Update as of March 25th
Meet Director's Notes
(Re)announcing the third Orienteering Meet on BAOC's new map of Golden Gate Park. The field-checking is now nearly complete, thanks to the efforts of Bob Cooley and Fabian Meier on the western end of the park. The classification of the vegetation should be much more consistent now.
Sunday's Courses
COURSE DIFFICULTY LENGTH CONTROLS White First-time 3 km 9 Yellow Beginner 5.25 km 13 Short Orange Experienced 4.75 km 10 Medium Orange Experienced 6.6 km 11 Long Orange Experienced 9.25 km 17
Sunday's Special Instructions
Controls Sunday will not be the standard flag-and-punch, because of the heavy public use of the area. Instead, each control point will ask you to identify some feature visible from the control, or else find a pie plate control with a word on it (all multiple choice). If you miss a control, there will be a 10 minute penalty assessed, rather than disqualification. Since it is impossible to tell a faked answer from a careless one, please be careful in answering the questions.
Sunday's Hazards
Highway 1: Courses which enter the western part of the park are routed both ways through the underpass on JFK Drive. You will be disqualified if you survive an attempt to cross this freeway elsewhere, so why bother?
Bikers and Skaters: Please be careful of, and considerate of, the large number of these, especially on JFK Drive, which is closed off for their use.
Cars: Not all roads are closed on Sunday. Some of the advanced courses cross smaller roads with vehicle traffic; please be careful as you cross.
Veggies: There are likely to be small shoots of Poison Oak coming up. The biggest risk is when you take your socks off and wipe your brow with them. There are patches of thickery and stickery; most of these should be suitably indicated on your map.
Sunday's Thanks
Assuming they all show up and do their assigned tasks, thanks to Gary Kraght for clinics; to Tom Jahn, Rosemary Johnson, Neal Barlow, Sam Freund, Megan Fowler, Rachel Freund and Dwight Freund for starts & finishes; to Ev'n'Jean and their crew for registration; to Bob Cooley and Fabian Meier for mapping and printing; and to all the rest of you who will have volunteered to supply help where it seems needed.
Sunday's Directions
Drive to the star on this Yahoo Map and look 100m Southeast.
Registration is at the Bandshell on the music Concourse between the two museums on 9th St. Since the Main Drive through the park is closed on Sunday, the best way to get there is to go to the south side of the park and enter on 9th street. If you are coming from the south on Highway 1, you can turn right just after you enter the park and proceed to the museaum area from the west. Coming from the Eastbay, I usually take Fell St. and curve along to the south side of the park. Parking should be plentiful in the area before 11:00.
Original Announcement
You are cordially invited to the third meet on the new (and perhaps now complete) OCAD map of this lovely urban park. No doubt Spring will be in the air and we will have another beautiful sunny day for a Romp in the Park.
I will be setting White and Yellow courses for what is hoped will be a large crowd of first-timers. I will also set two more-advanced courses to give club members something nice to do that sunny weekend besides helping out at the meet (hint-hint).
It is not really possible to set a course of technical difficulty greater than Orange in such a highly developed locale, but I will try to make them as difficult as possible, and further compensate by making them a bit longer. The shorter one will be approximately 6.75 km and the longer one, approx. 9 km. Both of these courses will venture into the west end terrain that Bob Cooley has been mapping since the last meet. This will probably provide somewhat better (and certainly less crowded) terrain for the more experienced orienteer.
Almost all of the controls on the easy courses will consist of placques and other fixed features of the park, in order to minimize the problems we had the first year with disappearing controls. To do the same with the advanced courses would make it even harder to create a suitable course, so these controls will mostly be paper-plate controls.
I am still making enquiries about holding another Trail-O for wheelchair orienteers in the Strybing Arboretum. If I get permission, I will set up substantially the same course as last year, since there were so few entries (and no wheelchair users!). Stay tuned for further announcements.
Participants are warned that there is indeed poison oak at the park. I have not seen any of the monster shrubberies of it that are prevalent elsewhere; at this relatively early time of year, it should consist primarily of low shoots, so just wear socks and don't suck on them afterwards. There are also berry thickets, most of which will be indicated on the map as rough going.
Directions: Registration will be at the bandshell at the western end of the Museum concourse (same as last year). Plenty of parking should be available in the vicinity of the museums and Strybing arboretum before 11 o'clock; it gets a bit harder after that. Keep in mind that Maclaren Drive, the main road through the park, is closed to vehicles on Sunday. Enter the park from the south on 9th st. This is probably good advice even if you are arriving from the north via Highway 1.