Bestík - archív map

Very nice area - west from the road - a lava field with sharp rocks and deep cracks. Control 4 in lava cave! East part of the area - on the hill - some old rocks, good for running. End in green was fight where I missed about 1 minute passing a good path to second last control and went to some green thickets with lava stones... Alltogether with competitions in Greenland I became a first North Atlantic Orienteering Champion and got a very nice trophy from organizers. Thanks guys in Ilulissat, Nuuk and Reykjavik! They did a great job. Highly recommended for next year!

And a small bonus from Icelandic nature - one of my pictures of famous puffins at Látrabjarg rock.

Very difficult terrain. Green = slow walking and fight, green hatching = mixed thick bushes = same speed like in green. Yellow = open land, mostly lava rocks with deep moss, heavy running, similar to my favourite deep snow... Nice race but already tired after Greenland.

Nice sprint in the old colonial harbour. Start and finish at the old hunters house. Which is still in use is fact! Right after the finish hunters came with a few dead seals and started to cut them...

Big polar bear race - the long distance. Perfect weather and very nice views. Again no trees in Nuuk = white colour is open land. Hill above the airport was pretty high and in valleys still covered by snow. Some more pictures: view from finish area = club house, sample of typical terrain in Nuuk - taken at 11th control. And you MUST see the headcam record taken by Michael Eglinski on short course!

First run in Nuuk. No sledge dogs (not allowed in Nuuk) here. Quite rough map with 10m contours. Big hills and really high cliffs. I got accidentally a course setter map with all controls (36 instead of 26). Fortunatelly those additional 10 controls were close start/finish and I managed to collect all right before 50 minutes time limit ran out. Pictures from terrain: cliff between controls 110 and 120, typical staircase right at the finish

The holly grail of orienteering in Greenland. Mass start at 11 p.m. and one of the toughest ultra long distances I've ever run. The sun was still pretty high during the midnight (taken next midnight). But after a nice weather at the start the fog came and made the race even harder. First track came after 2,5 hours of running! One more picture of the area taken from control no 20, direction over the marsh to 19 (bottom of the ridge) and 18,17 (pretty up on the ridge). Local runners were extremely strong in the mountains and did really good job. But they missed too much and that was the only reason why I could stay in touch for most of the race. If you've been still searching for some real challenge in orienteering - go for AMO!

Very hilly race in high cliffs. Everybody already prepared for this kind of terrain but legs started to hurt after all climbs... Missed no 13 by stopping at another control before. Another view from the competition area. And one picture of me in the marsh righ before control 15. Got a very nice plate with some local traditional motif for the win.

First run in Greenland. Very unusual experience. There is no tree in Ilulissat, thus white = open land. Most of the area is covered by bare rock and marshes are very soft. Everywhere of course big hills. Only huge cliffs are on map, the rest is drawn only with contours (close contours = cliff). Red areas are the "summer parking" for sledge dogs. Not recommended to enter - they looks pretty hungry (and certainly they are)... Greenland loves score-o. Mass start of everybody and a pretty big hill to control 31. Try to find its placement on this picture. Even if I didn't take optimal course I managed to collect all controls within the time limit (50 minutes). There are simply ultimate views from any place on the map. Sometimes you look more at the sea than on the map... Check this view and picture of the area. The area is really one of the top for the membership in "101 Orienteering Maps you should run on before you die".