What a great success! If you missed the Sierra Two-Day, you missed the best two days of orienteering that the Gold Country Orienteers has ever sponsored. This is not my opinion, but that of a number of orienteers from other clubs. Of course, the great terrain helped, but the great support given freely by many members of both GCO and BAOC was the main contributor to a smoothly run and fun event.
Total attendance: 134 starts, over 160 participants, more than half from the Bay Area and even some from San Diego.
At Boreal, Nauenberg and Treson ran away with White, while Bachelder and Epstein did the same on Yellow. Blake Tresan bested Joe Ledesma on a tough Orange. Sarah Minarik blasted the entire field by 50 minutes on Brown. Green saw George Minarik brush by Dennis Wildfogel at the wire by only one second. No wonder George liked the event! On Red, Gary Carpenter's strong legs outlasted the nearest competitor by nine minutes. The Blue, like Green, was also a very close finish, with Wyatt Riley passing Dan Stoll-Hadayia by just nine seconds.
Day Two at Sugar Bowl saw teenage beginners Luke Griffith and Juan Hussong blaze through the White in a very fast 23 minutes. Bachelder and Epstein took Yellow for the second day, just ahead of Tresan and Nauenberg, who took White at Boreal. Blake Tresan won Orange again, well ahead of all competition. Tom Jahn showed that age is not a handicap by taking Brown by a safe margin. On Green, the rubber match between George Minarik and Dennis Wildfogel proved Dennis the better, not withstanding a missing map correction that cost George time. Tapio Karras won Red clearly by three minutes over Olav Solgaard despite an injured shoulder. Blue went to Dan Stoll-Hadayia with a good margin to spare.
On Sugar Bowl Yellow, the control on the power line was missing, due to the fact that, when the hanging job was divided by tearing the map in half, the missing control point ended up on the tear and was not noticed. The ribbon on the easily found pole would be a giveaway to an advanced orienteer, but to beginning yellow runners, it caused some considerable delays.
A similar error was made at Boreal with the one common White/Yellow control. On the clue sheets, the same control was assigned different control numbers, but only one bag was hung. The bag hanger, seeing a bag in place, judged it already hung, but in reality it was the wrong control code for one of the courses. A mid-event correction, hanging the second bag, did not help the few intermediates who easily found the control feature, but lost time before realizing that the code was wrong.
The only major advanced course error was on Blue, caused by a mismarking of the master map. As it turned out, the rock features used were nearly identical to a second set a couple of hundred meters away. The wrong set of features were, however, easy to find and most Blue runners went on with very little lost time. Because the optimum route to the next control went right past the actual control, most runners found it on the way to the next control.
Two minor errors on the advanced courses caused individuals to lose time, but everyone else seemed to find the controls without problems. This is still unfair, and should be watched for in preparing courses. One such error resulted from the master map circle being drawn so that the circle line crossed over the control feature, a pit "V." One runner, either not reading his clue sheet or not seeing the listed clue sheet feature where it looked to be, took the feature as a boulder with a missing control. Meanwhile, the actual control at the pit was in a dense patch of dark woods not 20 meters away.
The last omission was a missing map correction, indicating that one of two parallel power lines had been removed. Since the power lines were a good attack feature, this error caused lost time when one runner couldn't determine which power line had been removed.
WHITE (6) 2250m long, 30m climb Nauenberg, Treson 30:08 Olivia Graeve 41:32 Rachel Care 41:42 Barbara Sullivan 53:30 Dave & Kathy Rybichi 53:30 Karras Group 92:56 YELLOW (8) 4200m, 75m Bachelder, Epstein 90:40 Kristen Kellenmyer 113:17 Dave & Kathy Rybichi 115:19 Robert/Trish Landry 148:58 Lincoln ROTC, Sophal 165:0 Jossie Jahn, et al 191:1 ROTC/Nedeem group DNF Rosemary Ornelas DQ ORANGE (4) 4200m, 105m Blake Tresan 117:51 Joe Ledesma 122:27 K. Friedman, Denise K. 209:34 Livingston, Buffington DNF BROWN (7) 3760m, 110m Sarah Minarik 76:16 Tom Jahn 126:13 Leslie Minarik 138:03 Jennifer Kerr 158:48 Louise Madrid 164:11 Rosemary Johnson 168:10 Harding group DQ GREEN (17) 4700m, 150m George Minarik 73:14 Dennis Wildfogel 73:15 Bill Papendick 89:09 Joe Scarborough 91:51 Patty Clemo 94:50 Janet Peterson 108:00 Scott Aster 110:24 Karen Sessler 113:42 Doug Brown 114:48 Rob Williams 118:11 Aileen Abernathy 123:07 Bill Gookin 126:04 Dwight Freud 128:02 Jerry Goss 131:27 Vic Revenko 158:05 Jeff Lanan 180:48 Stacy Goss 183:37 RED (14) 5700m, 215m G. Carpenter 80:57 Harry King 89:52 Mark Petersen 96:29 Tapio Karras 99:38 Olav Solgaard 100:02 Dan Greene 100:43 Frida Larsson, A-K Palm 111:47 Mark Blair 120:30 Michael Poulsen 128:43 Rolf Willecke 148:31 Trevor Pering 162:30 Blue (11) 8500m, 290m Wyatt Riley 97:27 Dan Stoll-Hadayia 97:36 Lans Taylor 104:09 Syd Reader 108:16 Thorsten Graeve 108:28 John Britton 120:33 Doug Stein 144:47 Steve Smith 149:35 Angelica Riley 159:00 Van A. Boughner 175:16 Yelena Sarranskaya DNF
WHITE (13) 2100m long, 35m climb Luke Griffith, Juan Hussong 23:17 Rick Kentz 42:55 Mark Catlin, Charkie Chumo 44:46 Sullivan, Wilkins, MacDonald 46:38 Anderson,Jessie,Chris,Joanne 49:03 Rachel Care 51:50 Kane Cleary, Mark Cleary 57:18 Wiess, Rudy, Miranda 60:43 Joey Catlin 63:53 Jo Christine Gookin 73:00 Mari, Jaakko, Jukka 74:20 C.Kratzer, J.Shaw 97:24 Colleen Wallace 99:09 YELLOW (11) 3400m, 60m Bachelder, Epstein 64:47 Nauenberg, Tresan 69:53 Colleen Wallace 75:32 Griffith, Hussong 82:09 R. Green, A. Green 88:50 Mark Catlin, Charlie Chumo 97:35 Wiess, MacDonald, Sullivan 127:04 K. Constintine 127:16 Jossie Jahn, et al 153:13 Davies 180:18 ORANGE (7) 4100m, 120m Blake Tresan 81:53 Joe Ledesma 147:14 K. Friedman, Denise K. 216:30 Andersons, Mark, Joanne, Jessie, Chris DNF (missed 11-15) Rosemary Johnson DNF (missed 2, 5, 11-15) Tom Olson DNF (missed 8-15) Rich Kentz DNF BROWN (6) 3800m, 90m Tom Jahn 96:04 Leslie Minarik 111:42 Carlo Alesandrini 119:13 Dave Littman 146:42 Louise Madrid 162:28 Jennifer Kerr DNF (missed 9, 14) GREEN (17) 4800m, 140m Dennis Wildfogel 62:57 George Minarik 72:46 Joe Scarborough 76:03 Michael Poulen 85:17 Sarah Minarik 89:00 Doug Brown 93:48 Janet Peterson 94:03 Bill Gookin 98:49 Bill Papendick 109:02 Patty Clemo 116:35 Aileen Abernathy 128:04 Stacy Goss 136:25 Vic Revenko 139:06 Karen Sessler 139:31 Jerry Goss 194:38 Sarranskaya DNF Jeff Lanan DNF RED (12) 5800m, 190m Tapio Karras 79:08 Olav Solgaard 82:03 Angelics Riley 83:25 Dan Greene 87:58 Mark Petersen 89:26 Scott Aster 101:02 Bob Cooley 107:50 P. Olsten 108:28 Jeff Thompson 115:14 Rolf Willecke 116:46 Bob Landry 199:09 Trevor Pering DNF Blue (8) 7600m, 250m Dan Stoll- Hadayia 82:02 Syd Reader 91:35 Wyatt Riley 104:24 Thorsten Graeve 110:36 Doug Stein 116:04 Van A. Boughner 119:05 John Britton DNF (missed #10) Steve Smith DNF (missed #7)