Briones Regional Park
Date: (Sun.) Sep. 30, 2007
Location: Lafayette, CA
Event Director: 
- 925.934.6567
Course Setter: Gavin Wyatt-Mair
Type: B; Regular 7-course BAOC event in conjunction with the Scout-O Championships
Event Director's Notes
By
Here are the statistics for the courses:
Navigational Physical Course Distance Climb difficulty difficulty White 3.6 km 165 m Easy Easy Yellow 4.0 185 Easy Easy Orange 5.0 285 Moderate Moderate Brown 4.7 190 Hard Moderate Green 5.4 225 Hard Hardish Red 6.7 265 Hard Hard Blue 8.2 340 Hard Hard
Please carpool if possible! We are sharing the park with others and parking is going to be tight!
This is going to be another big meet. There will be over 500 scouts and scouters at the meet, plus us, so it is a great opportunity for us to promote our sport. Please do come—the BAOC courses criss-cross the scout courses. You will be seen in action!
This is a good tune-up opportunity for the Western States Championships A-meet at Boggs Mountain October 13 and 14. The courses are "relatively flat" (i.e., around 4% climb), which is remarkable for Briones! The star thistle is waaay down—you can pretty much ignore it. Even the grass stickers are minimal, and the grass is short. There is very little poison oak on the courses, and it's all easily avoidable. The courses are very run-able, and the terrain is easy to run through. There are some tough route choices to keep you sharp, interspersed with fine navigation to slow you down, and coarse navigation to speed you up. There is a fairly wide variety of terrain—including forest, open meadows, steep as well as flat. Footing is good—soft in the open, a bit slippery in the forest because of leaves. There is E-punching everywhere on all courses.
Wildlife spotted recently include deer, eagles, coyote, skunks, buzzards, orienteers, and frogs. The weather forecast calls for nice temperatures (~80 F), sunny and clear.
The Scout-O overlaps the White, Yellow, and Orange courses. Please be tolerant. Also, remember that horses have the right of way, and try not to scare them. Be polite to other park users please (this is a requirement for future permits).
Registration for the regular BAOC event will be open from about 9:00. Earliest start is at 10:00, latest start at 12:30. The Start is about 1.7 km from the parking lot, North on the trail, at WeeTaChi campsite—it takes 25 minutes to walk there. Bring water.
Driving Directions
Please carpool if possible, since there will probably be many scouts attending.
Registration will be at the West entrance to the park, off of Bear Creek Road.
To get there, take route 24 West from 680 or East from 80. Exit at Orinda heading North on Camino Pablo. After about 2 miles, turn right onto Bear Creek Road. After about 3.5 miles, the park entrance will be on your right (don’t be fooled by the parking area on the left—that’s not it), and is well sign-posted.
The park charges $5.00 for parking.