Loading...Orienteers use specialised maps that are based on a combination of specially commissioned photogrammetric plots, and Ordnance Survey base maps. The normal scale for competition maps is 1:15 000 or 1:10 000, although some of the club maps are at other scales for ease of use.
The club conforms to the IOF mapping standards in all its maps. These conventions cover how ground details are to be shown, including how easy it is to get through a forest.
- Orienteering takes place mainly in forests, so areas that are easy to run through are called “open”, and mapped in white.
- As the trees get thicker, so the shade of green used to denote the vegetation gets deeper.
- Dark green is known as “fight”, because you have to fight your way through the undergrowth if you want to get anywhere. Areas of dark green on our maps are generally holly thickets.
- “Open land” is mapped as yellow, as if the sun was shining through.
- Light yellow indicates rough open ground, for example tussocky grass, and deep yellow indicates lawn type grass.
- Contours and earth features such as earthbanks and pits are shown in brown, man made features like tracks, fences and walls in black, water features like streams and marshes in blue.
- Red/purple is reserved for overprinting the courses.
- Out of bounds areas are shown by black cross-hatching and/or khaki colour.
Most of our maps have been drawn using OCAD™, the best orienteering map-making software available!
Mapped Areas
Four of our mapped areas include permanent orienteering courses.
- Beckton District Park - Permanent Orienteering Course
- Broxbourne Woods
- Claybury Park
- Epping South
- Epping North West
- Epping East
- Hainault Forest – Permanent Orienteering Course
- Harlow Town Park – Permanent Orienteering Course
- Highfield Park, St Albans
- Lee Valley Park – Permanent Orienteering Course
- Pishiobury Park
- Rivers Nursery
- Southern Country Park, Bishop’s Stortford
- Wanstead
- Wormley
