Joseph D. Grant County Park
Date: (Sun.) May. 8, 2011
Location: San Jose, CA
Event Director: 
- 408.878.5073
Course Setter: Damian Swift
Type: B; Standard courses for beginners through advanced, plus a Long Orange course for adventure racers and runners
Course Setters' Notes
By Damian Swift, Werner Haag, and Peter Graube
Park and Terrain
The courses will be around the Stockman's staging post of Joe Grant Park. This area comprises a main valley of undulating slopes with some rounded hills, a mixture of woodland and open grassland. The ground has been drying out since the heavy rains: larger streams are still flowing, and some depressions are filled with water and/or ducks. Grasses and stickery plants are quite tall in open areas, but are starting to turn brown and crunchy.
The poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) is particularly resplendent this spring. It prefers north-facing slopes with some shade, and does not occur in wide, open grassland. We strongly recommend that you be able to identify it (remember: "leaves of three: set a control on me"), and watch out for it, anywhere off-trail. The BAOC dress code for off-trail running is basically the same as for dinner at Mario's: no shorts or open-toed shoes; no shirt = no service, and short-sleeved shirts are at your own risk. Bring a change of clothing, and supplies of a treatment such as Tecnu are advised. We may have free samples of Zanfil; if so, we plan to hand out one tube per group starting, while stocks last as they say.
Until a couple of weeks ago, damper areas of the park were party time for that delightful and affectionate little arachnid Ixodes pacificus, the tick. Numbers have dropped considerably with the recent, drier weather, but it is still worth checking skin and clothing in hopes of finding these creatures. Disease transmission is reported to occur mostly when these hematophages are nearly done feeding, which may take several hours. Pulling them off can leave behind body parts and cause a sore. Apparently, an effective way to de-tick yourself is to hold an ice cube against your skin, and gradually move it toward the tick: another reason, as if it were needed, to remember the beer cooler.
The fauna of Joe Grant is reputed to include wild pigs, which may in principle be aggressive if approached. We didn't see any during our field work, though there were occasional crashing sounds from the bushes. The pigs are likely to be further away during the orienteering hours, but if you do encounter one, remember that you are higher up the food chain.
On a more serious note, many wild flowers are in bloom. It seems that little can be done about this, so just be prepared to hold your breath all day.
Joe Grant is a multi-use park, including campsites, picnic areas, general hiking, biking, and equestrian. Please be considerate of other park users, and avoid startling horses: while on trails, consider slowing down to allow riders to pass safely.
Courses
In accordance with current thinking (i.e., that 7 courses are for weeny setters and barely enough to keep warm) we have set 8 courses:
Course Length Climb Controls Technical Difficulty/Physical Difficulty
White 2.3 km 50 m 8 Beginner (on trails)/Easy
Yellow 3.7 km 100 m 9 Advanced Beginner (on or close to trails)/
Moderately easy
Orange 4.0 km 250 m 11 Intermediate (mostly off-trail)/Moderate
Long Orange 6.7 km 500 m 18 Intermediate (mostly off-trail)/Strenuous,
intended for adventure runners
Brown 3.5 km 150 m 10 Advanced
Green 4.7 km 250 m 13 Advanced
Red 7.1 km 400 m 16 Advanced
Blue 10.2 km 500 m 21 Advanced
The Start and Finish are close to the registration area, because we hate rushing to remote starts.
It's a good idea for newcomers to orienteering to start with an easy course. If you run White or Yellow and find it too easy, you can go out again on Yellow or Orange, respectively, with no controls in common.
There is no poison oak on the White course: sorry to disappoint everyone. White can and should be run without crossing any roads (other than to reach the start), but it partly follows a trail along the side of a campsite road, which, though not busy, may have some traffic. Please brief younger runners accordingly about road safety.
There should be no poison oak on the Yellow course if you follow a sensible route: on trails until you are near the control. Confident Yellow runners are encouraged to take short cuts off-trail, but watch out if you run off-trail in woodland: there is poison oak in the vicinity of the course.
On the Orange courses, it's easy to find oak-free detours, but you will definitely have the opportunity to examine this fascinating plant if you desire.
The advanced courses all involve some degree of acquaintance with "the oak". We didn't set controls right amongst any plants — not deliberately at least — but, on the assumption that most entrants didn't want courses that run round and round the parking lot, there wasn't much alternative to a certain oakiness in the routes. Physical intimacy is entirely optional though.
Water
The current forecast for Sunday is to be cooler than this week. There are two normal water points with bottles, cups, and trash bag: near the end of the paved campsite road (W1), and in the wild hinterlands frequented only by hermits, vultures, and advanced runners (W2). These are marked with the traditional "psychedelic cocktail" cup symbol. There are also faucets in some of the picnic areas, in particular near the pond ~500 m SSW of the start, which is also marked with the sign of the cup (W3). W1 and W3 are centrally located to service all courses as runners feel the need.
Map
The Joe Grant map dates originally from 1984, but has been substantially updated over the years. Areas of thicket (of varying itchiness) are generally expanding, and some trails are becoming overgrown or indistinct in some seasons. We have captured these on the map where they were obvious or important in locating a control, but we didn't attempt a thorough re-survey of the area. Minor map errors, such as the exact extent and type of vegetation, and the precise route and quality of smaller trails, are quite likely, so please refrain from any hissy fits if you choose to pin all your navigating hopes on the more ephemeral features. Other map changes include new and migrating trails, and also some "new rocks" that were on vacation during the previous revision.
On the Joe Grant map, a green O symbol represents a "distinctive tree": a living tree, either with no other trees nearby or one that stands out in some very noticeable way from its neighbors. A brown × symbol represents a distinctive, dead tree, and may be standing, fallen, or any partial state in between. A blue × represents a water feature such as a faucet near a camp or picnic site.
Green hatching has been used to represent some areas of poison oak that are basically runnable if you're immune or good at jumping. We extended the marked areas where they obviously needed it, but don't be surprised when you find more with no green hatching in sight.