Los Angeles Orienteering Club
Griffith Park Navigation Challenge 2026
Griffith Park, Los Angeles, CA
Sunday, May 3, 2026
After an unintended hiatus in April, it was great to be out orienteering with LAOC again on Sunday for the 2026 Griffith Park Navigation Challenge. It was a four-hour MapRun, Score‑O format. The day started wrapped in mist, and the clouds politely stuck around all day—making it an extremely pleasant day for pretending you were a hobbit (and also for actual orienteering).
Those who stuck to the well‑trodden trails were treated to a respectable amount of elevation. Those who navigated the less‑traveled trails earned some serious, heart‑pumping climbs, often followed by slip‑and‑slide descents for extra excitement. A few routes were on the wild side, and the air filled with the scent of sage as we navigated our way through. And anyone who got “creative” with route choices got the chance to channel their inner mountain goat.
Huge thanks to Rich for a fantastic course!
We had about 50 participants with over 10 Teams. Awards were given in these categories (delicious chocolate bars!):
Male Juniors: Misha Biryukov 2540 points
Highest overall!
Female Masters: Recinda Sherman 1080 points
Male Masters: Wayne Cottrell 1510 points
Female Open: Susan Tischer 1030 points
Susan also deserves some sportwomanship points!
She helped out an extremely stressed family with 4 young children who were heading down one of the extreme slip-n-slide trails right at the end of her race!
Male Open: Kawika Tarayao 2510 points
Coed Team: Guava’s Biggest Fans 880 points
Mixed Age Team (at least one Junior and one Adult): Bloated Sloths 1040 points
Thank you to the volunteers for this event:
Event Director: Clare Durand
Course Setter: Rich Hoesly
Map: Clare Durand with recent updates by Rich Hoesley
Registration: Alan and Jen Perez
Beginner Clinics: Clare Durand and Rich Hoesly
Starts: Clare Durand
Finish: Rich Hoesly
Scoring: Clare Durand
Control Pick up: It was MapRun so no control pickup!!! Woohoo!
We are grateful to our facility host, the City of Los Angeles, for the use of this special location.
Overall Class Name Club Class Time Ctrls Total Penalty Final
Place Place Punched Score
17 1 Team Guava's Biggest Fans None Coed Team 3:40:43 17 880 0 880
33 2 Team 3 - Cal Cadet Corps LAOC Coed Team 3:22:23 2 60 0 60
34 3 Team 2 - Cal Cadet Corps LAOC Coed Team 4:00:00 0 0 0 0
35 4 Team 1 - Cal Cadet Corps LAOC Coed Team 5:30:00 0 0 0 0
12 1 Recinda Sherman LAOC Female masters 3:54:29 20 1080 0 1080
19 2 Clare Durand LAOC Female masters 2:50:00 16 850 0 850
36 3 Belinda Contreras None Female masters 4:26:18 8 560 570 -10
15 1 Susan Tischler SDO Female Open 3:56:12 18 1030 0 1030
24 2 Anne Mullins LAOC Female Open 3:52:47 12 630 0 630
26 3 Team Stark Fan Club None Female Open 3:33:55 11 550 0 550
29 4 Ash Malyshev None Female Open 4:08:01 12 640 270 370
30 5 Claudia Vides None Female Open 4:08:12 12 640 270 370
1 1 Mikhail Biryukov LAOC Male juniors 3:56:42 40 2590 0 2590
8 2 Benjamin Cheng LAOC Male juniors 3:55:45 30 1770 0 1770
10 1 Wayne Cottrell LAOC Male masters 3:33:59 26 1510 0 1510
22 2 Joe R None Male masters 3:59:01 12 700 0 700
2 1 Kawika Tarayao None Male open 3:54:29 39 2510 0 2510
3 2 Team All gas no breaks LAOC Male open 3:57:58 34 2330 0 2330
4 3 Lorenzo Rossi LAOC Male open 4:05:00 30 2090 150 1940
5 4 Sergey Biryukov LAOC Male open 3:33:52 33 1910 0 1910
6 5 Drew Lavey None Male open 3:40:54 28 1890 0 1890
7 6 Christian Hirt None Male open 3:54:47 30 1810 0 1810
9 7 Adam Reilly None Male open 3:33:30 27 1570 0 1570
11 8 Team Laughing Stock None Male open 3:53:52 18 1140 0 1140
13 9 Steve Tischler SDO Male open 3:19:47 17 1040 0 1040
16 10 Michael Alemu None Male open 3:34:03 17 880 0 880
20 11 Team Purple Llamas None Male open 3:37:39 14 760 0 760
23 12 Alan Perez LAOC Male open 3:49:28 13 680 0 680
28 13 Michael Grunberg None Male open 2:45:51 9 450 0 450
31 14 Michael Hart LAOC Male open 4:13:55 14 770 420 350
32 15 William Reilly None Male open 1:16:12 2 60 0 60
14 1 Team Bloated Sloths None Mixed age team 3:41:56 19 1040 0 1040
18 2 Team Angry Unicorns None Mixed age team 3:50:27 15 880 0 880
21 3 Team Nayiri & Sebastian None Mixed age team 3:05:40 15 720 0 720
25 4 Team Ladybugs None Mixed age team 3:09:53 10 550 0 550
27 5 Team Troop 737 LAOC Mixed age team 3:30:48 10 510 0 510