Choice of:

• One Month of Co-ed Track and Field for One Child, Ages 6-18
• One Month of Co-ed Track and Field for Two Children, Ages 6-18

Orienteering: The Thinking Sport

While you’re out in the wilderness, why not amp up your hike with an orienteering challenge? Read on to learn more about this time-tested sport.

Orienteering isn’t just for campers whose cell phones and GPS devices have run out of batteries. The sport was initially developed for use in military training, but people do it for fun, too: pushing themselves mentally and physically to navigate to designated check-in points or flags using only a paper map and a compass, ideally before their competitors do. Orienteering courses can range from leisurely all-ages hikes to fiercely competitive races against the clock.

Pathfinders

Although any type of map can be used for orienteering, most courses use special topographic maps that mark the landscape’s features in great detail with designated symbols. Most competitors locate the flags by first picking an attack point—a landmark such as a cave, stream, or boulder vaguely shaped like Richard Nixon from which they can measure all distances. From there, they keep a firm grip on the map, quite literally: most will have a thumb on the map at all times to track their exact location, with the top of the map always pointing north.