The New England Orienteering Club

Pine Bluffs Ski-O, Stow, MA
January 30, 2022
Meet Director: Aims Coney

Long ago for my 60th birthday party, Ed Despard made a nifty O map of the 31 acres of town land behind my house. I held a couple night-os, a CSU park-o, and even a four-lap ski-o. But ever since the town put some new buildings and fencing around the soccer fields and moved the parking lot, the map has been out of date. My OCAD hand wasn’t steady enough to do a nice job and I was in despair. I also had a pipe dream about expanding the map across the road into the nearby neighborhood’s network of trails. At the Willard Brook A-meet I casually mentioned my despair to Jonathan Campbell and he said to send him the file. Less than a week later, he’d not only edited and expanded the map, he and Tori had field checked it!

Now suddenly with this wonderful toy in hand, I could put on my favorite sport- ski orienteering, right at home and with twice the terrain as last time. But, the problem with ski-orienteering in eastern Mass is the snow. There’s either no snow or the trails are quickly trampled. But suddenly again, an opportunity arose- a hefty Saturday snowstorm with nice weather Sunday- perfect for BYOM ski orienteering! I could hang the controls before the new snow and by Sunday morning my tracks would be invisible.

A blank slate in the morning was also a problem. With no ski tracks the competitive incentive would be to wait until the afternoon when the trails were tracked in. So, as an counter incentive I declared time bonuses for early starters: 50% for going out before 9:30, 35% before 10, etc.

But to pull this off, this very short-notice ski-o, I’d need help from NEOC’s most important person, Jim Paschetto, not once but multiple times over the weekend. First we needed to get the word out and Jim almost immediately sent a NEOC update titled “Flash”. Next, we needed to post the BYOM map, the course notes, and the punch card pin patterns on the NEOC site and Jim did that too. But he didn’t just blindly post them- no, he found an error and in time to post a corrected map before anyone had downloaded it. And of course, after the meet Jim posted the results only minutes after I clicked send. We all owe Jim such gratitude. My event simply could not have happened without his speedy efforts and I’m sure that’s true for almost every meet director.

Two skiers took full advantage of the time bonus: Alex Vai and my wife Terry. Smart move for both to start before 9:30. Despite breaking trail Alex posted the second fastest time of the day and with his 50% bonus was the clear winner. Terry’s bonus took an hour and eleven minutes off her time which placed her in front of legendary CSU ski-oer Ken Walker, Sr.

A few people never emailed me their time so aren’t in the results. It’s not too late though, updates are welcome until the end of the calendar year.

Thanks everyone who could come on short notice. And thank you to Jon for the new Pine Bluffs map and to Jim for everything.

Aims Coney
Meet Director


Course 1
Name(s) Raw Elapsed Time Bonus Net Time
1 Alex Vai 1:06:30 50% 0:33:15
2 Tori & Jon Campbell 0:51:17 0 0:51:17
3 Gary Gallagher 1:01:47 0 1:01:47
4 Terry Myers Coney 2:22:50 50% 1:11:25
5 Ken Walker 1:22:20 0 1:22:20
6 Sylvie Guichard & Xevi 1:45:44 5% 1:27:39
7 Pete Lane 1:34:00 0 1:34:00
Score-O
Name(s) Raw Elapsed Time Bonus Net Time Points
1 Steve Fiedler 1:59:00 0 1:59:00 14
2 Viera Proulx 1:25:26 0 1:25:26 10
3 Linda King 1:34:00 0 1:34:00 10
4 Martin Kessel 0:53:12 0 0:53:12 9