Fountainhead West

Course results can be seen below. Splits are available on Attackpoint or Winsplits. To enter your routes and see how others went, head to RouteGadget.

The weather was amazing and the turnout exceeded our expectations—though when we first did the detailed planning for the New Year Event, it was hard to get past the thought of a winter storm. Nevertheless, we had 205 runners show up (the largest number this season without a JROTC presence), including a very special QOC veteran, Lieutenant General (Retired) Donny Wurster, who ended his US Air Force career as the Commander, Air Force Special Operations Command. He had been a very active QOC member and this meet was his first in 20 years. He could not get over how much orienteering has improved over that time.

This meet made maximum use of the area in the big horseshoe bend of the Occoquan also known as W. Fountainhead. As many already know, this is an excellent orienteering location, but access to the site requires using buses. It also requires the great cooperation we received from NOVA Parks. The staff—particularly Nancy Chamberlain and Brad Robinson—were very supportive, providing us access to the Kegley House (at the Start/Finish), working with residents along Wolf Run Road and with the police, and providing us overnight storage for supplies. We want to thank them for making us welcome!

I’d like to thank Victor Lin for designing a great set of courses, while using a minimum number of controls! Besides placing the controls, he also ported water out to the water points, a pretty important consideration when the temperatures suddenly spike. Victor demonstrated his adaptability when discovering that the main bridge over Wolf Run was moved downstream—he simply edited the map. Control layout in several of the NOVA sites, can be dangerous between September and March, because of the bow hunters. Victor wore bright yellow!

The holidays added suspense to getting volunteers for the New Year Event, but we had excellent response with the relatively short notice. All pitched in to give you a great 2019 New Year Event. As Laura and Aaron Linville posted after the Prince William Meet, it is a good idea for Meet Directors to tag team on successive meets. Laura and Aaron volunteered to handle registration, probably the most difficult task and did an excellent job of keeping the flow going. I also want to thank both Scott Sharp and Kris Beecroft, who continue to pitch in, meet in and meet out. And finally, we should thank Matt Knight and Jim Chaplin for their time—and patience—providing Beginner Instruction. This meet, we had 6 attendees.

In spite of keeping the number of controls used low, they were nevertheless quite scattered across the terrain. Many thanks to those who volunteered to go out to retrieve the controls, after an exhausting run: Charles Carrick, Mark Thomsen, David Onkst, Patrick Farley and Bill Wright. Patrick and Victor also took a turn at being ‘Lyft Operators’, taking stragglers back to the main parking lot.

And very special thanks to Valerie Meyer and Amy Louden for ‘going out on point’ to the Kegley House to: run the e-punch process, act as eyes and ears at the remote site, and keep count of those on and off the course, to detect stragglers. Their excellent work contributes a very valuable service to our club! (ask one of the veterans how this was done Last Century!)

We also want to thank Amy and Valerie for coordinating the ‘evacuation’ of people who missed the last bus (despite the warning to be out of the woods at 3PM. As she left, Valerie managed to bring 5 people and 2 dogs back to the main parking area.

Finally, this meet would not have been successful without the excellent coaching—and patience—that Charles Carrick provided, as well as taking care of a myriad of details that made this a great meet. Perhaps it is not the Super Bowl nor the Olympics, but a lot of volunteer effort goes into staging a meet like this. But if you had a great experience, you made it all worthwhile!

-John Organek, Meet Director