Penelope Salmon & Briana Steven travelled to the USA JWOC trials to test themselves at an official pre-JWOC event that is used to help finalise the US Team going to JWOC. The event host was the United States Military Academy Orienteering Club, and they ran in 3 venues: Middle: Lake Popolopen, the Sprint: Camp Buckner, these two events were in West Point, NY.  The long event was at: Jackie Jones Mountain, Harriman SP, NY
Penelope says the highlight was “getting to meet more of the Americans and stay with them. Of course, like all orienteers, they were a very friendly and welcoming bunch. Just being back off the city roads and in the forest was awesome. I loved it! Also, having fairly clean races was such a bonus and made the experience even better. “
Penelope was a little surprised at how small the number of competitors was as it was mainly a trial-based competition, it might be different to how we do thing sin NZ . The Americans spread the start times a lot more and calculate sprint distances off a straight line. They also call the finish control the goal which is  similar to the Swedish word mål – which means goal. 
The forest terrain was classic Northeast America with fairly good visibility most of the time. The defining part of the maps was the rocks. It was extremely stony underfoot and this made for slow running but the big rocks and cliffs were good features to navigate off. 
Have a look at the maps on Routegadget – Penelope & Briana ran the Red course):
West Point, NY Middle – Lake Popolopen
Harriman SP, NY Long – Jacki Jones Mountain:

📷 Orienteering USA