The rain was off and on and the sun tried to peak through the clouds during the 2019 Yukon Middle Distance Orienteering Championships on Wednesday on the Grey Mountain Biathlon Trails.

There were 74 orienteerers racing through the trails in four different categories, novice, intermediate, advanced and expert.

One of the organizers who designed the course, Forest Pearson, said in the middle distance discipline the distances are shorter forest orienteering races with the winners completing their respective courses in 30 minutes.

Although the distances are shorter in the mid-distance races Pearson said they still offer many challenges to the orienteers.

“They were very technical courses,” said Pearson. “The racers had to make quick decisions with many twists and turns in complex terrain. The courses had deep moss, rocky cliff sides and lots of deadfall and that made the forest running very demanding.”

Pearson said the course designs did not really differ because it was a championship but he did say the area the courses were set was a spot not many of the competitors had raced on before.

“Orienteering is about navigation in unfamiliar terrain,” said Pearson. “We are always looking to use new maps. The race used a map that has only been used once before for last year’s North American Orienteering Relay Championship.”

“The complex trail-maze of the biathlon ski trail network added a new twist to the navigation challenge.”

The biathlon ski trails are also home to Whitehorse’s wildland 3D targets which are a variety of full-size animal targets.

Pearson said the novice racers were in for a few surprises specifically checkpoint number four which was on a velociraptor.

The top novice runner to reach the eight controls on the 1.1 km course was Stian Langbakk who only needed 11:55 to finish. The pair of Morel Graham and River Home came second in 12:35 and Peter and Kevin Embacher third.

The intermediate, 2.5 km course with 11 controls, was the most popular with 35 participants. Virginia Sarrazin needed 33:47 to finish in first. Pauline Gallinat’s time was 35:46 was second and Selena Boothroyd and Scott Williams were third in 40:54.

The advanced course was shorter than the expert course but equally challenging. It was 2.6 km and had 11 controls.

Erik Blake was the quickest in 32:02. Jane Hollenberg and Jeremy Johnson were the next fastest.

The 3.2 km expert course featured 13 controls and had 12 orienteerers compete. Leif Blake was the top finisher coming in four minutes under the expected 30 minutes. Caelan McLean came second and Brent Langbakk third.

With the middle distance race in the books, the Yukon Championships will continue next week. This time around the orienteerers will be competing in a sprint race.