My First Orienteering Event

Do you get lost heading down to the local shops but want to improve your navigation skills so you can take part in some of the more challenging fell races? Maybe you run and want tot try something new? Perhaps you took a navigation course before GPS had been invented and want to keep the skills up. Orienteering is the answer, and I have finally got round to giving it a go and I think its a great sport that more runners should try.



I had wanted to try orienteering for some time. In 2017, as preparation for the OMM (Original Mountain Marathon) I attended an FRA (FellRunners Association) organised navigation course and learnt a great deal about not getting lost. I also learnt that when you aren't feeling completely adrift and hopeless, navigation can be fun! It’s very satisfying to see the little orange and white flag appear out of the bracken or pop up between the rocks right where you were hoping to find it. I would (and do) strongly recommend the FRA course to anyone who wants to brush up on their nav skills. Its great value and the volunteer instructors are as passionate as they are knowledgeable.

The course ended with a test of what we had learnt over the 2 days in the form of a 10km, non competitive orienteering event on Silver How, above Grasmere, where we had been learning our craft and I loved it. Since returning from the training course I have been telling myself that I would try a proper orienteering event. The trouble was I didn't know anyone who did it and had no idea where to start, and to be honest, I hadn't gone out my way to find out. After over a year, the opportunity presented itself. Vicki (from TBH) had sent a message in a group chat saying there was an event coming up, organised by Newcastle and Tyneside Orienteers and one of the courses was billed as "a special course for fell runners/adult beginners". I contacted the organisers to reserve my map; now it was time to check the rules and see what I had got myself in for.

My first surprise was in the kit requirement. From fell running I am used to the need to carry a whistle, compass and full body waterproof cover. The difference was that I was also required to have my lower body completely covered, this meant no short shorts, I had to wear trousers or running tights with socks long enough to meet them. The very sensible reason given is that ticks are potential hazard when moving through the long grass and being covered lowers the risk and getting a new bite-y friend. It also felt strange to be packing for a race that required a compass and navigation skills and not to include a map, but of course I would be given my map when I started.

What really took some getting used to was not having a specific start time. Registration was from 10 am to 12 pm and the start was open from 10:30 until 12:30. I understood the need for a start window rather than a time; if everyone went off together it would be just like a fell race where people follow whoever is in front of them and cross their fingers that they have picked a guide who knows the way.  For orienteering the navigation is the bulk of the challenge and a mass start would defeat the purpose, no matter how much you tried to ignore everyone around you, it would be a giveaway if everyone was heading behind the same rock or crouching in the same depression (I'm thinking of the checkpoints, not the solution to the lack of toilet facilities!). Even so, no set time felt alien, so I planned my day to arrive at 10.

So how does orienteering work then? Here is my quick summary, picked up from a bit of online research and a crash course from one of the events very helpful volunteers immediately after I registered. Once you have chosen your event, you have to pick your course. These are colour coded and range from "White", an easy navigation challenge, all on paths, covering a kilometre or so, to "Brown" (and occasionally "Black"), with the controls (checkpoints) situated in very difficult locations, covering a much longer distance and with the highest complexity of navigational challenge. Orange (my chosen course for Simonside) should have a difficulty of 3/5 making it suitable for novice adults and as this was the "Long Orange" course the distance 5.6km (in a straight line).

When you register you can hire a "dibber". No, this is not a pen used at bingo games but a small plastic, (almost pen-like), object usually with a wrist or finger strap. It is used to check in at each of the checkpoints (controls) as well as the start and finish and records you time at each point. When you finish you take it to "download" where the dibber is read and you get a print out with your split times between each control and your overall time for the course. Anyone who has done a mountain marathon or long fell race that includes a navigation element might be familiar with the system.

When you decide it is time for you to start, you join the orderly queue and wait to be told to step forward. When there is a sufficient gap to anyone on your course who has already started you will get the nod. The timer starts once you dib in at the start control and that's when you collect your map. The start is marked with a triangle and each of the control points are labelled with a circle and a number, joined by a straight line. Your task is to get to each control and log your arrival with the dibber, in order, in the fastest time then get to the finish where you stop the clock by inserting your dibber into the finish control (stop giggling, you'll find no innuendo here!).

All sounds simple enough! I gathered my kit and set off for the start line, my dibber was firmly attached to my finger and I was finding it impossible not to notice that I was the only person carrying a backpack. What I failed to notice was what the long uphill drag to the start meant. The finish was in the car park I had just left so if the start was up this hill then the route would have a lot of down!

The start line was actually a pair of boxes marked on the floor with red and white tape. To the left were a few of the electronic control boxes but I didn't pay them any attention. There were two guys waiting to head off and just as I got to the back of the queue the starter asked if anyone was waiting to start, not on the "green" course. The other two looked at each other. Then they looked at me. They must be green then.."..long orange.." I practically squeaked (lingering cold catching the words in my throat, not nerves..well not all nerves anyway).

I must have looked like a newbie because she started giving me the basic instructions I soon found out that one of the units next to the start was to clear my dibber before stepping forward to the line...whoops, back I go. During this the iPad next to the "start" control beeped, I assumed it was a timer to say the gap to the previous competitor was sufficient for someone else to set off. I was now officially holding up the green men... On the floor just past the start was line of plastic wallets, each holding a stack of specially printed waterproof maps for one of the courses. Note to self: pick up the right sodding one!

As instructed, with freshly cleared dibber, I dibbed the start control, checked at least twice I was reaching for the right map and then....stood dumb struck for what felt like an eternity trying to find the triangle to show me where the start was. I could see number 1...the start must be near there...

Found it! Ok, back in business, orientate the map...compass out straight away, feeling like a pro already. Checked a couple of times which of the forks to take... I'm sure there will be a nav mistake at some point, but let's not do it right in front of the starter and the handful of other competitors waiting to start...

Ok, right fork, the first control was marked as just off the path on the left near a broken fence (? Need to brush up on my symbols). I decided to run along the path until I saw the fence then decide my next move. Very quickly I came to a broken wall crossing the track (yup, need to brush up on the symbols!), I also saw Vicki stood just off to the left having logged her first control and deciding where to go. 

In the corner of the map is a list of control descriptions. For each control there is a short hint, something like "Boulder cluster E. side", and a 3 digit number. Some controls on different courses can be close to each other and so it's important to check the control matches the description, you don't want to dib the wrong box!

I wished Vicki well and set off along the side of the broken wall towards C2. Less than 5 minutes in and I was already climbing steeply, losing my footing in the mud and swatting tree branches out of my face. I think I'm going to enjoy this sport! I found control 2 at the top of the slope next to a rather ambitiously described "pond". Departing C3 I made my first, and only significant, navigation error of the day. I took a bearing to guide me to the next control then promptly ignored it and set off down the wrong gap in the trees. It was a good job I had the bearing because I wasn’t too many paces in before I checked it and spotted my error. I retraced my steps to the control and set off in the right direction.

C5 was nestled in the rocks below the north side of the Simonside summit. After logging it I saw that the next control was the summit cairn. The obvious route was to contour around to the west and pick up the well paved and popular climb to the top; but I knew better. C5 stood on the descent used during the fell race held every September and I knew it well. I skirted the large boulder that the control kite was resting against and there it was; the muddy, tricky well hidden path up. I had never gone up this path before but knew from the runs down that it wasn't going to be easy, never the less I still thought it would be quicker than going around.

Legs and lungs burning, hands covered in mud, I crested between the rocks and heather a few minutes later and saw the bright orange and white kite of C6. I also saw another competitor coming around the cairn from the other direction. Choice validated! I hadn't seen him ahead of me on my way to this point and so must have gained good ground on him with my route choice (or lost a lot, but let’s be positive!).

What the view from the Simonside should look like. It was much more grey and in the cloud on the day.

The next few controls went successfully with some excellent fun scrambling between boulders and on wet grassy slopes hunting for the kites. Between 9 and 10 came most of the descent. Unfortunately I had assumed that I would be largely on trails and had picked my footwear on that badly wrong assumption. The downhill I had chosen was over a kilometre of Northumberland’s finest slippery mud and instead of gliding majestically down I had to pick my way gingerly towards the distant road.

As I hunted for C10 I could hear someone charging along the path I had just negotiated…I bet he was wearing the right shoes. Crouching in the handy depression with the control so as not to give away the position too easily, I planned my next route. There were only 5 more controls before the finish and my new friend was to be pretty close at hand for the rest of the way.

He was behind me on the road and entered the woodland that cloaked C11 hot on my tail. I hit the next two controls just before him but as I contemplated the map for a route to C13 he overtook me. Once I had made a decision I passed him on the road (apparently I was starting to get competitive) and found the next kite. 14 was trickier to locate even though it was only a short distance away and he beat me to it (lucky he did or I might have missed it buried in the ditch).

I was to cross the finish a matter of seconds after him but of course we had different start times and I knew overall he would have been much further ahead. In fact he was just over 10 minutes quicker setting the fastest time of the day. I was the second quickest with 6 other competitors, including Vicki completing the course.

As always with these sorts of things, they wouldn’t happen without a team of dedicated volunteers and in this case they did a great job of making us feel welcome and put on a top event.

It was a wet, boggy, cloudy day in the Northumberland hills doing something almost entirely new. A day both properly within, and well outside my comfort zone.  Thoroughly good fun! What’s that you say, you have another event next weekend in Gateshead next to the estate I live on…it would be rude not to!