Description
Navigate using a self-printed paper map (or your phone) to features instead of orienteering flags, exploring Bill Moore Community Park (aka Fletcher Park) in Fletcher, NC.
Start and finish near the restrooms building. The park is located at 85 Howard Gap Road.
MapRun is a smartphone orienteering app. You navigate through the real world with a paper map and compass. MapRun tracks your progress with GPS and keeps score of your session, beeping to indicate you’ve reached a feature. You can learn about MapRun here – https://maprunners.weebly.com/
- Self-serve format.
- A fun and exciting challenge for all experience levels (including none.)
Two courses are included, which you can do as many times as you like:
- Classic – visit all 17 control points in sequential order and return to the Finish
- 2.7km “as the crow flies” distance, and since this is orienteering, your mileage may vary!
- Scatter – visit as many of the 17 controls as you like, in any order and return to the Finish
- Classic – visit all 17 control points in sequential order and return to the Finish
- Walk, jog, run, stroll, crawl (but though they are welcome at the park, please NO BIKES while orienteering)
- Competitive? Race against your friends and compare routes and times on the online Leaderboard.
- Stats nerd? Easy email GPX file export and Strava integration.
- Choose from Self-print PDFs or full color, waterproof paper copies by mail. Your purchase comes with an Instructions Sheet bearing codes to unlock these courses in the MapRun app.
- Downloads are per person. Please purchase as many units as there will be people using the MapRun app in your party.
THE PARK
- Affectionately known as Fletcher Park, Bill Moore Community Park is a wonderful outdoor space in Western North Carolina just 20 minutes south of Asheville. Flat as a pancake, this diverse terrain bordering Cane Creek is a complex of beautiful features that make orienteering for beginners, and kids, especially, a joy. There are walking paths, a dog park, playgrounds, creek-side sandy areas, ball courts and fields, and The Moonlight Garden.
- It is the site of numerous orienteering events in the past, including public races, FernLeaf students, corporate groups, and one year when the summer camp kids (who thought they knew the place inside and out) learned how much fun wayfinding with a map can be.
- Special note — it can get pretty crowded on Saturdays, especially during sports seasons. Please be mindful of others, observe all park rules, and defer to special events and other such crowded occasions. Please check the park’s website for any special events before going onsite.
THE MAP AND COURSE
- Full color, freshly redrafted orienteering map, produced from publicly available LiDAR, aerial, and other geospatial data, plus years of onsite field checking visits.
- Scale is 1:4000 and prints out on Letter sized, 8.5″x11″ paper. Color printing is recommended but black and white will do.
- SAFETY – This activity takes place in a public park, but there are roads and parking lots and you though the course design aims to steer travelers away from traffic areas, there are points of crossing towards the end of the course and you should USE CAUTION. The walking paths can also be crowded with joggers and walkers, sometimes oblivious in their headphones.
- Beginner Level – this course is very simple.
- Will you get lost, or temporarily misplaced, as we say? Nah. For SAFETY and peace of mind, though, we include a SHOW ME button, that, when pressed, will display your present location on MapRun’s onscreen map as a big red dot to help you reorient yourself.
THE APP
- MapRun runs on Android and iPhone, and is FREE to use.
- You can download and install MapRun here.
- When you arrive to within 15 meters of a control point, the app beeps and vibrates to indicate you’ve “gotten” (“punched,” for you purists) the control.
- Here is an overview video of MapRun in action
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