By Heidi and Bill Cusworth
(These notes apply to both the Saturday and Sunday events. They are duplicated on both event webpages.)
Deer Creek Hills is a wonderfully open area, mostly wide open grazing land with large oak trees, with no poison oak or thick vegetation. It's probably the nicest terrain that we've encountered in the state of California. At this time of year, the grass is green and short, the oak trees don't yet have leaves, and the ground is soft. Visibility is very high, and the courses will be fast. Deer Creek Hills is an open-space preserve managed by the Sacramento Valley Conservancy, and open to the public for special events only. It's used primarily as grazing land for cattle. The area was used once before for a 4-hour Nav-X Map Trek event in autumn 2016. The area used for this event will be a small portion of the whole area, where there is a bit more forest.
General Course Information ↑
The Finish will be in the Assembly Area (the corral) both days. In fact, the Start, Finish, first control, and last control, will be exactly the same for both days. The distance to the Start from the Assembly Area is 180 meters, with 5 meters of climb. All the courses on both days will start with the exact same first leg, a 180-meter run along a road to a road/trail junction in lieu of a run to a start triangle. There will be two E-punch units at this first control, and also two E-punch units at the last control.
The warm-up area for the event is located along Latrobe Road, west of the Assembly Area. There is very little normal vehicle traffic on Latrobe Road, so the majority of the vehicles on the road will be orienteers.
Notes About the Map ↑
The map is based on the ISOM 2000 standard with the exception of form lines, which are based on the ISOM 2017 standard and are a little thinner than the regular contours. The field checking was done in summer 2017 through spring 2018.
The map scale is 1:10,000 with 5-meter contours (derived from LiDAR data) and a number of 2.5 m form lines in the flat areas. Magnetic-north lines are 500 meters apart.
Control Descriptions ↑
Control descriptions will be printed on the map. The White and Yellow courses have both text and symbol descriptions. All the other courses have just symbols.
These special symbols are used: Fallen trees (brown × on the map) are indicated by "rootstock, ruined". If there is an actual rootstock over 1 m tall, then just "rootstock" is used. Standing dead trees (green × on the map) are indicated as "lone tree, ruined".
Vegetation Mapping ↑
The forest is very open, and even the white areas can seem like semi-open. Consequently, the boundaries between open forest and open land with scattered trees (semi-open) are not very distinct. But the main thing to note about this area is that it is just about devoid of any thick vegetation, such as bushes or even tall grass. Every bit of green on the map is due to trees of one form or another. Most of the trees are large oaks with a high canopy, but there are some smaller trees with branches close to the ground that are mapped with a light- or medium-green area. However, 95% of the green areas on the map are due to fallen trees. Single or small areas of fallen trees are mapped with the brown × symbol. This symbol is generally used for rootstocks, but most of the downed trees do not have a distinctive rootstock, so the brown × is centered on the whole tree. Where there were a number of downed trees in an area that couldn't be shown with a single brown ×, a green area symbol is used, such as undergrowth (vertical green lines) or one of the solid green areas (light, medium, and dark green) depending on the visibility and overall thickness of the area. The solid-green areas are used primarily when there were downed trees under forest canopy.
Other vegetation symbols: Green circle is used for a single distinct live tree; Green × is for a distinct dead tree (snag); Green dot is used for a small tree.
Roads and Trails ↑
Due to the new grass growth in the spring, many roads and trails have become less distinct than shown on the map. Most of the trails are cattle paths that can change in intensity depending on the recent movement patterns of the cattle. Ranch roads that have become indistinct are mapped with the narrow-ride symbol.
Water Features ↑
There has been recent rain, so most natural watercourses and ditches will be wet. For the most part, the map has been adjusted to show correct water levels of ponds and streams in the spring. In the past, many man-made ditches that closely follow the contours of the land were dug to sell water diverted from streams to gold miners. The remnants of these ditches are mapped as small erosion gullies (brown dots), and generally there is no water in them. Many have become indistinct over time, and are only about 0.2–0.3 meter deep.
Rock Features ↑
This area contains many examples of "tombstone rocks", rocks that are arranged in thin sheets and then tilted perpendicular to the ground. We also like to think of them as "shark fins". They are mostly less than 1 m tall and mapped as rocky ground. For the larger ones, it was a challenge to decide whether they are better mapped as boulders or small rock faces (cliff). Generally, if there is a significant drop on 2 sides, it is mapped as a boulder, even if it is only a 0.1–0.2 meter thick.
Fences ↑
The area is bisected in the roughly north-south direction by a barbed-wire fence that has four gates. Two gates will be used on Saturday (Green, Red, and Blue courses), and two different gates will be used on Sunday (Orange, Green, Red, and Blue courses). They will be marked on the map as mandatory crossing points, and you will be disqualified if you are caught climbing the fence.
It is very important to close the gates behind you to keep cattle from passing from one field to the other. If this happens, it will greatly jeopardize our future use of the area. We have installed a temporary bungee cord with a clip to make it quicker and easier for you to secure the gate behind you.
Water ↑
There will be water on the courses approximately every 2.5 km. However, due to the locations of access roads, these water stops will not be perfectly evenly distributed throughout your course. Do not litter—leave cups in the provided litter bags.
Hazards ↑
Poison Oak: None, zilch, nada.
Watercourses: Most watercourses will be just a little muddy, but Crevis Creek (the main creek flowing through the middle of the map) is difficult to cross without getting your feet wet. You will most likely get your feet wet crossing Crevis Creek right before the last control on Sunday.
Cattle: They will be present during our event. They are very skittish since they see very few people in general, so expect them to stampede away from you before you reach them. Because of their presence, it is very important that every participant must close fence gates behind them after passing through. Try not to get between a mother cow and her calf.
Rocks: Be careful not to trip on the previously mentioned "shark fins". Land sharks have been known to bite ...