By James Roney
After the high of the Cal-O-Fest, BAOC returns to more traditional fare, Diablo Valley College (DVC) and the BAOC Summer Series. DVC is not as expansive as Berkeley or the San Francisco Presidio, but nevertheless offers the opportunity for decent Sprint orienteering practice, albeit in a condensed landscape.
DVC has a few unique buildings with mazes of multi-level internal breezeways. I have attempted to utilize these on both Summer Series courses, while trying to mix quick, snap-decision legs with more typical mid-length or longer legs. Though perhaps not completely successful, I have attempted to ensure every leg requires choices to be made (e.g., no running from one side of a parking lot to the other side). In true Sprint orienteering fashion, attention should be paid to the control descriptions on your clue sheet! They should tell you which structure level a control is on (if none is indicated, one should assume the lower level), or possibly which side of an impassible barrier one should look for.
The Courses
For both the Long and Short courses, the map has been printed at the non-standard 1:3000 scale. This is primarily to better fill out the page, and to show tiny features and passageways in greater detail.
Please note that in Sprint orienteering tradition, I have added three "artificial barriers" to the map (ISSOM Symbol 708, Out-of-bounds boundary) to increase route-choice intrigue. How these will be marked in situ is yet to be determined (probably with caution tape). Whatever the marking ends up being, please respect these out-of-bounds features in the spirit of competition—do not cross them.
Beginner: The fun thing about Sprint orienteering is that the danger of getting lost is low, and as such you can participate on a course closer in difficulty to the advanced courses without the fear of running a mile or two into a forest and never returning. Your course consists of a figure-8 kind of arrangement that tries to show you as much of the campus as possible, while giving you the opportunity to tackle some simple navigational problems. Your map is printed at the official (for sprints) 1:4000 scale, and will have a legend of symbols for your reference on the same sheet.
Short: I apologize in advance for the map being a bit cats-cradle-y, but I think the legs are fun, and the map is readable (certainly more readable than some World Championship map examples I looked at).
Long: There is a map exchange—the map would be too cluttered otherwise with all the control circles, in some cases quite close to each other. Control 17 will be the map-exchange location. The map you take at the Start will get you to Control 17. When you arrive there, the second map will be waiting for you in a tub, and will take you to the Finish. (You can keep your first map or drop it in a second tub.) Please remember to punch Control 17 as you pass through! (The map exchange will be a "spectator control" [if we have spectators], so remember to smile. 😉)
General Thoughts
Leave your spikes at home for this one. Running shoes should be more than adequate.
No water will be placed on the courses, but there are many drinking fountains. As of last week, most of them were working.
I hope you enjoy the courses.