PayPal (no account required)
$10 per course map
One map is good for a group of up to four members
Groups larger than four must purchase another map at full price
Additional maps per group of four are at half price
Courses after your first are FREE (pending map availability – please let me know if you plan on running a second course, and which)
Registration
This is a new process, so pardon our dust. This is a TWO STEP PROCESS.

Fill out and submit the Google Form
EVERYBODY fills out the Google Form either in advance or the day of the event
If you are attending, please take a moment and do it now to help us print the right number of maps, save you time at check-in, and get your name programmed into your key-fob
The Google Form is embedded below
Once you submit the Google Form, scroll down, select your course(s) and click the yellow “Buy Now with PayPal” button
You DO NOT need a PayPal account — you can check out with a debit or credit card as a Guest
Take advantage of pre-payment and GET YOUR DISCOUNT
You will receive a confirmation email from PayPal with your purchase details and a QR code on it – you can print it out and bring it, or just keep the email on your phone. This is how you’ll check in onsite
How to dress, what to bring, and what to expect
Orienteering can get a little dirty, so dress accordingly. None of this course is deep in the woods (yet) so pants and tall socks are not required. Comfortable clothes you can get sweaty in (and a little muddy, maybe) are advised.

Please bring adequate water and food. It’s still pretty warm, and we want everybody healthy and happy at the end of their course.

If you have a compass, bring it. If you do not, we have a few loaners, and there are umpteen free compass apps for download to your smartphone.

If you have a GPS watch or Strava/Map My Run type app that records your tracks, PLEASE BRING IT. A record of where you went (versus where you think you went) is a great tool for post-race analysis on our RouteGadget (http://wncoc.org/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi) and gives you a chance to get a clown-music video made of your “grand tour,” if that’s what we should call whatever it was you did out there.

Please bring your KIDS and your LEASHED DOGS and some refreshments for afterwards. There will be ice water and a community cooler for you to add your tasty beverages to. There will also be a cooler full of juice boxes for the kids.

Avoiding the disc golfers is a priority. Please be cognizant of your surroundings when you’re in the disc golf course area (you’ll be shown where it is on the map) and stay out of their way. Like, don’t stand in the middle of an open section of forest in the disc golf course area and stare at your map — move into the bushes if you have to stand around, and then when you traverse the course, do it quickly. Nobody’s perfect, of course, but let’s do our best to not upset those we share this space with.