• Member Training: Reading Terrain Contours

• Sunday, April 26, 2026

• 10:00 am - noon

• Mt. Tabor Park in southeast Portland

• For CROC members only

Join us for a fun training activity at Mt. Tabor on April 26th (for CROC members only).

Reading the terrain and matching what you see against the map is an important skill for improving your orienteering. This training starts with some explanation of common terrain features one finds on orienteering maps (hills, valleys, reentrants, spurs, saddles, depressions, narrow streams, etc.) and follows it up with a fun exercise on our Mt. Tabor map — or rather, on a modified version of our Mt. Tabor map: we have removed everything but the terrain contours from map!

All the trails and trees and stumps and vegetation are still there in real life, but they aren’t there on your map so you can’t use them to orient yourself while looking for the controls. The only thing you’ll be able to use to navigate is the terrain itself! This terrain-only experience will heighten your awareness of the land forms that underlie all the other things on the map and will help you orient yourself better when you return to a full map.

This training is for CROC members only; there is no cost. Register here by April 24 and we’ll send you the exact starting point. For questions and suggestions contact trainer Bjorn Freeman-Benson or training coordinator  Anndy Wiselogle.