Should have gone to

[Kitch]

Silver Howe,
if you had, you'd have enjoyed
a great area
a great map
a great course
a great day
old school
no messing

but maybe it was a bit too real,
and I don't suppose it will generate 6 pages of blurb.

[Gross]

[NeilC]

Ditto OK Nuts at Hankley for us Southerners.
All of the above but with sunshine and no wind

[AndyC]

I went to CLOK's Cod Beck event on Sunday -simple straightforward orienteering -I even nearly got knocked over by deer (strange because I'd just had to dodge over friendly dogs).
Another example of the diversity of this sport

[graeme]

I don't suppose it will generate 6 pages of blurb.

So Silver Howe now leads Penrith by two threads to one Should have gone to both - they're both up there in my top-10 events for the year.

What did people make of the map? I struggled to get into it, so much was left off compared with the super-detailed things we get now. My problem of course: the
Silver Howe is an absolute model of legibility and spot on by its own old-school standards. I reckon if we had more maps like that then most of the pleas for ever-larger scale would go away.

I do think there's an issue of style worth discussing here: I'm not just saying "if all mappers were as good as Bilbo then maps would be better", even though that's true.

[Mrs H]

Top trumps - NGOC informal at Sallowvalets in the Forest of Dean
All of both of the above for £2 and the blue course was printed on the back of an old school grounds sprint map so I got to do mental exercise in the bath

But I'm enjoying the debate as well

[Duncan]

Silver Howe,
a great map

I agree with Kitch. This was the same map as produced 13 years ago (Lakes 5 day 1998). As the controller said: "The map is fairly old; the paths have changed, the juniper has grown and in some places quite major cliffs are missing. But the contours are good which we feel is the most important thing, and decided it was better to live with any imperfections." I didn't see those major cliffs he refers to, and who needs paths when you have so many contours? The map seemed fine to me.

I wonder how many other areas still have perfectly usable maps that long after the map was drawn? I remember a tour to Mysen, Norway, 1995, running on a mature pine forest area with a map from 1977 [18 years old, same age as me at the time] which was fine. And not so long ago I ran round Bethecar Moor with the BOC 1979 map [32 years old] which was also fine, although admittedly not quite up to today's standards!

And I wonder how much yellow ink has been saved on all the Silver Howe maps printed in the last 13 years, through the decision to depict "open fell" as white (which makes up nearly all the map).

[Red Adder]

Went to SOS's small brand new map at Pods Wood. Unpretentious event but very good map and course - what more could you want. Well worth the drive despite delays on the way home after a trailer of Xmas trees overturned and blocked the A12 - bah humbug.

[Gnitworp]

Excellent use of a small area. Excellent test of accurate compass and pacing.

Glad I went there rather than yet another run on hackneyed Hankley

[awk]

but maybe it was a bit too real,

Not at all. I was entered for both, but a stinking cold prevented running at Silver Howe. For me the big joy of orienteering nowadays is the variety. Only running 'old style' events and looking down my nose at urban racing, or only running urban races and missing out on the challenges of terrain, or only slogging away over long route choice legs and losing out on the intensity of sprint, or only dashing around for a few minutes and not experiencing the varied and unrelenting technicality and physicality a good long 'forest' course can bring - none of those would be the option I'm looking for. So, yes, very sorry to miss out on Silver Howe - great area, great looking event. Just grateful that I was able to run one day of what must have been a great weekend of races for those who ran both days. But there again,

[Jethro]

Regarding the "missing" cliffs at Silver Howe - I think the "problem" is that Bilbo only marks rock as a crag/cliff if it is actually vertical. In some places where the is a lot of rock on a steep slope (eg to the west of control 122) it can, particularly at race speed, look very much like a crag when in fact it isn't vertical. Still a perfectly useable map and all the better for not being over-cluttered.

[david_rosen]

In general I agree with Bilbo's approach to mapping rock - only show it if you will at least break a leg if you go over it. But I think the SW slope may have been rather lightly mapped and that is where there are some major crags missing. In particular, there is an enormous fin of rock just SE of 113 (29 on the A) which you would expect to see as a double-sided crag but appears on the map as a crag on only one side.

[Kitch]

What did people make of the map? ...., so much was left off compared with the super-detailed things we get now. My problem of course: the
Silver Howe is an absolute model of legibility and spot on by its own old-school standards. I reckon if we had more maps like that then most of the pleas for ever-larger scale would go away.

I do think there's an issue of style worth discussing here:

This was an argument that was held about 25 years ago
map for 15,000, enlarge for those that want / need 10
less clutter, more clarity
the problem was solved by mappers like Bilbo, Jon, Stirling just doing it.

This requires the orienteer to be better able to read the terrain and interpret the map bringing the two together to create a clear picture of their route.
good maps make good orienteers.

This art and skill is not required when running round a street O'
(nor indeed in creating a street map)

[graeme]

This art and skill is not required when running round a street O'
(nor indeed in creating a street map)

On the contrary, over on the Penrith thread there's a plea for ever larger scales on street maps. Its exactly the same argument as ISSOM 25 years ago.

What's needed there, just as for regular maps, is a style which emphasizes what's important for the orienteer can you get through here or not if necessary at the cost of correctness this alley is 1m wide, these two uncrossable walls are 2m apart, a contour crosses this stair. Unfortunately this is time consuming and goes beyond what mharky memorably described as colouring in OS maps. But it's conveniently mindless work to do while waiting at airports.

On style, Wharncliffe is a good example: take a look as this years BOC, compare with the map from when you were in Sheffield. Which do you prefer?

[Kitch]

I don't understand what you are saying.