• Stephanie Maclean

• Derek Maclean
• Matthias Kohler

We return to Bedwell Bayfront Park in Menlo Park, but in the winter this time instead if in the summer. Bedwell Bayfront is a fairly small, open, flattish park near the western end of the Dumbarton Bridge — easy to get to, with fun orienteering and great views.

This park is a great place to try orienteering for those new to the sport — beginners new to orienteering are encouraged to attend. There will be a course intended for beginners, with easier navigation to give an introduction to the sport. (Beginners are welcome to try a more challenging second course.)

For experienced orienteers, there will be an Intermediate/Advanced 3-loop Motala course with "special twists" to make the navigation more challenging. For example, the park's extensive trail network will not be shown on the maps for the Intermediate/Advanced course. Runners can choose to complete one, two, or all three loops. (See the Course Setters' Notes for details.)

We look forward to seeing everyone at what should be a fun event!

The 2025 BAOC Service Award will be presented at this event at 11:45 AM. It would be nice if club members could arrange their schedule in order to attend that presentation.

Note: If you're planning to bring a group larger than 10, please reach out to Steve Haas, the Event Director (email), so we can plan accordingly (e.g., print enough maps).

Beginners

Beginner clinics will be available to introduce orienteering. They are short, repeating sessions that explain orienteering maps and the process for completing a course. Of course, it's up to the participants to be able to read their map and navigate to the controls on their course. That should not be too difficult at this feature-rich venue.

"Advanced" Beginners

If you are in the early stages of learning orienteering, Bedwell Bayfront Park is a great venue to try a more-advanced course. The park is very open, so features are easy to see, and it's confined to a small area, so you cannot get far from the event center. However, to artificially make navigation harder, the maps for the Intermediate/Advanced course will have "special twists" (e.g., trails and roads could be omitted). Thus, that course will give you a chance to practice more-advanced skills such as following a bearing, using attack points, and reading contour lines and vegetation features.

2026 BAOC Youth Program Kick-Off

We will be having the kick-off of the 2026 BAOC Youth Program at this event. The Youth Program is free (except for the normal, junior course fees), and is open to all juniors (age 20 and under).

Here is the schedule for the Youth Program component of the Bedwell Bayfront Park event:

Note: If you can't make it to the 10 AM introduction, please still come by the Youth Program table and introduce yourself whenever you get there!

We will have our next Youth Program event in February, so don't worry if you can't make the January 11 date! In January, we will send out the Youth Program event schedule for the first half of 2026. If you missed our initial announcement of the Youth Program, please see the BAOC Juniors page (and please submit an interest form).

Please email Julia Doubson and Petra Sundstrom if you have any questions.

General

Bedwell Bayfront park is a former landfill that has been overfilled to become a pleasant, grassy peninsula extending into San Francisco Bay, with small groves of trees and bushy thickets across a number of small hills (not more than 30–40 m elevation).

In January, the park is lush and green, but the grass is not too high. Running conditions underfoot should be perfect, although care should be taken to avoid the many ground-squirrel holes, often quite large, which are a trip hazard. There is little underbrush and no poison oak.

There will be many controls out there. Make sure you punch the correct one by checking the control ID. (Controls on similar/same features might be closer than 50 m!)

Map Information

The map was updated in 2024 by Matej Šebo with additional corrections by Emily Ellsworth in 2025, and is holding up well. The scale is 1:5000, with a 2 m contour interval. Some bushes have grown, some have died back; some mapped fallen trees are slowly decaying and becoming less visible.

Many controls are on thickets, which might have slightly changed in shape since they were mapped, but should not significantly affect navigation.

Vegetation is mapped consistently according to different plant types. White areas are typically small eucalyptus groves. Most of the dark green areas are thickets of dense brush. Smaller dark green areas might be palmettos. Intermediate green is typically scrub pine.

There are many "landfill-gas" vent pipes (about 3 ft tall) throughout the park, which are marked on the map by a small blue star.

Beginner Course

The Beginner course is 2.6 km with 16 controls and 75 m of climb (see the main event webpage for an explanation), and gives a "grand tour" of the multiple small hills in the park. All the controls are on, or quite close to, one of the many trails that criss-cross the area.

Intermediate/Advanced Course

A Motala course is offered, with up to three loops, each of average 2.5 km distance. See the main event webpage for details.

Runners can decide if they wish to do 1, 2, or 3 loops (see below), effectively comprising Short, Middle, and Long course options.

All the roads and trails have been removed from the Motala course maps, so navigation is based only on topographic and vegetation features.

Runners who wish to do only one loop should indicate this to the Start volunteer, and will receive a map showing their single course from Start to Finish.

Runners wishing to do 2 or 3 loops can decide to stop after 2 loops, or continue to complete all 3 loops. At the Start, they will receive a double-sided map with the first two loops on the two sides. After completing two loops, they can either proceed to the Finish, or pick up their final, Loop 3 map from a tray at the "map exchange" control at the end of Loop 2.

The Loop 2 map might not show a line from the final control to the Finish, but this route will be obvious for those ending their run after 2 loops.

The map received by each runner for any loop might not necessarily be the same as for another runner. Some doing 2 or 3 loops will do "Loop A" then "Loop B", others will do the opposite. There is also a "butterfly" section on one loop, where runners will complete either section 1 then 2, or vice versa. Runners should simply complete the controls in the order specified on their map, and not just follow someone else — the other runner might be going to a quite different control than yours, even if they previously went to the same controls as you.