Sunol Regional Wilderness
Date: (Sun.) Apr. 3, 2011
Location: Sunol, CA
Event Director: 
- 408.773.8881
Course Setters: Luc Poppe, Mark Blair
Type: B; Standard seven-course event for beginners through advanced
Course Setters' Notes
By and
Orienteers are a hardy lot — not the type to let a few itchy leaves prevent them from reveling in the springtime glory of the East Bay hills. It's time once again for the annual BAOC frolic at Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness, a favorite venue we've been using for almost as long the club itself has been around. The grass will be soft and green, the ground will be soft but hopefully not too muddy, and we can guarantee that the wildflowers will be out in droves. By the time of this event, we expect that the recent rains will have miraculously cleared, and that the newborn sun will cause your heart to sing out, like Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music, at the prospect of romping with wild abandon across the slopes and along the trails of this wilderness wonder.
The Terrain
Sunol Regional Wilderness consists of about half open grassland and half light or moderately-dense forest of oak, laurel, and madrone. All the orienteering courses this year will mainly traverse the open grassland areas on the east side of the map. The extended rainfall has nurtured a rich carpet of soft green grass and other short ground cover. It has also left the ground fairly soft in most places. These conditions should make for some fast running and pleasant hiking.
The Courses
At Sunol, in observance of traditions dating back many centuries, we always set the "standard 7" courses. Here are the statistics for this year's courses:
Course Length Climb Controls Technical Difficulty Physical Difficulty
White 2.2 km 60 m 10 Beginner Easy Yellow 2.0 km 112 m 13 Advanced Beginner Moderately easy Orange 4.7 km 240 m 14 Intermediate Good workout Brown 4.2 km 170 m 12 Advanced Fairly tough Green 5.1 km 290 m 14 Advanced Very tough Red 6.4 km 340 m 14 Advanced Greuling Blue 7.0 km 380 m 18 Advanced Possibility of collapse
The White and Yellow courses will not use a remote start. The start for these courses will be manned and will be next to the registration area.
Both of these courses are suitable for families. Beginners wheeling small children in strollers should be advised that this is possible on the White course, but not on the Yellow course.
The Orange course and all four advanced courses (Brown, Green, Red, Blue) will use a remote self-start located a leisurely 15-minute hike eastward of the registration area. A moderate climb of 60 m to get there allows for a welcome warm-up. As usual, the path toward the remote start will be well marked with streamers. It crosses the bridge near the registration area and follows, in the beginning, the trail parallel to the creek.
This year's Orange course will be considerably longer than usual, but will not be very steep. This is partially in deference to the Long Orange course that we sometimes set in this park, but which will not be offered this year. Ascent along the Orange course will be in the first half and will be, for the most part, steady and gradual. Adventure racers are encouraged to try this course.
The four advanced courses — Brown, Green, Red, and Blue — will take full advantage of one of Sunol's most prominent, but also most dreaded features — yes, those nasty brown contour lines. We tried hard to keep the climb to a reasonable level, and leave some room for technical orienteering. But rest assured, you will elevate yourself to some very nice vistas that are not to be ignored. So look up from your map once in a while for a glance at Calaveras Reservoir and beyond. The bulk of the climb on all the advanced courses will occur somewhat in the first half of the courses, allowing for a smoother ride to the finish. Advanced runners, please pay particular attention to the Hazards section below.
Important Notice For Brown, Green, and Blue!!!
Toward the end of these three courses, you will approach an Out-Of-Bounds area, clearly marked on the map. At the northern tip of this area, there will be a mandatory fence crossing very close to a control that you must reach using this crossing. The fence crossing is clearly marked on your map.
You must obey the Out-Of-Bounds area
Punishment will be severe for yourself, as you will be promptly disqualified by our on-site inspector. Entering this forbidden zone will also generate serious repercussions for BAOC, as we would risk losing our privilege to use this park in the future. We were very sternly instructed by the EBRPD to communicate this restriction to our event participants.
These same runners will encounter a second mapped fence crossing toward the very end of their course. This fence crossing is highly recommmended, but it is not mandatory. Multiple streamers will be clearly hung on the fence where indicated on the map
Please Help Us Maintain Our Good Standing with the Park District!!!
The Map
The BAOC map of Sunol Regional Wilderness is one of the club's older maps, originally drafted in 1991 by George Kirkov. As with any older orienteering map, this map is "showing its age" as the terrain it represents slowly changes in many small ways that cannot be corrected by club map personnel at the rate those changes occur. You may find that part of a trail is now overgrown, nearly invisible, or takes a slightly different turn than the map shows. Sizable portions of fence may be severely deteriorated or even entirely missing. A live tree shown on the map may now be a dead tree. Areas of vegetation may be somewhat smaller or larger than shown. With that said, we can also say that the map is fairly accurate in all its parts. We have tried to correct all significant inaccuracies that might be encountered while running one of the courses.
The important thing to remember about the BAOC map of Sunol is the contour interval. On this map, adjacent contour lines differ by 7.5 meters in elevation, not the 5-meter contour difference that is almost always used on BAOC maps. A hillside may be a lot steeper than you might expect. Try to visualize three contour lines for every two that you see on the map!
On the Sunol map, a green × symbol represents a "lone tree" or "distinguished tree". This is a living tree with no other trees nearby, or a tree that stands out in some very noticeable way from any other trees around it. A green o symbol represents any other kind of small, living vegetation feature, like a bush, a small copse, or a small thicket. A brown × symbol can represent either a standing dead tree, a dead tree with pieces left standing, or a completely fallen dead tree whose rootstock (the root system at the bottom of the trunk) may or may not visible.
The Hazards
Well, all this rain we've been having has brought some good news and some bad news. The good news is that everything is still fresh and green, and the wildflowers in some areas are nothing short of spectacular. The bad news is that part of this green bounty consists of little leaves in groups of three that are shiny and itchy. This is poison oak, the Sunol spring salad. We make no attempt to candy-coat it: The poison oak at Sunol is particularly lush this year and will be at the height of its potency in late April. However ... all the courses have been designed to avoid it to the maximum extent possible. We strongly recommend that all event participants wear long pants. Wear a short-sleeved shirt only if you're very familiar with the appearance of poison oak.
All the advanced courses will traverse some areas with dense, very visible poison oak in the beginning of the course, but it can easily be avoided using available logical route choices that do not require any bushwhacking. In general, at least at Sunol this year, do not attempt to fight your way through any light or dark green areas on the map, as this means poison oak territory!! I would also like to mention that poison oak will be present even in some "white" areas on the map.
At this time of the year, especially after the heavy rains of late, Alameda Creek is considered "not crossable" at any point and should be considered "out-of-bounds" by everyone.
As mentioned above, the terrain of Sunol is fairly steep, even by BAOC standards. On all the advanced courses and the Orange course, you'll encounter steep hillsides. Sturdy shoes are a must, and cleats are strongly recommended, on these courses.
Most of the open grassland in Sunol Regional Wilderness is used for grazing. You may see quite a few cows in these areas. Some cows can become a bit perturbed if approached too closely. Avoid passing between a cow and her calf! If you encounter the cow wearing ear tag number 19, beware. She has been known to sneak up behind people and then begin a charge. She was doing the same thing last year, and this year she has apparently still failed to correct her attitude. This beast was last sighted in the vicinity of control #10 on the Orange course.
Deer and small flocks of wild turkeys are also quite common at Sunol. These animals are not a hazard and are generally quite a magnificent sight when encountered. The occasional bobcat (like a large, buff-colored house cat) is spotted at Sunol, but these critters generally tend to avoid human beings. No mountain lions have been reported in the area recently, and to our knowledge there have been no Sasquatch sightings whatsoever.
The Joys
The joys of Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness will swallow you up when you come join us for a fine spring run or hike. See you there.