Knob Noster Orienteering Meet Report and Results
by Eric Saggars, Course Setter
Daytime events
April 14, 2007

A few days of rain with a snow-shower the night before the event made Knob Noster park a sopping wet, muddy place for an orienteering meet Saturday.  Two inches of wet snow came down overnight and when I arrived to place the last of the controls, it was if the ground had been sprayed with a vanilla slushy machine from Quik-trip.  The water was really flowing in the creeks and over the spillway at Lake Buteo.  Clearfork Creek, which runs through Knob Noster, was running high and full and not safe for crossing anywhere.  I designed the Score-O course for this contingency and all of the daytime controls were on the east side of the creek.  These were not the conditions I was hoping for when I volunteered to set courses for a mid-April meet.

But, as the day went on it warmed up to about 44 degrees and the snow gradually melted.  The woods were still relatively open and very runnable.  Eric Buckley and Mike Eglinski remarked how fun and fast the woods were.  A group of Navy JROTC came over from Topeka and my son’s Boy Scout Troop came over from Overland Park and participated in the daytime Score-O and shortened version of the night event.

The bad weather must have kept the beginners at home.  We had just two entries on the Orange course, none on White or Yellow.  Almost everyone opted for the 2-hour Score-O.  It sure seems to be a popular format for our club.  Eric Buckley only needed 69 minutes to visit all 28 controls!  Everyone seemed to have fun.  

Thanks to Dick Neuberger and Reta Roe for Registration help.  Thanks to Dick Luckerman and Phil Nicolas for control pickup.