Calero County Park
Date: (Sun.) Oct. 25, 2009
Location: San Jose, CA
Event Director: 
- 650.248.9595
Course Setters: Mark Rice, Trinka Gillis, Tapio Karras
Type: B; Calero is beautiful in the Fall--come out for a full set of courses
Course Setters' Notes
By Trinka Gillis and Mark Rice
Come and enjoy a fall run on a newly remapped part of the Calero map.
The usual admonitions apply. Proper footwear is recommended for steep terrain. There is poison oak, although most of it is dormant now. I recommend knowing the appearance of leafless poison oak. Efforts were made to have the courses avoid the PO, but were not completely successful.
In the control descriptions, the root-stock symbol (a circle around an ×) has been used for tree stumps.
Throughout the map, many of the fallen trees are mapped with green T's. The top of the T indicates the root end of the tree. Sometimes these trees radiate from a common location, which causes the green T's to come together to make some curious looking shapes.
Courses
Course Distance Climb Controls
White 3.5 km 110 m 12 Yellow 3.5 km 140 m 10 Orange 3.5 km 185 m 10 Brown 3.5 km 232 m 11 Green 4.9 km 330 m 13 Red 5.8 km 382 m 16 Blue 6.8 km 465 m 20
Trail-O: Two controls, one timed, and one self-timed.
The White course is entirely on trails. Beginners should use this as an opportunity to compare the map to their physical surroundings, paying attention to reentrants, vegetation changes, and elevation changes, the understanding of which will be needed when they progress to more difficult courses.
Controls on the Yellow course are not placed in plain sight. You will need to look behind or around you to see some of the controls. The second half of the course has two legs where your best route wouldn't use the trail at all.
Orange is physically and navigationally challenging. One-third of the total climb is in the first leg, and about half of the controls are shared with the advanced courses.
The advanced courses are on the long side with a bit of climb.
The map is very accurate in this freshly remapped territory. The vegetation boundaries are very good. On this part of the map, vegetation boundaries usually have dotted black lines along them. This indicates distinct vegetation boundaries.
Getting people to and from the fresh areas is the greatest challenge. As the crow flies, three ridge lines need to be crossed. So the routes to and from the fresh areas are not as the crow flies. The first three controls going in, and the last three to five controls going out, are on terrain with mapping of an earlier vintage. The courses are on the long side with a bit of climb.
You may see some orange streamers, which indicate the location of a planned fence.
Comments from Pre-runners
"I thought the course was quite inspired with almost every leg being a distinct navigational challenge. There was maximum use of the new terrain. So you both have my congratulations on a fine course design. Even then I think the course is on the long side for Green, and may even be called a short Red. There was quite a bit of unavoidable poison oak, mostly in the form of sticks."
"I really enjoyed the course, and thought a couple controls were tricky (or they took advantage of my weaknesses). I always appreciate a challenge, and I thought these two legs provided that. I would say the course is on the more physical end of the spectrum of Red courses."
"I pre-ran the Green course last Sunday. Great course, lots of route choice, lots of potential parallel errors, nice terrain, good map. Don’t miss it."
Trail-O Courses
Before or after running your course at Calero this Sunday, give Trail-O a try. It’s free and part of BAOC’s Trail-O Training Series.
This Trail-O demo will feature another aspect of the format—timed controls.
There will be two demo timed controls set up. The first will be manned and run like a real timed control at a competition. After sitting down, and ensuring that you see all of the control bags (5 in this case), you will be handed a map, pre-oriented, and you will have 60 seconds to determine which bag is on the feature circled on the map. Unlike regular Trail-O controls, "None of the Above" is not an option in this case.
The second control will be another timed control, but a do-it-yourself control, where you can just pick up the map, and make a quick decision on your own. If someone wants to step up to volunteer, we can make that one manned as well. So that you know how a timed control works, I suggest that you do the manned control first.
Both controls are located between the parking lot and the Start/Finish areas, so they can be done on your way to the Start or back from the Finish. You could even do them before you suit up for your course if you want—they are very close to the parking lot. Controls will be open no later than 10:00 and close around 2:00 or when interest wanes.
There will be one more Trail-O event in our Trail-O training series on November 7th at Pacheco State Park during the O In The Oaks A-meet.
And don’t forget to sign up for the Trail-O Championships in Vasquez Rocks on Dec 5th. There will be sprint and middle-distance A-meet courses there that weekend as well. More info is available here (http://www.vasquezo.org/).
See you there,
Steve Beuerman
(Trail-O Course Setter)