What is orienteering?
Orienteering is finding your way across country with a map, and often a compass. The course is a set of checkpoints, called controls, marked on the map. Your job is to find them. There's no set path: you look at the map, choose your own route and go.
It started in Scandinavia as military training and is now a sport for every age. Some people race it at a run. Plenty of others walk it with family, a dog or a friend. You decide how fast to go.
This course
Lost in Mountainaire is a permanent course. The controls stay in the ground year-round, so you can come any day with no sign-up and no fee.
Each control is a wooden post sunk into the ground, with its top painted orange and white, the same colours used at orienteering events around the world. Every post has a two-letter code and a QR code. Scan it, and the page that opens confirms which control you found.
Give it a try
- Print the map. Bring a compass if you have one.
- Pick a post on the map and work out how to get there.
- Find it, check the code and scan it. Then pick the next one.
New to reading a map like this? How to orienteer covers the basics in a few minutes.