The orienteering course at Heritage Park, and how a family walks it in Clinton

Yes. Heritage Park at 1300 N 1000 W has an orienteering course among its amenities, alongside a playground, restrooms, water and rentable boweries. The course is nine control points, orange and white markers set in concrete at ground level, each stamped HPOC for Heritage Park Orienteering Course. Four documents go with it, a course summary, a worksheet, a map and a key, all free to download from the park's own page on the city website.

Six, at three difficulties, two easy, two intermediate and two advanced. They are rated on terrain and on the objects you have to work around rather than on distance alone, so the two advanced courses are not simply the two longest. Every one of the six is eight legs long, every leg is a magnetic bearing and a distance in meters, and all six start and finish at control point A. The shortest works out to about 543 meters and the longest to about 742, though those totals are arithmetic on the leg distances rather than figures given for you.

One of the nine markers is a hundred meter marker, sitting at 260 degrees magnetic from control point A. Before you start, you walk to it and back, counting every other step each way, then average the two counts. That average is your pace count, the multiplier you use for every leg. For a 72 meter leg with a pace count of 67 you walk 0.67 times 72, which is 48 counted steps. It is standard land navigation, written out plainly, which is what turns this from a marker hunt into a real course.

To walk it the way it was built, yes. Every leg is a magnetic bearing, so a compass is the intended tool. The documents also carry each control point in decimal degrees, so you can convert any course into a satellite navigation exercise if you would rather. One caution if you do: control point C is written differently on the key from the worksheet, and its decimal degree pair is missing there, so take C from the worksheet.

From Heritage Park's own page on the city website, where the four files are linked together. The worksheet is the one to print, since it carries all six courses as tables of bearing, distance and a blank box for the letter you find. The key is the same sheet with the answers filled in, so save that one for afterward. There is no sign in the park carrying the leg tables, so download before you go.

Nothing to walk. There is no fee, no booking and no permit, and the documents are free. Plan about an hour for one course and longer your first time, because the pace count walk out to the hundred meter marker and back comes first. The only priced thing at the park is a bowery, which rents for 30 dollars for a five hour block; the recreation department sets the season and the booking window.

It works well for anyone who can read a number and count steps, so a child with basic arithmetic can run a full course with a little help, and a younger one can walk it as a marker hunt. There is no timing, no scoring beyond the key and no supervision, so you set the pace. The markers are at ground level in an ordinary neighborhood park with a playground and restrooms.

At control point A, beside the course sign, in the northeast section of Heritage Park, at latitude 41.132493 north and longitude 112.045657 west. Every one of the six courses starts and ends there, and the hundred meter calibration marker sits at 260 degrees magnetic from it. The markers are set in concrete rather than on posts and are not signposted from the entrance, so find A with the worksheet in hand.

Not among the park's own amenities. Heritage Park's amenities are a playground, restrooms, water, boweries and the orienteering course, and a sledding hill is not one of them. A third party parks directory carries one for this spot, and that is the only source for it. The ground does fall about 180 feet across Clinton and this park sits in the higher half, which makes the claim plausible, but plausible is not confirmed. A call to the recreation department at 801-614-0780 settles it.