Bedwell Bayfront Park
Date: (Sun.) Jul. 17, 2016
Location: Menlo Park, CA
Event Director: 
- 408.313.3753
Course Setters: Nick Corsano, Ann Marie Cody
Type: C; White and Yellow beginner courses, and two independent Sprint courses
Course Setters' Notes
By Nick Corsano and Ann Marie Cody
The Bay Area Orienteering Club welcomes you to Menlo Park's cozy little Bedwell Bayfront Park. Here are the course statistics:
Course Length Climb Controls Technical Difficulty
White 2.2 km 20 m 14 Easy
Yellow 3.1 km 70 m 17 Somewhat harder
Orange 6.0 km 140 m 24 Moderate
Sprint 1 2.4 km 90 m 19 Moderate +
Sprint 2 2.8 km 80 m 17 Moderate +
Important! Everybody must check in at the assembly area and download their E-stick, whether they finish their course or not. That's how we know you haven't fallen into the Bay. Everybody must be back by 2:00 PM.
The White course is perfect for families and first-timers of all ages, and follows trails around the park. The Yellow course is for advanced beginners, and is mostly on trails, but offers the choice of cross-country routes. It may be a bit more challenging than our usual Yellow course in terms of paying close attention to the map, but newcomers with some topographical map experience should give it a try.
Sprint orienteering is designed to test speed, technical route choices and quick decision-making on short courses. The park's small size, open terrain and numerous trails make anything more than "moderate" difficulty impossible to achieve, so we have done what BAOC course setters have done here for many years—the two sprints use maps that have all roads, trails, fences, and various other man-made objects deleted. Sprint 1, designed by Ann Marie, comes closer to the sprint ideal, with very short legs and quick changes of direction. Sprint 2, designed by Nick, has a larger footprint, and a few legs more in the classic O' style.
Finally, to go along with the four short courses, the Orange course was designed to appeal to orienteers eager for a longer run. It is just a mash-up of controls from the other courses. It uses the standard map (with trails).
All the courses use the same Start, about 0.5 km from the assembly area. All the courses share a common first control, 75 meters across an open field. There are two Finish locations, both near the assembly area. The second Finish, used only by Sprint 2, is on top of the hill that rises above the restroom. The hilltop is off limits until you have finished your course(s), but after that, we invite you to walk up the hill. Here you can cheer on the finishers in Sprint 2, and also watch your fellow orienteers as some legs on each of the courses are visible from there. All courses except Sprint 1 will visit a shared water control.
Because of the visibility from the hilltop Finish, experienced orienteers running both sprints should do Sprint 1 first, then Sprint 2.
A word about vegetation. Grass, reeds, and various other flora thrive here in the winter months. During the summer, the city mows much of it to ground level for fire suppression. That mowing is currently in progress, and much of the park has been done. As of our last visit, however, fairly large areas were still overgrown. Some of those, with especially dense and especially high (> 1.5 m) growth, have been added to the map using vertical green hatching.
We always put a paragraph about hazards in these notes. We'll begin with a basic non-hazard: It's impossible to get lost at Bayfront! The park is less than 1 sq km in size, and virtually surrounded by water. If you have a parent, child, spouse, or friend who hasn't been able to overcome the fear of getting lost, this is the time for them to try orienteering. We have already mentioned vegetation, but the good news is that there is no poison oak. There is some prickly brush. Leg coverings are advised on all the courses except White. The ground, even when it appears quite flat, has numerous holes hidden under the grass. Exercise caution! There is little shade, so wear a hat and use sunscreen. Finally, a family of skunks has been spotted in the park!
As far as the mapping of the park, think miniature. Features such as boulders, knolls and rootstocks (the symbol sometimes also represents fallen trees) are frequently smaller than what would be mapped in a more wilderness venue. The "cairn" symbol is used to denote the park's sequence of rock sculptures. There are two non-standard symbols used for pseudo-knolls. The small brown triangle represents a small bump topped with a metal lid or plate, and usually with a post and red streamer next to it. The small gray triangle represents a mound of gravel. The gray ones appear on the "no trails" map; the brown ones are omitted. Neither these pseudo-knolls nor the rock sculptures are used as control locations.
The park is likely to be fairly busy. Please be considerate of other park users, who are likely to include hikers, joggers, bicyclists, dog walkers, and flyers of kites, model airplanes, and even drones.