Wycoller Country Park

Pendle Forest Orienteers:

The permanent orienteering course (POC) at Wycoller was first set up in the 1990s with the assistance of Lancashire County Council, who own Wycoller Country Park.

PFO are keen to welcome new members of any age or experience. We serve the Blackburn / Burnley / Pendle / Rossendale area of Lancashire and meet regularly for events, training and social events. Most members take part in competitive orienteering events both locally (organised by PFO) and in other areas. Details of local events can be found on www.pfo.org.uk and other club events on www.britishorienteering.org.uk

There are other POCs in the region: Gawthorpe Hall in Padiham, Gisburn Forest, Peel Park in Accrington, Tockholes Woods near Blackburn & Darwen and Witton Park in Blackburn. For information, e-mail: georgecrawfordsmith@gmail.com

Orienteering at Wycoller:

The POC is on the western flank of Turnhole Clough. The area includes rough pasture, woodland, young plantation and rock features. The POC will give you a chance to try a non-competitive or leisure form of orienteering using your map reading skills to navigate round a course of permanent markers or “controls”. After rain parts of the area will be boggy or have slippery stones. Suitable footwear should be worn. Take care!

There are 26 controls (A-Z) available for you to find, either as a score course visiting all 26, or more simply following one or more line courses according to difficulty. Maps available to download.

Difficulty:	Length & Climb:	Controls – number and difficulty
Yellow Easy	1.5k 70m	10. Easily visible from paths & line features.
Orange Moderate	2.0k 80m	13. Off paths and not directly visible.
Green Hard	2.5k 155m	12. More difficult controls and terrain.
Score Hard	Visit some or all controls in any order.	26. Mix of all types of difficulty and terrain.

The Maps:

Before starting, study and understand your course map:

Map scale is 1:5000. Thus, 1cm on the map is equivalent to 50m on the ground. Contour interval is 5m.
Interpretation: Using the key to “map symbols”, determine the meaning of each symbol.
Orientation: Align paths or other line features on the map to the feature on the ground. Or, if you have a compass, align magnetic north (blue vertical lines) to the north needle of your compass.
Position: Follow your progress on the map. Know where you are at all times!
Out of bounds: Do not trespass into surrounding areas or those marked with purple cross-hatching.
The Start (purple triangle) & Finish (double circle) are marked together on the map at the main gate uphill from the clapper bridge.
Control positions on the map are marked by numbered purple circles centred on the feature.
The control list is shown to the left of the map.
Control descriptions tell you what feature you are looking for e.g. Path junction, Marsh, etc
Control letters are on a red/white marker on each control post. This confirms that you have successfully navigated to the correct location.
The two digit numbers on the marker are for use in competitive orienteering.