Competitive Mounted Orienteering

Competitive Mounted Orienteering! Does anybody have a clue what it is? I didn't either until we participated this weekend.

If I told you it basically involves riding horses in the middle of the forest searching for paper plates, would you think I'm nuts? Sound crazy? fun? adventurous? complicated? I suppose it is all of the above.

If you guessed it might involve compasses you are right! Unfortunately, even in this high techie world a GPS isn't allowed. Bummer.

Anyway, when we found out it was basically a scavenger hunt on horseback Grady and I thought it might be fun to try it out. We'd done it on a motorcycle throughout the state of Utah, so why not on a horse in the middle of a southern MN forest?

Here's how it works. The organization managers select a location and set up the course throughout the trail system using paper plates as markers. We were given clues for 10 separate plates and by using a map, our compasses and our trusty horses, we set out to find the hidden plates. Each marker had 2 clues...something like this: "A stump chair covered in moss" and "A tarzan vine hanging partly over the trail" Behind each clue it gave a number of degrees for the compass reading. Once the clues were located we each would set out from our clue in the direction of our compass reading and hopefully if we 'triangulated' correctly our paths would meet in the near vicinity of the plate. Fortunately, the ride managers were kind for this particular event as there weren't any plates suspended 40 feet in the air or hidden from sight. However, sometimes the woods were thick enough you had to leave your horse behind, other times we could ride right up to the marker.

The courses are usually designed to be somewhere around 10-12 miles and to be truly competitive in this sport you basically have to run your horse for the entire length of the course. Grady and I had already predetermined we weren't about to be competitive time wise. We just wanted to try something new, enjoy the ride and see if we could find all of the clues. I think our horses were quite thankful we were just out to have fun as it was a very warm October day and the trails were quite steep. We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather and such a gorgeous setting. It was a memorable way to celebrate our 5th anniversary.