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University of London Orienteering Club
This is intended as a quick guide to orienteering for the novice or inexperienced orienteer, some of the techniques mentioned are not needed for a first event and are included for completeness. Anybody in the club will be happy to explain further any of the techniques mentioned here.
Quick Links
Introduction And Courses
Orientating The Map
Map Scale
Taking Compass Bearings
Aiming Off
Pace Counting
Attack Points And Catching Features
The picture on the right is a small section of an orienteering map
(From the BUSA Relays 2000 Mens course), the triangle near the centre
represents the start and the circles represent each control point
(number 1 can be seen in the bottom left hand corner), The double
circle represents the finish.The main difference between a 'normal' map and an orienteering map (o-map) is the colour coding, on an o-map the forest areas will be shown in white if it is open forest and the colour will change from light green through to dark green as the forest becomes less 'runnable', open land is typically different shades of yellow depending how open the open land is.
After arriving at an event the first thing that you must decide is what course to run. There are two types of events
- Badge Events - these tend to be national level events
- Colour Coded Events - these are more local events
At Colour Coded events you can choose what course to enter and they are all named after colours
| Colour | Technical Difficulty | Length |
| White | Very Very Easy | Short |
| Yellow | Very Easy | Short |
| Orange | Easy | Short/Medium |
| Red | Easy/Medium | Long |
| Light Green | Medium | Medium |
| Green | Medium/Hard | Medium/Long |
| Blue | Hard | Long |
| Brown | Hard | Long |
After registering to run a particular course you will be given a control description and a control card. The control description tells you what sort of feature each control will be on (eg. Path junction, Boulder etc.) and a unique number to identify the control so that you know you have reached the right point, the control card contains a set of numbered boxes, at each control there will be a 'punch' this is a stapler type device that has instead of staples a set of pins set in a particular pattern, this is used to punch a hole in your control car to prove that you have visited the control.
We will now skip to the start, if you are at a badge event you probably do not have a map yet but do not worry you will get a nice marked-up map when you start, if you are at a colour coded event you will probably have a blank map at the moment. In colour coded event you have to mark the course onto the map yourself, to do this you will probably need to bring a pen (red is the normal choice - it is the only colour that is not used on the map), after you start there will be a set of 'master maps' about 10m away from the start for you to copy the course from, this is part of the competition but do not rush this part because if you draw a control in the wrong place on your map it will take you a very long time to find it on the ground! So you now have a fully marked up map, what do you do next?
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Orientating The Map
This is probably the most important skill for orienteering, if the map is correctly aligned with the ground you can never go wrong!?!?!
On the section of map above you can just about see a series of continuos thin black lines running vertically up and down the map, these lines run north-south (magnetic) with the top of the map north. If you take a compass and turn the map until these lines match the direction of the needle in the compass (red end north) your map will be properly aligned. You will now know which way to turn when reaching path junctions etc.
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The Map Scale
This is probably something I should have mentioned earlier, there are two main map scales for orienteering 1:10000 - 10mm on the map is 100m on the ground and 1:15000 - 10mm on the map is 150m on the ground. The distance between contours is 5m.
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Compass Bearings
A bearing is used when you want to get from one point to another in a straight line when there is nothing in-between.To take a bearing you should line up the two point with the edge of the compass with the direction of travel arrow pointing in the direction you want to go, then align the Grid Lines on the base of the housing with the north south lines on the map by rotating the housing, the north ends of the grid lines should match the north on the map. Take the compass off the map and turn around until the needle is lined up with the north on the compass and go in the direction of the direction of travel arrow. To take accurate bearings you should pick an object that you can see in the 'near distance' and run towards it, when you get there you should stop and pick another object and do the same, this will help to eliminate any error caused by running around things.
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Aiming Off
It is very unlikely that when traveling on a bearing you will get to exactly the right point, and if you miss which side of the point where you want to be are you; so there is a technique called aiming off. If you are traveling towards a feature such as a path, fence, stream, spur, re-entrant or some other longish feature you should pick a point either to the left or the right of what you are aiming for, then when you reach you stream for example and even if you have drifted to one side or the other you will know which way to turn.
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Pace Counting
This is a slightly more advanced technique that enables you to judge distance. The idea is that you know how many double paces it take you to cover 100m in different terrain, you can then use this information to work out how far you have gone. I count each time my left leg hits the floor and know that on open ground I will do 34 paces to 100m. Obviously before you can pace count you must measure your paces.
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Attack Point And Catching Features
If you are looking for a control that is a little bit in the middle of nowhere you nee to find someway of making it a bit easier, especially if the feature you are looking for is quite small. To do this you would pick a larger feature that is reasonably close to the control and easier to find, you can then use this to 'attack' the control. Good attack points are things like path junctions, stream junctions, corners in fences, big contour features, very distinct vegetation changes
A catching feature is something quite obvious that you can use if you go to far, it should be something that if you come to you can say 'oops I've gone past the control' and then turn around and go back. Good catching features are paths, streams, fences, spurs, re-entrants.