We had eleven intrepid night orienteers dash into the corn maze last night — two of which didn’t even have any lights! More on that later.
Our return to the Cold Mountain Corn Maze under a full moon on Saturday, September 30th was a fascinating look into the difference between corn maze orienteering in the daylight and in the dark. Considerably longer completion times and far less enthusiasm to “go back out there.” We must drop Philipp’s results on account of him being a repeat runner from the daytime race two weeks ago. Turns out that course knowledge translates into the dark… but then again, Philipp is a different kind of orienteer.
A real treat was seeing Lyle at an event, and getting to meet Jeni. Lyle is a founding member of the defunct* Asheville DisOrienteering Club, and his presence was auspicious. Hoof was there, a Core Four back in action lately and completed his course. Val was there after her return from Somewhere Abroad Adventure Racing, as were increasingly zealous Amanda and Cade. They, unfortunately, had a mishap with #5, but were in good company as many people fell for that trap in the daylight. Last Minute Joe was there, a surprise attendee who registered at 8:15pm and is now officially the latest of last minute registered entries — different than a walk-up.
The real story of the night were Jason and Isaac, two kids who walked up to me at my van as I was sorting flags and asked what was going on. They were probably 14 years old. I explained, and before I could even finish my sentence they’d reached into their pocket to pay for a map in cash. They went into the corn field without any lights, and at the time I thought they were doing so on purpose and cheered them on. They were not, as it were, which they mentioned after they stumbled out of the corn, laughing, an hour later– they’d considered asking to borrow a headlamp, but didn’t. They said they had a good time, though, and punched a lot of flags but in the wrong order and wound up with an MP in the results. Still, props to these young men who had no idea what they were getting into last night, and their reckless sense of adventure. 100% Asheville DisOrienteering Club vibes.
Once again, many thanks to our host Skipper Russell and his wonderful staff who’s welcomed us with opens arms. We look forward to returning to his excellent corn maze.
