This is the first Orienteering event held at Almaden Quicksilver Park. The terrain is dominated by a large ridge with other ridges extending from the main ridge. Some sides are steep while other sides are more gradual. On top of the ridge system it is rather flat in some areas. Due to the mining that has been done over the course of about 100 years, there are a lot of man made topographic features such as cuts, pits, and quarries. Unfortunately most of the man made topographic features have been overgrown by brush, although some of these features will be encountered on the courses. The vegetation varies from open grassy hills with sparse oak and some areas of chaparral and poison oak, to forested areas with oak trees and light undergrowth with occasional areas of poison oak ground cover, to areas of dense chaparral and dense poison oak brush. The courses are set to avoid most of the poison oak, although there will be some areas on Green, Red, and Blue courses that will be difficult to completely avoid. In those cases, it's mostly ankle high ground cover or sparse taller ground cover. The areas where poison oak can be a factor are short and it should be possible to avoid the poison oak almost entirely with care. Please use Tecnu for washing off any poison oak you may have touched.
Areas mapped with dark green are typically very dense, and sometimes have a lot of poison oak mixed in. Areas mapped with light green are not easy to pass through either and will commonly have a ground cover of poison oak. Only in places where the dense vegetation areas are mapped very thin (a few meter across) should it be considered an option to pass through such an area.
There are several areas that are marked out of bounds. Please respect those areas; there are several reasons for the out of bounds markings. Some areas have sensitive plants and some are considered unsafe due to cliffs and old mining remnants, including an old mineshaft that has not been closed properly yet. Before the park was opened to the public, all mine shafts that were known by maps and surveying were closed up for safety reasons. The mappers did find one additional shaft and there may possibly be more open shafts in the park, although according to mining maps and according to all known records all shafts are accounted for.
The courses are set such that it is not necessary to cross an out of bounds area. Crossing an out of bounds area will be cause for disqualification.
Finish: All courses end at the same finish location, approximately 2 km up the hill from the parking area.
Course Distance Climb Controls Scale Contour Interval White 2.3 km 215 m 6 1:7500 5m Yellow 3.0 km 235 m 10 1:7500 5m Orange 3.3 km 320 m 6 1:10000 5m Brown 3.4 km 225 m 10 1:10000 5m Green 4.0 km 270 m 10 1:10000 5m Red 5.4 km 455 m 16 1:10000 5m Blue 7.0 km 520 m 19 1:10000 5mRecreational courses: The Recreational and competitive courses are the same for White, Yellow, and Orange.
There are two versions of White, Yellow, and Orange courses, one for competitive classes and one for recreational classes.
Course Distance Climb Controls Scale Contour Interval White Competition 1.35 km 70 m 7 1:7500 5m White Recreation 1.25 km 60 m 7 1:7500 5m Yellow Competition 1.8 km 135 m 9 1:7500 5m Yellow Recreation 1.65 km 140 m 9 1:7500 5m Orange Competition 3.8 km 120 m 12 1:10000 5m Orange Recreation 3.75 km 120 m 11 1:10000 5m Brown 3.8 km 140 m 11 1:10000 5m Green 3.6 km 200 m 13 1:10000 5m Red 4.8 km 300 m 14 1:10000 5m Blue 6.15 km 450 m 17 1:10000 5m
The map will be printed in scale 1:10000 for Orange and above. Since the area used for White and Yellow is quite small for Day 2 we will be printing this map in scale 1:7500. The contour interval is 5 m.