cane creek mountains scrabble

Update: results posted here.

On the weekend of June 29 and 30, BOK will hold a unique advanced event at a new venue: Cane Creek Mountains Natural Area in Alamance County. Note: this area has challenging rocky and overgrown terrain, so extra caution should be taken.  There will be a night-O course on Saturday June, 29 and a score-O and “scrabble-O” course on Sunday June, 30. Details are provided below.

Advance registration is required. Register by 8:00 am Saturday June, 29. Register Here.

Registered or not, all are welcome to guess the winning 2-hour scrabble-O route for Sunday June, 30. Be sure to read the guidelines for the event and refer to the image below showing the location of letters and start/finish relative to each other. Fill out this form before 8:00 am Sunday June, 30. The closest guess to actual winning route will win a Moscow Model 3 compass and will be notified by email.  In case of a tie, the earlier submission wins. Here's a handy print-out (pdf).

Silas came up with the letter distribution for the 26 controls of our upcoming event at CCMNA and also devised some possible routes. So far the highest one is 118 pts in about 12km. 

Note: park hours are 8 am - 9 pm. Park at 5075 Bass Mountain, Rd, Snow Camp, NC 27349 (GPS = 35.958057, -79.420988).  Check-in and start/finish will be at campsite #2 (GPS = 35.958502, -79.423672). There is a pit toilet and potable water at the parking area. Finger sticks will not be used for any course, but route recording on livelox will be strongly encouraged, especially for the scrabble-O. Participants will receive a passport to collect hole punches at each control.

For Saturday June, 29 night-O: entry will be limited to registered campers of Cane Creek Mountains Natural Area. The park offers four drive-in primitive campsites available for reservation. Click here to visit the campsite reservation site. Reserve your camp before registering for the night-O. This will be a night version of the 2-hour Sunday score-O and scrabble-O. Map and passport distribution begins at 8:00 pm with briefing at 8:45 pm. Mass start at 9:00 pm.

For Sunday June, 30 score-O and scrabble-O: participants can do either, or both (successively). Each course involves the same map consisting of 26 controls, the same time limit of 2 hours and the same time penalty of 5 points per minute over 2 hours. The difference will be in the scoring and route strategies. Read the guidelines below before registering. Beat the heat! Start either course anytime from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm. Courses close at 2:00 pm.

Each control will be identified on a 1:10,000 map and in the field by a letter A-Z. Point value for each control will be based on the Scrabble board game:

1 point- A, E, I, O, U, L, N, S, T, R.

2 points- D, G.

3 points- B, C, M, P.

4 points- F, H, V, W, Y.

5 points- K.

8 points- J, X.

10 points- Q, Z.

For the score-O, the maximum score for clearing the course will be 87 points with a route of approximately 12 km. For the scrabble-O, double points will be awarded for visiting controls in an order that spells a word (in English) two letters in length or longer. Participants can visit each control only once and will be limited to reusing the same letter(s) for unique words that overlap, example: P-R-I-S-M-U-G. Words formed and scored: prism and smug. Note that conjugated, or pluralized words do not get scored twice, nor do words within words. For example: C-A-T-S. The only word scored would be cats (not cat or at). A carefully planned route of approximately 12 km scores well over 100 points without visiting all controls. For proof of concept, refer to Eno Scrabble Virtual Orienteering. 

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