A park can be a place of beauty forever

Orienteering Courses:

The Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club worked with Stackhouse Park and Adrienne Oldham, a local girl scout, to set up permanent orienteering courses in Stackhouse Park. This is one of the few, maybe only, true permanent orienteering course opportunities in Western Pennsylvania. 

The purpose of a permanent orienteering course is to provide the public with ongoing opportunities to experience orienteering. Whenever you're ready, whenever you can, the courses are available. In addition, regular orienteering meets are held at Stackhouse Park.

Since of July 31, 2006 all 20 control points for the Stackhouse courses have been in place. Maps are available at the Ranger Station at the Luzerne Street entrance to the park. If you take a map, please entering the park, please enter your name in the log book at the Ranger Station.

The maps are preprinted with the location of the controls and the clues (feature descriptions) for each control.  Each control location has a metal pole 2-3 feet high with a red-and-white orienteering marker on the top. The marker is about 4 inches square.

There are three suggested courses on the map:  short, about1.6 km (7 controls); medium, about 3.3 km (12 controls); and long about 5.9 km (19 controls). However, there is no requirement that the controls be visited in the order specified.  So, anyone can improvise his/her own course out of the 20 controls.

Controls do not have punches; so, you are on your honor regarding whether or not you find each one. Each suggested course has several easy controls so that novice orienteers can find them.  But, each course also has at least a few difficult controls so that advanced orienteers can enjoy practicing as well.

The courses were designed for their various lengths and are not to be associated with any particular skill level or course color scheme.