Ås by Night & Fog Cup (2014-01-14)

Started very early, before all other competitors, and since the controls had been put out the day before I had 10 cm of absolutely virgin powder to make tracks in. :-)

With the very cold weather I dressed warmly (wool) and tried to make a smooth run, without putting too much strain on my sore throat.

To the first control I decided to follow the path system since a couple of people had been out walking on them, no problems here.

Due to all the snow-covered windfalls I left #1 due west, bailing out to the path system, then followed those until I could take the semi-open ridge towards #2. The forest was dense enough that I never realized it when I passed just alongside the open knoll by the control, recovered underneath the next cliff and returned via the ditch. In hindsight I should have left the ridge much sooner and followed the ditch from the south. Lost about 2 min here.

OK to #3.

I think my route choice to #4 was OK, but the supposedly white forest into the control was so dense, with lots of snow on every branch, so I ended up going up & right past every obstacle which left me far too high. The old logging area had grown back quite a bit in the years since the map was new so it took me little while a rocover, lost another couple of minutes here.

#5 was OK except that the event organizer didn' t have time before I started to show me the map correction where a big new field was located where the map show some brown cliff symbols. I hesitated a little bit here before I decided that I was on course.

Good flow to #6 and mostly pure running back to the finish from that control.