Woodland Park

Seattle, WA MAP LEGEND

Woodland is a wide-open park of gently rolling hills (lots of them), mowed grass, and runnable forests, interlaced with paved and gravel trails. It is a popular cross-country venue for its varied terrain and fall colors, and popular orienteering venue for the same reasons. It is the location for the club’s National Orienteering Week event each year, and a great place to start practice contour recognition and compass skills.

woodland-park-full.pdfLarge map PDF

Note: Samples of the map are provided here for educational purposes only; the map shown here is not kept up-to-date. The course shown is a Beginner/Intermediate course, and actual controls do not exist in the terrain.

The purpose of providing these navigational and physical ratings below is to provide greater context for how challenging an orienteering course at this venue might be. For example, an advanced-level course at a local city park will be easier to complete than an advanced-level course in the mountains.

Navigational Challenge Rating: 4

With so much open ground, Woodland Park is relatively easy to navigate. However, with numerous similar features, such as bridges and shelters, it’s also easy to make a parallel features error. And the wooded area near the tennis courts can feel rather homogeneous.

Physical Challenge Rating: 3

Most of the park is completely runnable, without complete disregard for footing. And yet, because it is so fast for running, gently rolling hills start to add up. At a certain point, physical conditioning matters.