Finally, we stopped to debate our options. We could either keep hunting randomly, hoping we were close, or return to our last known point, the parking lot by the condos. After a humbling march back, we used our compasses to draw a line on the map from the asphalt to the checkpoint, fixed the orienting arrow on our compasses to that angle and followed the bearing straight through pricking pines. I skipped this brute-force method originally, figuring that approaching on the established path would be faster than bushwhacking and that we could then use the landmarks of the distinctive crossroads to zero in on our target. But this race obviously wasn’t going to permit any margin for error. Guided by the earth’s magnetic field, MacRae ran right into the checkpoint: an orienteering flag, which looks like a white-and-orange lampshade with a computerized recorder attached. It was concealed amid trunks that made it impossible to see from even 10 feet away. MacRae put our electronic key into the recorder, certifying the discovery.
The find provided some much-needed encouragement, especially as storm bursts had started to infiltrate our rain jackets. Next, we followed our compasses through a pine barren deeply carpeted in moss, which felt like walking on green clouds, and then boulder-hopped across an ancient glacial moraine, quickly locating two checkpoints. With each find, our hearts rose. Our searches became more efficient, too, as we coordinated more seamlessly. Feeling confident, we took a navigational gamble, cutting across the upper slopes of a thickly wooded mountain and ignoring a circuitous gravel road below. As we spiked the next checkpoint, we whooped at our success. I couldn’t help smiling as we soon crossed paths with a team we had leapfrogged, which took the easier but longer way and was still searching for the checkpoint.
As we dropped into a tight river valley devoid of any official trails, the storm intensified, but I didn’t mind. Despite being soaked, we found that if we maintained a decent pace, exertion kept us warm. And finally I was achieving the deep focus that was so central to my love of orienteering. With the heightened awareness of navigation, everything appeared extra beautiful. Against the smoky clouds, falling orange and yellow leaves shone like sparks cast from a fire. A cerulean blue crayfish crawling across the path seemed like a fairy-tale creature, as would, later, a six-point stag, its antlers pink from shedding velvet. I felt so merged with the landscape and the map that I sensed two checkpoints, one that hung over a river and another tucked into a ravine, before I even saw them.
When you’re navigating well, you and the map and the world merge. You become hyperaware of the slope of the ground, the bends in a valley, how many meters and kilometers your footsteps have paced out. It’s an immersion in oneself and nature, the interior and exterior worlds — harking back to when navigation was essential to humanity’s survival as hunter-gatherers. Your mind attunes itself to magnetic north almost as much as your compass does.
11:36 a.m.
We were pushing toward the end of the river valley, enjoying the burbling quiet that filled the lulls in the storm, when Helene’s next band roared in, thrashing the hardwoods around us. For the last four hours, I intermittently heard the tremendous pops of roots ripping out of sodden ground and booms of trunks snapping. Suddenly, I heard a thunderous crack above. I knew what it was even before I looked up and saw it: the top half of a dead maple shearing off.