We will be returning to Morgan Territory for the first BAOC "O" Meet since our very successful "A" Meet of last year. Morgan Territory was remapped prior to the meet last year and the area across the road, (west), was added.
Registration will be open from 9:00 am to noon; beginner's clinics from 9:30 am to 10:30 am. Starts from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm. ALL COURSES CLOSE AT 2:00 pm.
Volunteers for starts, finishes, and control pickup will be appreciated. For further information, call or e-mail me.
The terrain at Morgan Territory is a lovely mix of rolling oak forests with open grassy areas and steep ridges with cliffs and interesting rock formations. I've stayed away from the cliffs...well, the big ones anyway. There's no star thistle out there, but fox tails and those little, round 'velcro' stickers abound. As Thorsten pointed out, most of the poison oak in the Bay area has been transplanted to Almaden, so you won't see much of it. The trail network is fairly extensive, so the legs are somewhat short and a there are a lot of them! Looking at the climbs you might think it's as steep as Quicksilver, but note that the courses are much longer, so the climb is spread out. I enjoyed vetting the courses, didn't find them too demanding -- a bit of a slog here and there, but nothing awful. Very runnable for the fit. There's some nice open running in the 'easy' areas to get you into the technical areas.
The courses are VERY technical. This is NOT the time to move up from Orange to an advanced course. The map, first used at the WRE at Morgan Territory last fall, is excellent and very detailed. With that in mind, we have decided to use a map scale of 1:10000 for all courses Orange and above. White and Yellow will use a scale of 1:7500. NOTE: If you wish to run on the offset-printed map that was used for Red and Blue at the WRE last year, which is 1:15000, let me know and I'll have a map available for you. The printing on offset maps is cleaner than on OCAD maps, but I find it very difficult to see the definition at the smaller scale.
E-punch will be used for Brown through Blue. Pin punching will be used for White, Yellow and Orange. All starts are only 150m from parking and registration. The finish for everyone is right at the registration and parking area. Nice...
Here are the course stats:
White 2.4 km 80 m climb 10 controls
Yellow 3.2 km 125 m climb 13 controls
Orange 4.6 km 230 m climb 14 controls
Brown 4.0 km 210 m climb 12 controls
Green 5.6 km 275 m climb 14 controls
Red 7.3 km 330 m climb 19 controls
Blue 8.9 km 435 m climb 22 controls
Bring warm clothes for after you've run -- it tends to be chilly out
there this time of year. You don't want to get cold when you help out
afterwards.....
See you out there. Be careful on the road up to the event site. It's narrow and twisty, and the locals drive WAY too fast.
Take I-580 east to the North Livermore Avenue exit in Livermore. Drive north until forced to turn left onto Manning Road. Take the next right onto Morgan Territory Road, and continue 5.6 miles to the top of the mountain. The road is very narrow with many sharp curves, so allow extra time and drive carefully. The parking will be the normal parking area on the right side of the road.