Mason Neck

Flickr photo album for this event is here.

Happy Halloween to QOC family and friends! On Sunday, 26 October we had a fantastic day in the woods of Mason Neck Sate Park. The weather was beautiful for much of the day, with a crisp morning chill, improving temps and sun throughout the day, and beautiful fall colors.
With near perfect weather and the participation from many young competitors we exceeded over 200 starts. In addition to local veteran orienteers we had a great mix of first timers, nine high school groups from Navy JROTC and Air Force JROTC units, adventure racers working on their nav skills, and one snowbird on his way from Ontario to Gulf Coast of FL. Thanks to all who came out. It was also a pleasure to meet so many new (or new to QOC) orienteers throughout the day. Welcome!
Thanks to Gary Smith who designed full set of seven courses in the beautiful and mostly open woods at Mason Neck. We heard many good things from returning runners and trekkers about the courses over the subtle terrain, tricky reentrants, and barely visible marshes. We also had the pleasure of learning about Trail-O and Soundscape disciplines from Russ Myer and Daniel Heimgartner throughout the day.
QOC relies on our volunteers to make every event happen, and I was thrilled with the crew that stepped up to help make Sunday a wonderful day:
- Harry Jones, Paul Hession, Matthew Knight, Don Fish, and Jody Landers all assisted with set up and other support as we got going.
- Harry, Chloe Ritter, and Michael Tyson were all amazing as the first point of contact at check-in, providing the key information and materials for folks to get out on the courses. Harry and Don both supported Russ, Daniel and their other team mates on Trail-O and Soundscape execution, and Keg Good supported course development and on-site vetting for Daniel.
- Keg Good, Erin Brandt, Ginny Quam and Gary Quam all provided beginner and refresher training to a swath of new and returning orienteers, ensuring kids and adults were comfortable on their chosen or revised course, and highlighting map and course differences between our sport orienteering, military land nav, and adventure racing techniques.
- Ed Joseph, John Organek, David Doherty, Tessa Simonds, Sharmagh Yepremian, and Justin Green all headed back out after their courses for control pick up. Thank you all for such an expeditious process.
- Howie Weinstein, Justin, and Sharmagh were super helpful with rounding up equipment, packing up, and cleaning up of our event site.
- Valerie, Amy, and Aaron were our e-punch team making everything so smooth, and Valerie handled all of the printing and organizing of the maps and clue sheets.
- Our VA VP team, Dennis Doherty and Aaron Linville coordinated with Gary, Russ, Daniel, Craig Sheldon, Don, Greg Lennon, and me, and the State Park on preparations to make this happen including reservations, map reviews and and prep, courses approval, permits, and event kit logistics.
- Behind the scenes Greg kept us all on track by maintaining, reviewing and updating the website, along with running the event registration and reviewing, renewing, and adding new memberships.
- Kathleen Lennon got the word out to the wider world via the socials and Sharmagh Yepremian organized a great post-event meet up at Casa Tequila in Lorton.
- Finally, Sid Sachs has been meticulously keeping track of QOC events to tabulate finish and volunteer stats for our bragging rights points system after every event.
It takes a great deal of teamwork to prepare and pull off our amazing QOC events, and I am so happy for the opportunity to collaborate with these folks on Mason Neck. We have the best events because we have the best volunteers! Please consider volunteering at a future event. I look forward to seeing you in the woods throughout the 2025-2026 season.
- John Baker, Event Director

For the time being, the Top 10 finishers on each course are being presented below. The full results will be posted before year end.

White

Course Length: 1.8 km

Course Climb: 15 m

Number of Controls: 6

Yellow

Course Length: 2.3 km

Course Climb: 30 m

Number of Controls: 7

Orange

Course Length: 4.1 km

Course Climb: 60 m

Number of Controls: 10

Brown

Course Length: 4.2 km

Course Climb: 55 m

Number of Controls: 10

Green

Course Length: 5.6 km

Course Climb: 70 m

Number of Controls: 12

Red

Course Length: 6.9 km

Course Climb: 85 m

Number of Controls: 14

Blue

Course Length: 9.1 km

Course Climb: 80 m

Number of Controls: 14

Abbreviations: DNF = did not finish, MP = mispunch, NC = non-competitive (usually 2nd course or course setter/vetter), OT = overtime (more than 3 hours or returned after course closing time).