The Yukon Orienteering Association (YOA) was back hosting races on Wednesday beginning at Raven’s Ridge for the organizations second B Meet of the regular season.

B Meets are an Orienteering Canada designation. A Meets being national level and C Meets typically do not use electronic timing. All YOA events are B Meets.

The race came on the heels of the early season Coast Mountain Sports Sprint Series which saw the orienteerers searching for controls in the city. This time the racers were out in the woods.

It was a warm day but it became chillier in the forest. Before the race, there was some thunder rumbling in the distance but it held off and everyone stayed dry.

There were 93 orienteerers and the meet featured five different courses - novice, intermediate, runner’s, advanced and expert.

It was the first meet of the year to feature a runner’s course.

“I thought I would try a runner’s course, it is kind of a long intermediate,” said course organizer Dave Hildes. “I know runners who aren’t really into orienteering find the advanced courses are too technical and the short courses are too short. So I tried to mingle the two.”

The course used the extensive ski and mountain bike trails in the area.

Judith van Gulick led the pack of six competitors in the 6.2-kilometre runner’s course with a time of 55 minutes, 27 seconds. Jane Hollenburg trailed van Gulick by four minutes finishing in 59:51. Lara Melnik completed the map in 67:07. The course had 13 controls.

Hildes said while designing the courses for the different skill levels he just wanted to give everybody a “fun course”.

“There is a lot of really nice runnable forest in this area which is really open,” said Hildes. “Even the intermediate I tried to make some controls where they would be encouraged to take a shortcut through the forest.”

The intermediate course was 2.8-kilometres and had 12 controls for the orienteers to reach. It featured the most runners with 41 participants taking the course which explored the trail system but had controls that were a short distance into the forest.

Stian Langbakk only needed 31:28 to reach all the controls and record the quickest time.

He posted this time after deciding he did not have enough after his first outing as he also completed the novice course in 35:28.

Pauline Gallinat was not far off the winning pace, finishing with a final time of 34:23. Wendy Nixon, 38:26, came third.

The novice course is a good place to start for a newcomer to orienteering.

“It’s all on trails,” said Hildes. “The controls are at, generally, decision points, so it helps people along. Every time you need to make a decision there is a control there so you know where you are.”

Hildes said the novice course was hillier than usual but it still had a good turnout with 22 orienteerers on the 1.6-kilometre course.

The duo of Caroline Thibault and Sylvian Belanger led the way with a time of 15:52.

They were followed by the team of Mavic MacKinnon and Isabel Beauregard, 20:26, and solo runner Erik Embacher, 22:40.

Hildes said there is only one difference between the advanced and expert courses.

“Advanced and expert are the same technical difficulty,” said Hildes. “They are very similar courses, just the expert, in this case, has an extra loop to make it longer.”

Eight runners took on the longer, 6.5-kilometre, expert course which had 15 controls.

Leif Blake lead needed 56:33 to complete the course. He was closely followed by Caelan McClean, 57:48, and Forest Pearson, 56:33, came third.

The advanced course was 4.3-kilometres with 12 controls had 17 participants and it took them through the runnable forest next to McIntyre Creek.

Pia Blake was the top women and overall winner, outpacing the rest of the field in a time of 50:11. Phillipa McNeil, 54:59, and Sara Nielson, 66:39, came second and third.

It was a photo finish for the top three men in an “insanely” tight race. Brian Horton, 53:01, edged out Erik Blake by one second. Jeremy Johnson finished two seconds behind Erik Blake for third.

The next meet will be held June 5 with the location to be decided.