Looking for Some Orientation in the Wilds of the Southland

My checklist for adventure was complete.

I had purchased a compass, a water-resistant topographical map of the Malibu area and two energy bars. According to my cursory research, that was all I needed to head into the wilderness to try my hand at the obscure sport of orienteering.

I rousted my skeptical boyfriend, David Silverman, from sleep and we headed for the hills.

Maps posted on the Internet by the Los Angeles Orienteering Club indicated three good places to orienteer within an hour’s drive of Los Angeles--Topanga and Malibu Creek state parks and Griffith Park.

All three offer a network of trails (so you can’t get too lost), high visibility (making it easier to spot landmarks if you do get lost) and relatively scarce poison oak.

I selected Malibu Creek State Park, because I had never been to those golden, oak-studded hills above the sea.

Orienteering originated in Scandinavia around the turn of the century, coming to the United States in the 1940s.

But the number of Americans who regularly orienteer remains only about 35,000.

That might explain the quizzical looks of my friends when I told them what I planned to do.

“Don’t you mean orientating?” asked one.

“Good luck with your pioneering,” said another.

A pamphlet by the United States Orienteering Federation describes orienteering as reading a map, making a decision and planning a route, all while moving across streams, over rocks or along scenic trails.

Those experienced in orienteering follow a course drawn on a map to find orange-and-white flag markers, called controls. At each control, the orienteer uses a punch hanging from the control to mark a corresponding box on the punch card they carry.

Intermediate orienteerers begin by using a compass and a topographical map to ascertain what the terrain is like, reading the brown contour lines to determine if it is preferable to go around a peak or clamber over it.

At the advanced level, explained Clare Durand of the Los Angeles Orienteering Club, “Anything goes.”

“You could put the control on the middle of a rock on a featureless hillside and you better get there,” she said.

But my boyfriend and I weren’t ready for an organized course.

We wanted to try our hand at reading a compass, get a little lost and then try to navigate our way home.

Things did not begin well. We got lost on the way to the park.

As we wound up Malibu Canyon Road, I realized I had forgotten my directions on how to get to the park and how to read the compass.

My nervous boyfriend was certain we were going to get lost in the woods without a cell phone. I think he suspected that was my hidden motive--frustrated girlfriend seeks a little quality time in the outback.

We pulled into the park breathless with relief, and asked the park aide if she could recommend a good area to try some orienteering.

She informed us that some Boy Scouts might be doing something like that nearby.

We found about a dozen boys who appeared to be wandering aimlessly through a field of mustard. We leaped from our car and ran toward a Scout.

Sure enough, he was clutching a compass and walking nowhere in particular with a faraway look in his eyes.

A brief conversation told us we knew even less than we thought. We cornered a senior Scout, 16-year-old Brian Ballew of West Hills, and interrogated him.

Ballew had set up a miniature orienteering course the day before with his father, for Troop 464 of West Hills.

Ballew used a park map to set up stakes over an overgrown picnic area that stretched about 600 yards. The Scouts received a form with degrees and distances, which they used to navigate the course, with only a compass to guide them.

At each point were several stakes--the real one and a few decoys.

If the Scouts were even a degree off in their compass reading, they would get the wrong stake.

The goal is to master the compass reading on the smaller controlled course, before graduating to a larger map course.

It was perfect for us.

After running off to retrieve a Scout who had wandered off course, Ballew sat us down at a picnic table for a lesson.

Compasses are magnetic, he explained, so you cannot read a compass near metal. He slid the compass toward a nail in the table and the needle zoomed toward it.

He told us to avoid using compasses near water towers, stakes and other metal objects, or our readings would be off. He had us pace ourselves off using two stakes, and divide the distances on the sheet by the number of our steps.

Then we were off.

Our first reading was 208 degrees and 62 steps. Lying on my stomach, I spun the dial to 208 and lined the needle to true north, following the red arrows on top of the compass on an invisible line. Looking toward the horizon, I found a tree branch on a hill to aim for.

I stood up and started walking. My boyfriend, after doing his own compass reading, did likewise.

Within 10 paces we were veering off in different directions. By 62 paces we were about 10 feet apart, with no stakes in sight. Not even a decoy.

The Scouts and their fathers shook their heads incredulously.

Ballew patiently explained that even a degree of error is magnified within 100 feet.

We started over. This time we ended up at a stake marked U.

We took a second reading. We were off again, marching like zombies across the field, our eyes fixed on the hillside.

We marched directly over a picnic table, and around a barbecue pit.

Finding the correct stake is immensely satisfying. Missing is infuriating.

Having our Scout guide watch us with a cryptic smile was embarrassing.

By my third stake I was getting the hang of it, picking better objects on the horizon, keeping my focus. In fact, I was so focused on a tree on a distant hill, I walked into a hole and collapsed like a fallen tree. It takes practice to be able to walk straight.

But we completed the course, tramping through mustard flowers and getting foxtails in our socks. We returned to the picnic table an hour later, proud of our accomplishment.

“Not bad, you were only double the time of the boys,” yelled a Scout’s father.

True, but we had mastered our compass reading. I was ready for real orienteering. And my boyfriend said perhaps he was, too.

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For more information on orienteering: https://www.us.orienteering.org

For information on orienteering in the Los Angeles area call (818) 769-0906, or visit the Los Angeles Orienteering Club’s Web site at: https://www.geocities.com/yosemite/trails/6320