Only 18 individuals and groups took to the streets of Echo Park for the June Urban Discovery event. Unfortunately, we had difficulties getting a reservation, so the event was publicized late, leading to a smaller-than-normal turnout. We also started an hour earlier this year to beat the heat, which worked out great. For most of the run, we were in "June Gloom" conditions with overcast skies and moderate temperatures. 

This course provides a significant challenge as it is much larger than can be completed within the time limit. You really have to strategize what will get you your best score. This year featured a close competition between Anton Zhiganov, Alex Kiperman, and Grace Zippo. Grace had the highest raw score, but a significant overtime penalty dropped her to third. Anton edged out Alex for first place because he visited several more controls and had an extra bonus that Alex didn't. It should be noted that the Urban Discovery format can be more challenging for whom English is not their primary language. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all! 

Course Setter Notes: There were several control questions that caused some confusion.

Control 433: This question asked for the number of health-related centers at the location. The correct answer was 3 because there are three center names explicitly listed on the sign. However, the name of the hospital was also listed on the sign, so a number of people chose 4 for the answer. Since the intent of these questions was to verify you visited the control and not that you answered an ambiguous question, I also gave credit for the alternate answer.

Control 468: This question asked for the number of traffic posts to the west of the rock at the road bend. It turns out there were actually two rocks at the location: a small one and a larger one. The intended answer was 8, using the larger rock. However, since the question did not explicitly say "the larger rock," I also accepted an answer of 10, which used the smaller rock.

There were also some interesting results for control 287. The question asked which Star Wars character was on the mural. Apparently, not all of our members are Star Wars fans because they confused Darth Vader with the Stormtroopers :)

Thanks to all who helped make this event happen, especially:  

Course Setter - Rich Hoesly

Preregistration - Allan Pincus

Finish/Results - Rich Hoesly

Meet Director - Jen and Alan Perez

Setup Help - Logan Perez

Results are attached - txt file is an Excel spreadsheet that contains detailed scoring results for every control point. PDF provides summary results only.

Excel File

Pdf file

Answer Key (pdf)