Myrtle Benchlands Standard
June 4th 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Organizers: Hilary Anderson (Event Director), Michel Roberge (Assistant)
Map: Myrtle Banchlands - Kimberley
This week’s event is in the forest on the Myrtle Benchlands map. Meet at the park entrance on the first bend in the road to Forest Crowne.
The theme for this week’s training is reading contours.
The Novice/Intermediate course is ~ 2.5 km long. The first few controls are reached by following landscape “handrails” such as small valleys, ridges, or along the top of slopes. Later controls are a short distance from trails and are reached with use of the compass and distance estimation.
At 6:00 pm there will be an optional short review of techniques for novice/intermediate orienteers.
A marked path will be available near the start to measure paces if you want to use pace counting to estimate distance.
The Advanced course is ~4.5 km long with ~150 m elevation gain. The terrain has become much more densely vegetated in the 10 years since Myrtle Benchlands was mapped. It is recommended to use trails as much as possible and to avoid areas mapped as green or green slash. Part of the course is on a new area of more open forest mapped only with contours and trails. Contour reading and compass use will be essential!
STARTS are any time after 6:00 pm but please BE BACK BY 8:00 PM even if you have not finished your course.
There could be bears in the area. Carrying bear spray is highly recommended.