Orienteering

What is Orienteering?

Orienteering is different types of activities that require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate you from point to point  and usually unfamiliar trips and tasks, also you are normally moving at speed. Participants are given a map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map, which they use to find control points that they need to search for. Originally a training exercise in land navigation for militar officers, orienteering has developed a variety of activities. Among these, the oldest and the most popular is foot orienteering. Basically any sport that involves racing against a clock and requires navigation using a map is a type of orienteering.

 

The Courses

The colours shown in the table above relate to the length and navigational difficulty of the colour coded courses offered at Level D and C events.

By seeing your progression you can then be made either towards longer courses the same, or on to courses with more challenging navigation, up to the appropriate length for their fitness. 

White Courses (XS) are very easy with all controls on paths.  They are mainly used by 6-10 year olds and family groups.

Yellow Courses (XS-S) use simple linear features like paths, walls and streams.  They are mainly used by under 12’s and family groups.

Orange Courses (S-M) progress to basic use of the compass and route choice. They are ideal for novice adults or experienced youngsters. Long Orange courses are used mainly by novice adults wanting a longer run.

Light Green Courses (S) are ideal for improvers as the navigational difficulty begins to increase and uses simple contours and ‘point’ features.

Green Courses (S) are used mostly by experienced under 18’s and adults wanting a short but challenging course with a very hard navigational difficulty.

Blue Courses (M) are a longer, more physically demanding course in comparison to the green. The distances are more varied between controls and the course attracts experienced orienteers.

Brown (L) and Black Courses (XL) are very physically demanding and have a very hard navigational difficulty. They are for experienced orienteers only.

Orienteering Maps

 

Black is used for most man-made features such as buildings and rock features such as cliffs, crags and boulders

Brown is used to show landform, including contour lines, gullies, pits and knolls (small hills).
Blue is used for water features such as lakes, ponds, marshes and streams
White and Green are used to depict the density of woodland and the extent to which it impedes progress. Open ‘runnable’ woodland is left white with progressively darker shades of green mean increased density, ranging from ‘slow run’ to ‘difficult’ (or walk) through to ‘impenetrable’(or fight).

Yellow is used for unwooded areas with a solid yellow for grassy spaces such as playing fields and a paler yellow for rougher terrain (‘rough open’) such as heather.

Combinations of yellow and green show other types of terrain which will be explained in the legend.