By Stephanie Maclean, Event Director
Just over 100 orienteers braved the wet conditions on Sunday at Joseph Grant Park.
The day started dry, but showers quickly set in and it mostly remained persistently wet thereafter. Many participants reported difficult freeway driving conditions while getting to the park—we appreciate their persistence and are glad everyone arrived safely.
We could not have picked a better day to try our European waterproof maps (most were shipped from Finland!). This is part of our test for the California O Festival this summer, where we hope to use waterproof maps. Most people reported a positive experience with the new paper. The few exceptions are hopefully consoled by knowing they contributed to our future development in this area.
Many volunteers helped to make the event happen.
Course setters Derek Maclean and Kim van Berkel spent months working on interesting and challenging courses. The wettest winter in recent memory added to the challenge for course setters and participants.
The following showed up on the day with smiles on their faces and made the event happen. Volunteering in the rain gets you a few more Brownie Points in my book!
- Setup: Graham Brew – including "improvements" to the river crossing near the Start!
- Registration: Steve Haas, Sarah Williams
- Beginner Clinics: Rex Winterbottom
- Starts: Graham Brew, Emily Tucker, John Richardson
- Control Pickup: Taylor Pospisil, Tom De Vre, Emily Tucker, Tapio Karras
- Cleanup: Emily Tucker, Gavin Wyatt-Mair
- Results: Jay Hann (aka Western Race Services)
In addition, these people helped before the event:
- Graham Brew wrote and applied for the permit.
- Dan Ingram handled insurance.
- The staff at Santa Clara County Parks supported a smooth and issue-free permit process.
- Bill Cusworth made map updates.
- Chuck Spalding maintained the event pages on the website with all the new information.
Please let me know if I have omitted anyone.
Lost and Found
The following items were found at the event:
- A pair of eyeglasses (they look like they could even have been lost at last year's event!)
- A nice compass.
Contact me (email) if they are yours.
Course Setter Comments
By Derek Maclean, Course Setter
Thanks to all the hardy souls who made it through the wet and wild at Joe Grant this weekend.
There are two times during the event when the course setter is most anxious: waiting for initial runners to confirm that the controls are present and correct on each course, then waiting for the final competitors to return after the courses close. Thanks to my fellow control hangers (Steph Maclean and Kim van Berkel) for ably supporting the first goal, and for the second, all the competitors who braved wet, slippery conditions making the rugged terrain even more challenging than normal. This particularly applies to Red and Blue runners, who dealt with the very steep slopes in the eastern part of the map, with streams turned into raging torrents, and steep, eroded, slippery banks.
Here's a summary of the course results:
Course Entries Competitors WinningTime DNFs
White 4 8 17 min -
Yellow 17 34 38 min 1
Orange 8 13 54 min 2
Brown 12 13 57 min 3
Green 13 15 57 min -
Red 10 11 73 min 4
Blue 10 10 55 min -
The weather clearly kept the numbers down, especially on the White course, which Sara and Miesel completed in a speedy 17 mins. It's good to see that Yellow was quite well attended, as I was quite pleased with this course. It offered an adventurous route, climbing to offer a view back to the assembly area, then a cross-country section descending a broad spur, with the parking area always in sight to guide you down, finishing with a couple of stream crossings near the end that were pretty rather than challenging. Kain Gupta had a great winning time of 38 mins.
The Orange and advanced courses started with a small "maze" of controls in the initial bushy area. The accurate mapping here by Bill Cusworth in 2022 enabled use of this section for real navigation. It doesn't look like too many people made errors here, although there were a handful of very long times to first controls, suggesting that some may have not readily figured the initial route through to the open area. Emily Tucker had a nice run to win Orange in 54 mins.
The Red and Blue courses were designed to be challenging. Climb was on the high side at 5.5%, but necessary to access the lesser-used eastern area, and pose route choice on the way up (6 to 7 on R/B) and coming back down (see below). Anthony Riley's winning time for Blue of 55 mins is remarkable in this terrain, beating Erin Schirm by 10 minutes. All the Blue runners completed the course, with a longest time of just over 2 h, suggesting an appropriate level of challenge. Red had a longer winning time (Andrejus Masalkov at 73 mins), and 4 out of 13 DNFs. The course may have been a bit too long/tough than desirable for Red.
James Roney posted a query on the BayONet about the main return leg on Red/Blue. Here is my response: I did not have a clear prescription for the "best" route—in fact that was my point in setting the leg. The high route parallel to the fence is more obvious and most direct, but the target control is well below the starting point, suggesting some lower routes that may traverse less-steep hillsides than the upper slopes. By the time one reaches Red #9 (or Blue #10) one would have a pretty good sense of what this area was like before turning back for the return leg, and thus be better able to make an informed route decision. I like the area around 8–9 on Red (and Blue), and wanted to get ambitious runners out there this year. Congrats to all who successfully executed this challenging leg.
Brown and Green were designed to offer a variety of challenge and terrain. After the flat, bushy maze at the start, you climb up and across the lower slopes with good running conditions, then route choice into some more-rugged terrain (7–8 for Brown, 5–6 for Green). Climb again to set up the traverse back across the upper hillside, then some short legs with quick direction changes in the slightly flatter terrain to keep you on your toes with likely oxygen deficit after the climb. Sweep back home through some fast downhill terrain, then the last push across the final stream to the Finish. I was pleased with these courses, and feedback was generally positive. Congrats to course leaders Dennis Wildfogel (57 mins on Brown) and Tapio Karras (56 mins on Green).
While this section of Joe Grant is not highly technical, I hope we met our goal of presenting some interesting courses. Thanks again for coming.
I really appreciate Kim van Berkel's efforts in helping with the courses. This was the first time in quite a while that Steph and I worked on the same event. We didn't fight too much, and are still married.
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