Please watch for horses on the trails. Above all, don't startle them. We don't want anyone to be thrown off a frightened horse and blame orienteers!
Here are some comments about the White, Yellow, and Orange courses:
- The Start for White and Yellow is near the advanced Start. The Orange course uses the advanced Start, and all three courses share the Finish with the advanced courses.
- The White course requires a lot of climb. Apologies for that. One section of White leaves the trail to follow a fence, but the navigation is easy.
- The Yellow course has legs that give you the option of leaving the trail, but choosing the off-trail option requires more difficult navigation. Another part of the Yellow course requires off-trail legs, but has easy navigation.
- The Orange course has most of the climb early in the course. Ridge tops are used to make navigation easier and reduce the climb. There is one water control on Orange.
For advanced courses, the emphasis this year was to set courses that included longer legs with surprising route choices. Only the competition on the day will tell us whether we've succeeded! Length and distance is a little above the 5-year Calero averages for Red and Blue, and a little below for Brown and Green.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Poison oak is, as always, prevalent. We have tried to avoid it, both in route choice and in bag placement. But take precautions and make sure to wash yourself properly after the race.
- The reservoir water level is noticeably lower than mapped. While this will not affect your route choices, it's something that Red and Blue runners should pay attention to.
- Ruined trees are mapped either with green-× or green-T symbols. A green-× might be a standing stump or a fallen tree. A green-T is always a fallen tree.
- A green-T indicates the location and direction of a fallen tree, but not its length.
- In the control descriptions, a ruined tree with height is used to indicate a standing stump, whereas a ruined tree with no height (and usually including an "end of" symbol) indicates a fallen tree.
- Red and Blue runners will encounter several barbed-wire fences, some of which are ruined and hard to see. When we have seen these fences, we have marked them with tape. But not all fences are marked. Please be vigilant and look for unmarked fences, and take care when crossing any fence.
- A black × on the map and a plain × on the control description stands for a man-made object.