What is Orienteering?

There are Many Courses available for the Different types of Orienteerers. Here is a list of the most common Courses: 

On Each Course you will Find Points, Whitch are know as Control Points. You will Race to achieve the best time- Fastest Orienteerer Wins. Manny People are not interested in running and decide to go Completly Cross Country, Trying to only have a "Clean" Orienteering Course.. A Good Orienteerer Does this while including a run into it.

Every Participant will be given a map coresponding to your course, When you get the map, study it and look for this.

First, notice the colors:

• White background indicates open woods. You can walk/run through open woods easily.
• Green background indicates underbrush. The darker the green the harder it will be to get through.
• Orange background indicates open fields. The lighter the orange the easier it will to walk/run through
• Light brown or tan indicates paved areas.

Next, let's look at some of the features:

• Dashed black lines are trails.
• Blue lines are streams. Generally blue indicates water
• Black dots indicate rocks
• Brown lines are contour intervals (topographic lines)

There are a few course symbols and they are:

• Triangle - indicates the start. This is where you will be when you begin
• Circles - indicates a control point. There will be numbers beside the circle indicating the order of controls to visit, A good hint is whitch ever way the numbers are faced is also whitch way North is on most Orienteering maps.
• Twocircles - finish.
• Straight lines are used to connect the controls. They are used to show the general course. You do not have to follow the lines. You are free to take any route from one control to the next, but you do have to visit the controls in order.

There are 110 Different Orienteering Symbols and I sugest Looking at a Piece of Paper I like to call a "Cheat Sheet"  Just google [Orienteering Symbol Sheet]

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There is manny other Orienteering tips but this gives you a basic overview or Orienteering.