Permanent Areas
What is a Permanent Orienteering Course?
A Permanent Orienteering Course is a set of orienteering markers, often mounted on wooden posts or other features, spread around a park or forest. The locations are plotted on an orienteering map as checkpoints on trails (courses) of different lengths and navigational challenge. Your challenge is to locate these checkpoints in the order shown on the course map. You can do it at whatever speed you enjoy most - as a walk to enjoy exploring outdoors, or a race with friends or family to see who can complete it the fastest. The Permanent Orienteering Courses are in locations suitable for families, youth groups, school orienteering clubs etc, such as city or country parks, and each location typically has several different courses to suite different abilities.
Each marker post is called a 'control', which has a code (usually a number
and a letter). These code are shown on the course map in the order they are
to be found. Noting down the codes can be used as proof that you've been to
the correct checkpoints (lists for each course are available to download).
Our Courses
Interløpers Orienteering Club has set up six permanent orienteering courses in Edinburgh and West Lothian. For more information on each of these and how to obtain maps click below on the appropriate link. NB courses are currently being updated and new map files will be available soon (as well as being made available for GPS orienteering via the Maprun app); in the meantime, contact info@interlopers.org.uk for current maps.
* Braidburn Valley Park, Edinburgh
* Craigmillar Castle Country Park, Edinburgh
* Polkemmet Country Park, Whitburn
If that's not enough for you, check out the British Orienteering Foundation (BOF) and Scottish Orienteering Association (SOA) permanent course portals. Some Permanent Orienteering Courses have also been set up as virtual GPS courses, which used together with a downloadable app on a smartphone or GPS watch, can produce timings and course results which you can upload later. See the SOA portal below for further details on this.
- Go Orienteering - British Orienteering's permanent course portal
- Scottish Orienteering's Permanent and Virtual Course Portal
Once you've got the hang of it, why not try some of the following ideas too?
- Visit all the controls on the map in a random order as fast as possible;
- Challenge a friend, start several minutes apart, and record your times on a course to see who is faster;
- Challenge a friend to a head-to-head start with one person going round the course in reverse (see who finishes first);
- Use a favourite course as a benchmark run, perhaps monthly, to see how your fitness is improving (times coming down);
- Look up the Interløpers Events and SOA Fixtures List to find Local Events, and then go along and try it;
- If you enjoy the permanent orienteering courses, get in touch with the Club Secretary and join Interløpers.
