By Daniel Šebo

Courses ↑

Here are the final details for the courses.

Course      Length   Climb  Controls  Navigation
Beginner    2.7 km    35 m     16     Easy (mostly on trails)  
Advanced    5.6 km    65 m     27     Difficult (detailed, off-trail)

Beginners should be aware that the lengths shown are the cumulative straight-line distances between controls. Your actual distance will be somewhat longer. To estimate how far you might actually go, mentally change "km" to "mi" (e.g., for a "2.7 km" course, you might travel up to 2.7 miles).

Be sure to check your control codes, since there will be numerous controls close to each other (but not violating the rules regarding minimum control distances). Not all the controls you see are on your course, and even if they are, they may not be the control you are searching for at the moment.

Water ↑

Due to the relatively short nature of the courses, there will not be water placed on the courses. Please bring your own water if you deem it necessary.

The Advanced course will pass close to the assembly area about two-thirds of the way through the course, so if in need, runners can also grab a drink from there.

Map ↑

The Oyster Bay map is famous for changing greatly in between events, and this event is no exception. Moreover, over the course of a few years, many parts of the Oyster Bay map from 2017 have changed so much that total remapping was necessary. A large part of the map in the middle of the park has had a vast amount of dirt dumped on top of it, and numerous trails have vanished while several new ones have been made. Additionally, vegetation has disappeared in some places and appeared in others. The whole remapping experience here felt like something from Alice in Wonderland.

That said, Matej and I have remapped the area through which the courses will pass to an acceptable state. The controls on the Advanced course are placed so that relatively fine vegetation reading will be necessary. The giant dirt-capped area is mapped as open ground. There are some "trails" on this open area, but they are always changing and have only roughly been mapped. There are no controls in the rough-open area, but passing through it is a valid option.

This year, the map scale will be 1:5000 for the Beginner course, and 1:4000 for the Advanced course. The contour interval is 2 meters. The start will be about a hundred meters from the assembly area, which is located about 400 meters up the trail from the parking lot.

Areas marked on the map as undergrowth slow you down considerably to a walk most of the time, so avoiding them as much as possible can often be beneficial. Also, blue ×'s on the map vary from relatively small gas vents that are flat on the ground, to larger objects that look like cylindrical water tanks a few feet in diameter. Since these features vary greatly in size and visibility, no controls on the Advanced course will be on blue ×'s, but they are useful for navigation.

Important note for the Advanced runners: There will be a map flip at some control in the course. You will simply flip your map over, and the second map will be on the other side inside your map case. One map will show all the controls from the Start to a certain control, and the second map will show that "certain control" and all the controls from there to the Finish. This is because the park is relatively small, and some controls and control lines would be extremely hard to read if they were all on one map.

Hazards ↑

Good news: No poison oak in the park!!!

Snakes are very much present in the park, but from my encounters with them while mapping/course setting, I haven't encountered any that I recognize as poisonous. Most of them are the relatively harmless Gopher snakes.

The grass can be high in some areas, and there are a lot of stickers, so gaiters, long socks, or long pants will definitely come in handy for the Advanced course.