Skijor Orienteering
Creamer's Field
Sunday, March 21, 2004
29 degrees F

The challenging activities of skijoring and orienteering were combined in a special ASPA Fun Run event at Creamer's Field on Sunday, March 21.  Fourteen skijorers and their dogs accepted the challenge to plot their course on a map to control points scattered around the Creamer's Field and Alaska Dog Mushers' Association (ADMA) trails.  Each of twenty control points were valued between ten and 100 points, depending on distance from the start/finish area and access difficulty.  Competitors chose to spend either thirty or sixty minutes to find as many controls within their allotted time.  Keeping track of time was important because a ten point penalty was assessed for each minute over the time limit a competitor returned to the finish line. 

In the hotly contested 60-minute class, Matt Bray successfully defended his championship from last year, again finding all the controls to score 1000 points and winning the tie breaker by having the fastest time around the course in 53 minutes and 30 seconds.  Chad Carroll finished second after also finding all the controls and scoring 1000 points, but he was two minutes and ten seconds slower than Bray.  Carroll "finished" the course the first time in around forty minutes but discovered he didn't have the tab from one of the controls, so he returned to the course a second time with time remaining to collect his the final control.

Jim Altherr also found all the controls for 1000 points, but was two minutes late returning to the finish line and was assessed a twenty point penalty, which left him with 980 points to finish in third place overall.   Altherr and fourth-place finisher Nancy Cook, with 900 points, took the "creative shortcuts allowed" rule to heart and were seen skijoring across the Creamer's Field parking lots and climbing over fences shorten the distance between control points.  Sara Elzey found the most remote controls, but came back early because the cold air caused her watch display to go blank.  She borrowed Mike Malvick's watch and went back out onto the course to pick up several more controls and narrowly missed overtaking Cook for fourth place by twenty points. 

Iris Wood won the 30-minute class by a solid 175 point margin with a total of 550 points over second place finisher Pat DeRuyter by going after the higher point controls further from the start/finish area.  DeRuyter slipped past third place finisher Diann Darnall by only fifteen points by picking up 25 bonus points for removing a trail fence blocking a  trail for the just-concluded Open North American Championship.  Toni DeRuyter switched places from directing an event to participating and finished sixth with 170 points in her first skijoring race.

Many volunteers helped make the event possible.  Pat DeRuyter prepared the controls for distribution, provided her snowmachine to set the course, and helped with registration and results.  Miranda Terwilliger helped with registration and timing.  A. J. Sutton also helped with timing.  Sara Elzey helped with registration and results and Andy Warwick also helped with results.  Lynn Orbison also helped with registration and results after finishing her stint as color commentator for the Open North American Championships.  Kimberlee Beckmen provided access to the Creamer's Field Farm House.

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This page was updated March 21, 2004
Please send corrections or comments to Mike Malvick.