Annadel, Santa Rosa

April 25, 1999

Update on April 17

Sunday, April 25th

Annadel State Park, Santa Rosa

Annadel is particularly nice right now. The grasses are green, the soil has dried out so there is good traction and only a few puddles on some of the trails, and the wildflowers are beginning to bloom. If the weather holds up, it should be a great day to be orienteering.

There is only a minimal amount of poison oak, and most of that is very low, ground cover like. It is easily avoidable.

As always with Annadel, access and parking are the major problems. Please try to (1) carpool if at all possible, (2) park in the Spring Lake lot or the small dirt area on the left hand side of the road just before you pay your $2 to the iron ranger and ride your bike or hitch a ride to the assembly area, or (3) park behind a friend in the lot at the end of Channel Drive. (The spaces on the eastern side of the lot are very long in order to accommodate horse trailers, so two cars can easily park behind each other.) The lot is quite small, and the rangers do not want us to monopolize it so other park visitors cannot find any space. Our future use of the park depends on maintaining access for other visitors. Do not park on the side of Channel Drive, or the rangers will ticket you. I have not set up a formal shuttle for this event, but if the lot becomes full, I will find a volunteer to drive my van back and forth between the Spring Lake parking lot and the assembly area to shuttle people from their cars to the assembly area.

The scale is 1:10000 for the orange, brown, green, red and blue courses. The scale for the white and yellow courses will be 1:7500. There are 5 meter contour intervals. Control description sheets will be taped to the back of the maps. The maps will be pre-marked, and in plastic map cases. The control markers for the advanced courses will be on stands, and they will be situated about 1 to 2 feet above the ground. However, the markers will not be hidden, and if you are at the right location, you should have no problem finding the marker. Flags for the white, yellow, and orange courses may be hung from trees.

There is a remote start for all courses. Please follow the signs and streamers to the start. The hike to the start is about 600 meters distance, 125 meters climb and will take 10-15 minutes. The hardest part physically for the white, yellow, orange, and brown courses will be the hike to the start. I did not want such a strenuous remote start for the beginning courses, but because a large portion of the park is closed due to rebuilding of the trails, this was not possible.

There will be a remote start triangle 50 meters away from the start call up line. You will receive your map at the call up line, and then when told to go, follow the mandatory, streamered route up the trail to the remote start triangle. This will be indicated by a marker without a control number or punch, and also by an orange triangle on the ground made from surveyor's tape. It is at this point that navigation begins. You must go to the start triangle or you may be disqualified. Do not look for a punch to punch at the start triangle. There will be none. You do not have to punch. (I know I will still receive complaints that people could not find the punch at the start triangle, so that is why I am trying to emphasize this point.) The start triangle is out of view of the start call up line, so people waitingto start probably will not see what direction previous runners went. Your  time will begin at the start call up line, and the time it takes you to get to the remote start triangle will be included in your time.  

The white course is very easy navigationally, following the dictum that you cannot make the white course too easy. Approximately half of the yellow course will be off trail, but will have linear features to follow to the controls. I tried to make the advanced courses as difficult navigationally as possible that the terrain allows.

I want to thank Bob Cooley, my co-course setter, for all of the work he has done. Although I designed the courses, I was not able to physically visit the more distant control sites. Bob vetted all of the control sites, made map corrections in the regions of many of the control circles, will hang all of the controls, tote all of the water to the water stops, and print up all of the maps.

I also want to thank Fredrik Sundstrom and other members of the Leksands Orienteering Club from Sweden who vetted most of the advanced controls and pre-ran the blue course.

Other volunteers: Tom and Sandy Guldman and George and Pat Aster for registration; Gary Kraght for beginner's clinics; David Meredith, Judy Koehler and Linda Curry for starts, and Jill Custer for finish and general moral support; Mark Blair, Kelly Wells, and Bob Cooley for control pickup. I still could use some more help with later starts, finishes, results, and possible shuttle driver. If you can help out, please contact me at evancusterhome.com.

Directions:

Take U.S. 101 north to Santa Rosa, exiting onto Highway 12 East. Follow Highway 12 to the end of the freeway and make a left onto Farmers Lane, following Highway 12 towards Sonoma. Continue on Farmers Lane for about a 3/4 of a mile. Turn right on Montgomery. Go for about 2.5 miles (past the signal at Mission Blvd.) and turn right on Channel Drive. Proceed on Channel Drive to the ranger station, where each car must deposit a $2 fee in the self-serve entrance envelope. Continue to the end of Channel Drive to the parking lot. Parking is very limited in the parking lot. Please car pool if at all possible. Also, there is a small dirt parking area about a quarter of a mile after turning onto Channel Drive before you get to the ranger station. The area is on the left hand side of the road as you enter the park. You may park free here, and then either bike, walk, or hitch a ride with some other orienteers for the 1.75 mile distance to the assembly area. If the lot at the end of Channel Drive fills up, it will be necessary to go back out Channel Drive, and make the first left onto Violetti and park at the Spring Lake parking lot and get a ride to the assembly area.

Origninal Announcement

Plan now on coming to Annadel State Park and enjoy some of the Bay Area's nicest and most challenging orienteering terrain. Annadel is predominantly forested, has extensive rock formations, and also multiple pits and excavations caused by previous mining activities. In addition, the map was extensively revised two years ago, and is quite accurate. Also, the park is at its nicest in the spring. As a consequence, I hope to set some challenging and interesting courses to make your day of orienteering enjoyable. The maps will be pre-marked. The event should be worth the long drive for those of you who live in the South Bay.  

There is an extensive trail reconstruction program taking place at Annadel, and as a consequence, most of the trails in the north central and northwest area of the park are closed. There will be a remote start for all courses that is 600 meters distance and 125 meters climb from the registration area. Please allow 10-15 minutes for the walk to the start. Bob Cooley has mapped the hillside to the east and south of the parking lot extending to the Oakmont property. This new area will probably be used for a portion of the yellow course. The assembly area, registration, and finish will be near the small parking lot at the end of Channel Drive. Unfortunately, there will not be a Start-O at this event, because there is no suitable area that is mapped at the Channel Drive parking lot.

Since we have started using pre-marked maps, the start of navigation usually is in sight of other people waiting to start, and this may potentially give an unfair advantage to later starters who see what direction a competitor headed to the first control. This was not a problem with using blank maps and copying the courses from master maps, since the master maps were placed out of sight of the start line. In order to eliminate this potential problem, the start will be somewhat different from our usual local BAOC events, but has been used extensively in Europe. At the start call up line, you will obtain a start time from the starter. When the starter tells you to go, you will turn over your map, and follow a streamered mandatory route to the remote start triangle 50 meters away onthe path. There will be a control marker without a punch indicating the  site of the start triangle on your map. It is from this point that navigation will begin. Do not punch your card at the marker at the start triangle. (Actually you won't be able to even if you wanted, because there will not be any punch.) The marker is there only to indicate the location of the start triangle on the map. The start triangle will be out of sight of the start call up line, and thus later starters will not gain an advantage by noting which direction earlier runners go.

Most if not all courses will have separate first controls. Some of these first controls may be quite close to other controls (50 meters), so be sure and check the control codes carefully before punching. However, the features on which these controls are located are different from each other, so there should not be any difficulty determining whether you are at the correct control or not.

The area was used extensively for mining around the turn of the century, and consequently, there are many pits, small knolls from the excavated dirt, excavations, cuts into the hillside which have been marked as small reentrants, rockfaces, etc. Because some of the terrain is very complex, the mapper at times has chosen to show only the dominant feature, e.g., the pit, and may not map the associated dot knoll, in order to maintain the legibility of the map.

There are also some special vegetation symbols. A green X on the map indicates a lone or distinct tree, for example a large conifer in a predominantly oak forest. A green X with a short black line indicates an upright stump of a fallen tree, with the trunk of the tree lying on the ground. On the control description sheet, this is indicated by a lone tree with the ruined symbol. A brown X with a black line indicates a fallen tree with the roots uprooted, and is indicated by the rootstock symbol on the clue sheet. A green circle may indicate a small group of trees. Sometimes, these are a small redwood circle of trees.

The preliminary course statistics are as follows:

These are subject to change prior to the event.

Notes for first time participants.

1. Read the signs and other paperwork lying around.

2. Ask the friendly people near the sign that says "Registration" how to sign up for the event, and discuss what course you want to do. We recommend that if you have never orienteered before, have small children, are a youth group, or don't want to get off the trails, that you do the white course. If you have extensive experience reading topographical maps, such as backpacking, and feel comfortable getting off the trail, you can probably try yellow.

3. Make sure that you get a punch card ("control card") , and a control description sheet (clue sheet).

4. If you're on White, make sure you also get a map of your course.

5. Ask registration when somebody is presenting "beginner's clinics", a short training session about what to do on your first orienteering course. They are usually held between 9:30 and 10:30.

6. Follow the signs and streamers to the remote start area and ask the start official for a start time.

7. When your time is called, pick up your map (if you haven't already done so), follow the streamered route to the "start triangle" (the point that navigation begins and that is marked as a triangle on your map), and go find those controls!

Directions:

Take U.S. 101 north to Santa Rosa, exiting onto Highway 12 East. Follow Highway 12 as it makes a left onto Farmers Lane. Continue on Farmers Lane for several miles. Turn right on Montgomery which continues as Channel Drive. Proceed on Channel Drive to the ranger station, where each car must deposit a $2 fee in the self-serve entrance envelope. Continue to the end of Channel Drive to the parking lot. Parking is very limited in the parking lot. Please car pool if at all possible. Also, there is a small dirt parking area about a quarter of a mile after turning onto Channel Drive before you get to the ranger station. The area is on the left hand side of the road as you enter the park. You may park free here, and then either bike, walk, or hitch a ride with some other orienteers for the 1.75 mile distance to the assembly area. If the lot is full, do not park on Channel Drive, or the rangers will give you a citation. Also, we do not want to cause problems with future usage of the park for orienteering. If you need more information or want to volunteer to help at the event,please contact me at 925-254-5628 or evancusterhome.com.

--Evan Custer

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