Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club 4th U.S. ARDF Championships

2m Vasquez Rocks

by Matthew Robbins, AA9YH

I’m writing this almost a month after I did it, so my memory might be a little hazy.

Vasquez Rocks is a desert area north of Los Angeles with visually stunning rock formations. It has been used in many films and television shows including the original Star Trek (where Kirk battles a desert monster basically in the parking lot of Vasquez), The Flintstones Movie, and the series “24”.

Marvin has said he chose to do the 2m event at Vasquez because you would expect the rocks to have very tricky reflections. I think our collective expectation was that Marvin was going to try to set the trickiest course any of us had ever seen, so we looked at the preview map until our eyes couldn’t take it anymore.

On most orienteering maps, especially here in the Midwest, “uncrossable” terrain features are a very small part of most maps. In general, the steepness of a hillside is conveyed with very closely spaced contour lines that experience tells you is a bad way to go. Vasquez Rocks is completely different. The map is covered with solid black “impassable cliffs”. Because the “soil” is sand and rocks, with little organic matter to act as a binder, the steepness of “non-rock” terrain is much less than the thicker soil here in the Midwest. On the Vasquez Rocks map, in the simplest terms, you can go anywhere on the map as long as you don’t cross the solid black lines. (On the map .jpg file LAOC provided, both impassable cliffs and some trails look like solid black lines---It’s easier to tell the difference on the paper maps.)

The start and finish locations were a surprise to me. Because the “interesting area” is quite small, I expected the start and finish circles to overlap, or to be almost the same place. I halfway expected Marvin to use a smaller start circle, but in the few minutes I had before my start, I could see the start location Marvin picked didn’t exclude much of the fun area.

Bob Frey and I got to be the first starters. I drank one last drink of water, hit “Check” one last time, and gave my niece a hug. The start was at a high point, with a wonderful view across the valley to the rocks (it’s even better than you can tell from this first photo: http://members.aol.com/homingin/nccapix2.html ). The start corridor put us onto a trail on a broad spur. It was downhill, easy running, stopping every minute to draw a bearing. 1 was ahead, down the trail, 2 was ahead, but farther. 3 and 4 were in the “fun area” and 5 was a on a bearing right down the middle of the parking lot road, right past the monolith.

Although I was running (mostly), I was still moving pretty slowly. Vadim started five minutes behind me, and caught up to me five minutes later. As five was ID-ing, Bob Frey was way out in front, and Vadim was 5m in front of me. When one came on, I could hear the tone from Vadim’s headphones, 5m away, and before I could even swing my antenna around, Vadim took off into the scrubby brush to our left. I need to read the manual on my radio to see if it can be set to respond quicker when the signal starts. I hit it 20 seconds after it came on, three seconds after Vadim. Bob Frey, who was farther down the trail and had to run back, hit it 29 seconds after me at 10minutes 49 seconds.

After I punched 1, I went straight back to the trail and continued South. Vadim was almost out-of-sight. One thing I’ve learned in the few events I’ve done is that you need to really pay attention to the other transmitters as they come on, not just the one you’re going after. So, at this point: I’m going for 2, 3 and 4 are to my right, and 5 is really far away just E of the finish.

I paused (too long) at the end of the spur waiting for 2 to come on. I could see Vadim climbing the trail (almost to where two was), but I was worried about getting down in the valley and getting reflections all over the place. When 2 came on, it was pretty clearly out-of-sight on the other side of the hill. Somehow, Vadim either knew it was far away from the signal, or he knew to keep moving.

I got in the vicinity of 2, within 100 or 125 meters. I just missed the third cycle from when I left 1. I was at 1 at 10 minutes. So looking at the split from one, 2 was on at 1 minute, 6, and 11minutes. I just missed a direct line-of-sight bearing by about 1 minute. (I’m a really slow climber). I was within 100m past 2 when it came on at 16 minutes, and the bearing was directly away from 2 (!). Around this time Bob Frey went by on the way to four (he would later tell me). He would also tell me later that when 2 was on, his antenna swung right onto it, and he saw it. I climbed to a cliff edge maybe 200m away from two, and when it came on at 21, my direct signal and the 180 signal were almost indistinguishable. It just barely pointed back toward where 2 really was. I looked down the slope, and saw several possible locations where 2 could be. At this point, if I had looked farther away up the slope, I could have seen the flag. I searched the locations, got one more bearing at 26 minutes which pointed 90 degrees away from where 2 was, searched there. Several minutes before 2 came on at 31 minutes, Dave D'Epagnier and Jay Thompson came up the trail from 1. I think Dave saw me and decided to move to a location that would give a nice crossing with where I was (although that’s just my guess—we didn’t say a word to each other). Jay sort of kept moving up the hill (where I had been earlier). One thing I’ve learned in 20 years of orienteering is to pay extra attention when you see people who look confused. In ARDF, when you think you’re close and you see one or two other people around, I don’t think there’s any rule about at least just keeping an eye on them. So, at 31 minutes, 2 came on again, and Dave and I converged on it from different directions. He got it at 33 seconds, but I was in some rocks and took 1:48 to get to it. My split was 33:28 (from 1 to 2). Jay took 1 second longer: 33:29, but three or four cycles after Dave and I got it.

Looking back, I think my problem was not so much the reflections, but my failure to lift up my head and look around. I was also misunderstanding my signal strength indication, although there certainly were issues with the reflections. I think a big part of ARDF is getting used to your radio equipment under lots of different conditions.

From 2, I went NNW along the spur. I missed three as I was climbing toward 2: A hill was in the way, and I just didn’t trust the info. Four was making this really weird Battlestar Galactica Centurion sound, so I figured it was on the far side of the hill to my north. Five was still E of the finish, and three seemed to be the next one to go for.

About 250m NNW of 2, I paused at the check-mark shaped cliff (see the map). I wanted to know whether to go right or left. The cliff is impassable for about 500m, so I was hoping to get a good indication. The bearing pointed left, which I would later figure out was a reflection off the hill to the west. I took the left way. I must have been walking, because my next bearing was only about 400m away (there’s a little tag line in my path over to the edge of the cliff). So now I knew I needed to be on the other side of the black line, so I sent N to the fishhook shaped cliff and descended. I had a really bad location for getting a good signal, so I hurried E to a cliff that gave me a good view of the valley. I knew this would let me know if 3 were lower (down more cliffs). The signal I got was N, kind of along the cliffs I was on. I moved 100m or so, and searched the rocks. At this point I was getting worried. I’ve marked this point on my map as “A”. It seemed just like 2, where I was really close and couldn’t find it. I stood up on a cliff (probably 3m high) and waited. I saw three people find a T on the other side of the valley. I figured it was 5, and I circled it on my map. My brain was starting to put together the fact that 5 was farther N, that if it were 5 it was too close to where I thought 3 was, and then…3 came on and I swung my antenna directly at the place I saw the 3 people. I don’t remember saying anything, but it was pretty deflating. Sigh. I looked down, found a good spot, and jumped. Went way too fast downhill through some stiff, prickly desert vegetation, and made it to 3 off-cycle 22:49 after I left 2. On 2-to-3, I beat Gyuri by about 30 seconds (which is insane to me), but Bob Cooley beat me by a minute.

Now, having explained how I got to three, I think the real story is how bad I screwed up. When I was at point A, looking at people going into three, I should I thought for a minute. I should have realized I was in a perfect location to turn around and get four, then three, then five. I should have known that the area for four was close and quite small. I should have seen the finish exclusion circle and realized that I needed to get four first and then work my way up to the trail into the finish. But I didn’t do that.

I went straight to three. Which left me with a dilemma: Do I get 4 or 5 next? I got a couple glasses of water at three, trying to stay low so no one would see me. I decided that I had no good bearings for four, but I had a really nice bearing from near the start to five. I figured I could leave three, work my way N and E around the impassable cliffs to my E, crest the saddle and get five really quick. Hopefully, on the way to five I would get a good bearing or two to four. The map shows trails to the finish from the vicinity of both four and five, so I saw that as a toss-up.

I got five on the second cycle after I crested the saddle. The split was 13:11. Again I had difficulty interpreting my signal strength. (I had just made a strength-to-distance table the day before. It was probably a mistake to try something new in a big competition, but it did help some, once I did my part.)

Back toward four. I was running as much as I could, which means on every flat and every downhill. I was pushing to crest the saddle west of three so I could get a direct line-of-sight bearing to four, but I didn’t make it. I set my compass and just kept moving along the trail to the SW and then W. I saw Dick Arnett walking around so I decided to not keep walking but to beat the bushes a little. Dick was looking over to my right, so I moved left and just kept looking around. I walked over to the lip of a reentrant and boom there it was. I got it 12:50 after five. It was going to come on in 1 minute 22 seconds, so it was really off cycle. I love when that happens.

Now I needed to get to the finish. The problem was this. I had been pushing so hard to be in position for four that I lost contact with my map. I kinda knew where I was, but I wasn’t 100% sure. I aimed for the broadside of a trail, but somehow missed it. I was doing everything I could do to aim for the finish. I was looking at the cliffs, hills, trails, open areas. I tuned the homing beacon. I was pushing so hard. As hard as I could. My heart rate was in the low 180s, which is as high as I’ve seen it in this millenium. (I got 209 once back in 1995 or so.) About 100m from the finish I figured out exactly where I was. On the map I’ve used a sort of “indistinct” marking on my route to show that it’s notional. If you’d like to know more, you can ask me, as long as your name is not Marvin Johnston or Joe Moell.

From four to the finish was 9:43, which is 2 minutes 30 seconds slower than Gyuri. I’m guessing he knew where he was at four. I already know he was running, while I was just mostly running.

When I finished, I remember thinking that the reflections weren’t too bad. But as I wrote this, I realized they were bad, just not in the way I had expected. I had expected the rocks to give bearings that kept you from even getting close to the transmitters. That didn’t happen. I can’t think of a single long-range bearing reflection that was tricky. But the reflections close in were bad, at least for someone like me with limited RDF experience. I had the most trouble at 2, but I heard of problems for 1, 3, and 4 as well.

For 1, the problem was if you got too far over the hill and lost LOS. For 2 and 4, I think the problem was the large rock formations nearby. Four, I think, was harder to approach from the S rather than from the E. For 3, the trail was in the valley bottom, and there was little or no LOS to the transmitter until you chased down a bearing up one of the slopes. I got lucky (sort of) on 3 because I not only saw people punching it from about 250m away, but also because my approach was high, across the valley from it. When it came on, my antenna pointed directly at it.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with Marvin’s coursesetting. I think the need to have three and four transmitter “shorter” courses really forced the courses to be less tricky than they could have been. (Most of our practice courses in Cincinnati have only a hard and easy course, which means the hard course can be harder than a true championship course.) Also, Marvin chose locations that maximized fairness. For example, one could place a control right up against an impassable feature so that two people who guessed differently could be unfairly separated by that lucky decision. I was really impressed by the 2m course.