World of O News
In today’s leg in Route to O-Season 2020 we go back to the year Route to Christmas started and present one of the highlights from the 2007 edition of Route to Christmas: A leg from the Swiss Champs Long 2006 in Crans Montana.
Back in 2007 the “Route to Christmas” legs were just presented “as is”, with no possibility to draw your favourite route in a WebRoute (and often also no real analysis, unfortunately). All “Route to Christmas” editions from 2007 and 2008 are now being upgraded with the possibility to draw your favourite route, and within the next week a webpage with links and thumbnails for all the 360+ “Route to Christmas” legs will be online (see the very first here). For now enjoy the leg from Swiss Champs Long 2006, and stay tuned for more.
The leg is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think about how you would attack this leg (if the image is too small, you may click on it to get it larger):
Location
You find other maps from the area in omaps.worldofo.com here. See also latest additions in 3DRerun from this area in order to learn more about this terrain type.
Webroute
Next you can draw your own route using the ‘Webroute’ below. Think through how you would attack this leg, and draw the route you would have made. Some comments about why you would choose a certain route are always nice for the other readers.
Then you can take a look at how the runners have solved this leg below. There was no analysis (except this illustration) back in 2007, but as you can see, going up (like Schneider and Hubmann did) clearly seems faster.
Density map
See below for a density map of some of the ones who have drawn their routes so far (available during the day when some readers have drawn their route).
Additional information
You find the complete map in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.
Route to O-Season 2020 series
Route Choice Challenges while waiting for the real action: With the upcoming orienteering season indefinitely on hold in large parts of the the world due to COVID-19, regular orienteering route choice challenges may be one way to make sure those orienteering skills don’t get completely rusty. I’ll try to keep these coming daily, but need help from all of you out there to keep them coming and to keep up a certain quality.
Tips on good route choice challenges – either from races/trainings (even cancelled ones) or theoretical ones with accompanying analysis – are very welcome (please e-mail to jan@kocbach.net).
Not all legs are taken for the interesting routechoice alternatives – some are also taken because the map is interesting – or because it is not straightforward to see what to do on a certain leg. Any comments are welcome – especially if you ran the event chosen for todays leg!
The route choice was clear when I realized that going up only adds 15-20 m of extra elevation which you drop into the control and _all_ the climb is on smooth, gradually ascending paths.
Thanks, Terje – I wish more people would add a comment about the legs. The tricky thing with these legs in steep, Swiss terrain is to understand the map well enough to make this realization.
Commenting. I am usually commenting, but it is cumbersome – at least – to read other people’s comments, so I suppose that’s why most people don’t bother. Thx for giving us these challenges, interesting when you select the “correct” routechoice yourself, and may be even more interesting when you don’t!
Thanks for the idea! I’ve made the comments more accessible going forward, please let me know if it works..
We may not be commenting a lot but your effort is definitely appreciated!
Thanks, Mike! I did make it easier to see the comments now (new tab “comments” in the WebRoute window which lists all comments) – maybe that increases the number of comments. You may also go back and draw another route (e.g. your “optimal route” in order to add a new comment). Thanks!