Since I haven’t gotten enough time in this year for conditioning to be able to do any endurance or CTRs, I decided to try my hand at Competitive Mounted Orienteering. I really had no clue what I’d exactly be doing other than I needed to have a compass and be able to read a map.
Let me just say that me and my horse had an absolute blast. I had signed up to compete as an individual since I didn’t want to hold anyone back with my newbie-ness but ride management found a team for me to join.
Basically we were sent out at intervals and right before they said go, you were handed a basic map of the trails that had numbers 1-5 in circles on it. You had to use the map to navigate to each of the circles (order you did them in didn’t matter). Once you got to the area that you thought was the number, there were three clues (written like scavenger hunt clues) that you had to figure out. The clues were objects (natural and placed) and for each object you were given a certain amount of degrees to or from. Once you calculated the degrees with the compass, you had to triangulate the three of them and look for a paper plate in a ziplock baggie that had been hidden there. On the plate was a word that you had to write down so they knew you had found it. The paper plates were really hidden. I was crawling through thorn bushes, climbing over downed trees and at one point standing in the lake. Oh and it was also timed, so you were moving as fast as you could from point to point, jumping off and tying you horse and then scrambling around to find it.
I know there are still plenty more competitions left this year so if anyone is interested I say go for it- soooo much fun. Found out yesterday that my team placed third so total icing on the cake there 
