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 Orienteering Equipment and
Supplies
Personal equipment
The only piece of equipment you really need to go orienteering
is your brain. However, it is useful to have a good compass
(though you can rent one at most events) and suitable footwear
(light hiking boots or running shoes will do) and clothing (dress
as you would normally for a hike that might take you through some
brushy areas). Some orienteers find that with increasing skill
they wish to use pants and shoes designed specifically for orienteering.
Equipment for an orienteering event
Clubs usually have a set of control flags,
punches, and control
cards, although an event can be organized with mild cartons
as substitutes for flags, different colored crayons instead of
punches, and pieces of paper with boxes drawn on them instead
of control cards.
Compasses, orienteering shoes and clothing, control flags,
punches, and control cards, as well as various books
and teaching aids can be purchased (or a catalog requested)
from:
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- A&E Orienteering
(Al and Edie Smith)
74 Decorah Drive
St. Louis, MO 63146
(314) 872-3165 (voice, message, or fax)
-
- Berman's Orienteering Supply (Sara
Mae and Larry Berman)
- 23 Fayette St
- Cambridge MA 02139-1111
- Phone: 617-868-7416
- Fax: 617-876-1562
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- G. O.
Orienteering (Gale Teschendorf)
- 1920 Schiller
Wilmette, IL 60091
Phone: (847) 251-2934 evenings
Fax: (847) 256-1476
Mapping
There are several ways to go about acquiring an orienteering
map. If there is an existing map, it is usually owned by a club
based in the general area; for a listing of clubs and maps, see
Rick
Slater's Orienteering page.
If no orienteering map exists, one can be made. Orienteering
maps are usually created by
- Finding/creating a base map. This can be an existing
USGS or engineering map (free but often difficult to work with
or inaccurate), but better results can be opbtained by having
a base map made specifically for orienteering. For examples of
such base maps, see Pat
Dunlavey's page.
- Field checking the map (covering all the ground and
accurately marking on the base map each feature that is prominent
to a human on foot). Field checking is often doen by volunteers
(cheap, slow), and can also be done by professionals (more costly
even though they're underpaid, faster)
- Drafting and printing the map. The most common
method for drafting standard orienteering maps is a program known
as OCAD; however, pen and
ink is an old standard and works perfectly well for simple maps.
Printing can be done in a variety of ways that depend upon the
quantity desired and the budget. Simple maps can be run off on
a copier, offset printing is the cheapest method for large runs
of color maps, and a color printer has its uses.
A good guide to making simple maps suitable for teaching and
beginning orienteers is the IOF's Simple Maps for Orienteering
($6.00). The best book on making top-quality orienteering maps
is Robin Harvey's Map Making for Orienteers ($26.95). Both
are available from A&E Orienteering.
Workshops
Ed Hicks, doing business
as Orienteering Unlimited (3 Jan Ridge Road, Somers, New York
10589; (914) 248-5957) has been providing orienteering instruction
and workshops for over 20 years. He specializes in working with
schools, teachers, youth groups, and corporate groups, and will
coordinate production of maps of schools or other sites. Ed is
a valuable source of advice and information, and if you want to
get your school or organization started in orienteering and have
a budget to work with, Ed can set up and run a program for you.
Orienteering Newsgroup
The orienteering newsgroup, rec.sport.orienteering,
is a good resource and a place to get answers to questions that
are not dealt with here.
Note: The sources for equipment and services
cited here are those I know well; there are many others elsewhere.
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