HANNY’S GRANITE TIPS

Hanny’s Top Ten Tips for Granite Orienteering

1. Contours: Contours are and always will be an orienteer’s best friend. Use the contours as your number one navigational tool. When you think about it, the contours are the only feature on the map that are 100% accurate as they are mapped (almost always) from areal photography whilst the granite and other features are purely a mapper’s interpretation. 2. Simplification: It can become overwhelming when looking at a granite orienteering map… all those little black dots! So when you are orienteering try to find ways of staying out of the rock for as long as you can. Re-enter the rock at the last minute. This way you will not only simplify your navigation but also increase your running speed. 3. Traffic lighting: When you use the Simplification technique there is a risk that after running fast in the easier terrain you forget to slow down when re-entering the rock. It is often best if you stop and ‘walk’ into the control, making sure that you know exactly what features you are expecting to see on entry into the flag. 4. Attack points: Know exactly what your last major feature is when re-entering the rock and then exercise great caution. This Attack Point should be large, obvious and thus easily identifiable from the surrounding features.

After leaving the attack point have a series of minor attack points that will lead you into the control. Mentally ‘walk’ this section. 5. Rock shapes: When navigating in rock one can become overwhelmed by the similarity of all the features.

However, rocks are vary rarely all the same shape and mappers (particularly in Australia) recognise this, often mapping the larger rocks with shapes. If a rock has a unique shape on the map it will then make the perfect navigational feature on the ground as it will stand out from all the rocks around it. 6. Bare rock: Bare rocks (mapped with grey) not only make an easy navigation tool due to their size and unique shapes but they also increase your speed in the terrain if you run on top of them. This is particularly important in

Australia where we have a lot of undergrowth and fallen timber on the ground. 7. Placing the rock in the terrain: It is very risky to only navigate using one feature ie. just the granite. Therefore, try to use a combination of contours and granite (eg.

Where does the rock sit in relation to the top of the hill of the nearby gully?) or vegetation and granite (eg. Is the rock near a vegetation boundary or in the open? etc) 8. Control descriptions: Make sure that you know exactly what the feature is that the control is on and what side of the feature it is on. Then try to choose a route choice that allows you to approach from this side. If you are looking around and being observant you should be able to see the control easily and thus increase your speed and control flow. 9. Short legs: If the leg is short and you have no option to avoid the rock detail then mentally ‘walk’ the leg. You will loose far more time getting lost amongst the rocks than you will just taking it that little bit easier! 10. Goals: Never enter an orienteering event without navigational goals! This is particularly important where navigation is far more important than running speed.

Write your goals down and keep looking back over them.

This way you will stay focussed on the task at hand rather than the speed and pressure the competition and its outcomes.

For more from Hanny go to her website: www.hannyallston.com

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