Big Muddy Rogaine Trip Report Barbara Bryant "Osho [a.k.a. Bhagwan Rajneesh] developed new forms of active meditation. The best known is Dynamic Meditation which often starts with strenuous physical activity followed by silence and celebration. These were expected to lead the individual to overcome repression, lower their personal inhibitions, develop a 'state of emptiness', and attain enlightenment. The person then would have 'no past, no future, no attachment, no mind, no ego, no self.'" - from It was great to see our O friends and relatives when Orlyn and I arrived at the event site. Everyone looked clean and healthy and well-rested. The first briefing took place inside a humongous Rajneeshpuram era shed. I was late for the briefing, and therefore did not hear the part about the contour interval halving on part of the map. I'd experienced this contour disconnect before in rogaines, and even looked for it when we got our map, but it happens just on the very edges, the outer 3/4" of the map on the north and west, so I didn't notice it. I think that played into our 45-minute gaffe from 101 to 51. The maps were handed out at the end of the briefing. We repaired to a table and took care of the preliminaries: cutting and taping the maps, highlighting (in two colors) the high-score controls on the black and white intention sheet map, and running back and forth to the car at the far end of the parking lot to get stuff we forgot. Being a little more together and on time would have been a good thing. It was getting hot so I removed my red ashram robe and got down to the business of thinking. Orlyn said, "Looks like a loop around the edge." I allowed myself to be distracted by an abortive attempt to draw lines on the intention sheet between adjacent controls having a decent route between them. But most neighbors were accessible, so that wasn't informative. I stopped and looked up at Orlyn. "Talk to me, Swami," I said. The hash house was north and center, which meant you could easily imagine doing two loops, left and right. Nonetheless, we were determined to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of hot food and rest. Looking at the spacing of the contour lines, we saw a swath across the north that was less steep. We figured it would be good to save that piece for night: less tricky and less tiring. That meant heading south first, then around clockwise, which would leave the least attractive southeast corner for last. Even if we dropped that corner we would have hit all the 100-pointers. I looked for a route that would get us all the controls worth 50 or more points. To pull this off, our route wandered a bit in the center of the map before getting to the southern edge. We thus avoided blindly following the Gagarin spiral-in heuristic. We hit that northern stretch at night, as planned: dusk fell at 86 (we saw Mount Hood against a dark red sky there), and daylight returned on the road between 60 and 68. And, we did cut off that southeastern corner: where originally we'd planned 87-53-82-0-55-83-26-64-27-25-HH, we ended up doing 87-46-HH. Orlyn measured the route and got something like 42 miles. Less than 2 miles an hour. Sounded doable. We didn't have those nice ankle-high gaiters that protect from grass seed, so we applied duct tape. Unfortunately, I started high and spiraled down, so that when the tape unstuck, which was pretty quick, the top edges of the tape peeled back, creating a nice funneled trough for the seeds to collect in and push their way down into my shoe. The tape kept all moisture inside my shoe, and my foot softened and blistered. By nightfall I was feeling the blisters, especially one on the bottom, forward and center. By sunrise, I was unable to run (not that we were running anyway), and climbing up or down steep slopes was painful to the point that we punted on #31 at the end. When the race started, we headed cross-country to a road and had a nice slow jog downhill for a mile or so. That got us warmed up, and we became warmer a nd warmer as the temperature climbed into the 90s. I drank plenty of water, but still felt a bit nauseous all afternoon, learning only toward evening that Orlyn's magic electrolyte pills made me feel a lot better. I am the slow one of the team, obviously - Orlyn regularly enjoys five-hour runs at 9000 feet. So I'm the pace setter, and the pace during the day was of a snail, with a number of 15-30 minute stops to admire the clouds through dead tree branches. The trees were mostly dead as a result of fire that swept through a few years ago. So there was not much shade. Thankfully there was often a breeze. It was actually not unpleasant when we lay perfectly still. Pouring water from a stream on my head helped a lot too. We got all excited as we approached the pond at 85, eager for a swim. But there was only mud. Night was rejuvenating. We sped up and felt the high of the night smell on the breeze. Even into the morning you could feel the warmth on the slopes contrasting with the cooler air that sunk into the gullies. We navigated well, with only the one major problem going to 51, and a minor pull to the right at 101. Going to 101 I used the stars as a guide, and spent some time working out that if the earth is going counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere (looking down at the north pole), then the stars should look like they're going counter-clockwise (looking up at the north star), and so the stars above the horizon that I was aiming at must be moving to the right over time. At a rate of 360 degrees in 24 hours, or 1 degree every 4 minutes. So perhaps that explains why we got pulled to the right on that leg. At least that's what I tried to convince Orlyn of. I'm not sure he was convinced. After 101, we paused for a few minutes after logging each control to consult about the next leg's route. That probably helped us avoid mistakes. But a few minutes at each control does add up! 60 we found by accident. We thought we were farther back on the road, and Orlyn just happened to shine his powerful headlamp off to the left. "There's a control!" "Swami, you're getting delusional." But no, more like enlightened. It definitely felt like a karma thing. The last daytime stretch was the most beautiful, especially in the canyon coming out of 100 onto Dry Creek. Also the most painful, due to the blisters. Back at the hash house, I was happy to accept a bottle of Bhagwan's Best IPA that John Lee brought for us from the Big Time Brewery in Seattle. It soon achieved a state of emptiness. Thanks to the organizers for a wonderful event! Route: Control and time in minutes 67 36 80 31 54 28 35 22 W 4 66 27 52 32 43 24 103 39 rest 16 63 41 85 51 56 51 102 W 1:29 50 36 61 37 86 51 62 32 57 40 21 32 58 W 17 101 55 51 1:19 84 36 41 50 60 43 68 1:21 81 49 100 31 24 W 53 87 47 46 50? HH 70? Total time: 23:10 Orlyn ran a wheel over our route and came up with about 37 miles and his adding of contour lines totaled a little over 9000 ft.