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Golden Gate Park

Date: (Sat.) Nov. 12, 2005
Location: San Francisco, CA
Event Director: - 415.681.7075
Course Setter: Deron van Hoff
Type: C; Urban Orienteering: White, Yellow, Orange, and Long Orange

Course Setter's Notes

By Deron van Hoff

The course setting turned out to be a joint effort among four key people. The starting point was provided by Claire Warner, formerly a SF resident and now back in the UK. She planned the courses on paper. Since I have been intimately involved in this event since 2002, it was nice to have a fresh set of eyes take a look at planning courses. I spent the better parts of five days in the park trying different routes, tweaking the control locations, and correcting the map. Ian Tidswell vetted the control locations, and electronically made most of the map corrections. Bob Cooley mapped the significant changes around the recently opened De Young Museum and the recently demolished Academy of Sciences.

Highlights

PLEASE BE SAFE crossing streets. The Yellow, Orange, and Long Orange courses all cross Highway 1 (Crossover Drive and Park-Presidio), the main thoroughfare through the park connecting 19th Avenue to Presidio Boulevard. A cross hatching has been added to Highway 1 to indicate that it is too dangerous to cross except at the pedestrian crossing points. Please don't cross at other points. The preferred crossing point is JFK Drive, which is an underpass (shown by a grey box). The other crossing points are at the far north boundary of the park at Fulton Street, the far south boundary of the park at Lincoln Way, and MLK Jr. Drive in the southern part of the map. For these three crossings you need to wait for the crossing sign (up to 90 seconds if you are unlucky).

PLEASE STAY OFF of the reforestation and erosion control areas, signified by vertical purple lines on the map. This is a requirement for us being able to use the park for events.

While generally quite good, please note that the map is still imperfect. In particular, vegetation boundaries, some minor trails, and a few man-made objects will not be completely accurate. Overall you should be fine unless you get hung up on one minor aspect.

Courses

The course statistics are as follows:

  Course          Length    Climb   Controls   Difficulty
  White           2.5 km     30 m       8      Easy navigation
  Yellow          3.3 km     60 m      12      Fairly easy
  Orange          5.4 km    180 m      10      Intermediate
  Long Orange    10.3 km    260 m      23      Intermediate

Compared to previous years, the Yellow course is the most different, in that it is a little bit trickier. I recommend that first-timers try the White course first. Second courses are of course encouraged if you want to experience more orienteering. The Long Orange is on the long side, and will give you the opportunity to see most of the park.

Another option would be to try both the Yellow and Orange courses. None of the control locations are shared on these two courses. The Yellow course would be a good option for an experience orienteer that wants to try a sprint course.

We hope you all have a good time!