Re: Frozen Fury 2015 Planning Thread
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:14 am
Yes, still that weekend.
THE SEARCH IS OVER! I've finally found a venue that scores highly on my list of criteria. Unfortunately, I forgot to put a memory card in my camera again before going out, so I'll have to go again for pictures. The venue is the Diamond Hill uplands section of Saugatuck Falls in Redding, CT. We used the Saugaway section during the Last Chance LBW war. The uplands are definitely a better location, and much lighter on your aerobic system. The playing area starts on the backside of Saugatuck Mountain and extends to a power line right of way. The forest is wet, dark, and contains small hills that are defensible, but easily attacked. Small pine trees mix in with large deciduous trees, reducing sightlines. The pines will stay green and keep their needles all year, so that alone makes it better than most northeast forests.
To get there, we use the little-known Diamond Hill Road entrance instead of the main entrance. I learned about the Diamond Hill entrance from 1990s era maps of the park. The road for it looks like a private driveway, but the house is way in the back around a corner. The parking area is totally empty and out of sight from the main road and private homes.
The staging area is on Saugatuck Mountain. Despite the name, it's more like a large hill, but it commands the center of the park. Google Maps says around 550ft, GPS Tracker says 757ft. This is an easy and short walk up due to being approached from the Diamond Hill side, where we start with elevation from the parking area. It's the gradual side, so you might not even notice the height unless you read this. However, the Saugaway side has a 400ft drop-off and acts as an out of bounds line that is too obvious to miss. It takes 4 minutes to drive from my house to the parking area, and 5 minutes to walk from the parking area to the staging area.
There is a small creek between the parking area and Saugatuck Mountain that acts as an on-site water source. It's the only permanently flowing one I've found so far in the uplands, and is located in the tactically worst part of the playing area, so plan accordingly. The Saugatuck River flows below the uplands, but I don't want to walk down there unless we have to. We might refill at the waterfall just so you can see a waterfall. I need to see if it's even running with the ongoing drought.
The western boundary is a power line right of way with views across to another ridge. It's pretty scenic and hard to miss. The right of way path is in-bounds so you can transfer between the several trails that cross it.
The southern boundary is TBA. With the limited daylight I had to work with today, I did not have time to find a boundary there.
The uplands support all our usual gametypes. I want to have at least one Outpost game with really spread out bases. I'm currently making a GPS+GIS map of the playing area for everyone, you'll need it if we do Outpost.
THE SEARCH IS OVER! I've finally found a venue that scores highly on my list of criteria. Unfortunately, I forgot to put a memory card in my camera again before going out, so I'll have to go again for pictures. The venue is the Diamond Hill uplands section of Saugatuck Falls in Redding, CT. We used the Saugaway section during the Last Chance LBW war. The uplands are definitely a better location, and much lighter on your aerobic system. The playing area starts on the backside of Saugatuck Mountain and extends to a power line right of way. The forest is wet, dark, and contains small hills that are defensible, but easily attacked. Small pine trees mix in with large deciduous trees, reducing sightlines. The pines will stay green and keep their needles all year, so that alone makes it better than most northeast forests.
To get there, we use the little-known Diamond Hill Road entrance instead of the main entrance. I learned about the Diamond Hill entrance from 1990s era maps of the park. The road for it looks like a private driveway, but the house is way in the back around a corner. The parking area is totally empty and out of sight from the main road and private homes.
The staging area is on Saugatuck Mountain. Despite the name, it's more like a large hill, but it commands the center of the park. Google Maps says around 550ft, GPS Tracker says 757ft. This is an easy and short walk up due to being approached from the Diamond Hill side, where we start with elevation from the parking area. It's the gradual side, so you might not even notice the height unless you read this. However, the Saugaway side has a 400ft drop-off and acts as an out of bounds line that is too obvious to miss. It takes 4 minutes to drive from my house to the parking area, and 5 minutes to walk from the parking area to the staging area.
There is a small creek between the parking area and Saugatuck Mountain that acts as an on-site water source. It's the only permanently flowing one I've found so far in the uplands, and is located in the tactically worst part of the playing area, so plan accordingly. The Saugatuck River flows below the uplands, but I don't want to walk down there unless we have to. We might refill at the waterfall just so you can see a waterfall. I need to see if it's even running with the ongoing drought.
The western boundary is a power line right of way with views across to another ridge. It's pretty scenic and hard to miss. The right of way path is in-bounds so you can transfer between the several trails that cross it.
The southern boundary is TBA. With the limited daylight I had to work with today, I did not have time to find a boundary there.
The uplands support all our usual gametypes. I want to have at least one Outpost game with really spread out bases. I'm currently making a GPS+GIS map of the playing area for everyone, you'll need it if we do Outpost.