Point Pinole Regional Shoreline
Date: (Sun.) Apr. 17, 2016
Location: Richmond, CA
Event Director: 
- 925.862.2978
Course Setter: Steve Gregg
Type: C; Beginner and intermediate courses at a popular "fast" venue
Course Setter's Notes
By Steve Gregg
There will be five courses offered at Point Pinole this year: White, Yellow, Short Orange, Medium Orange, and Long Orange. The maps for all the courses will be printed at 1:7500 scale, with a 2.5-meter contour interval.
Here are the course details:
Course Length Climb Controls
White 2.8 km 60 m 13
Yellow 3.1 km 75 m 14
Short Orange 3.3 km 85 m 15
Medium Orange 5.0 km 120 m 19
Long Orange 6.5 km 145 m 24
There will be one common water control, which all the courses will visit. This control is situated less than halfway through the Medium Orange and Long Orange courses. If competitors on those courses desire additional water later on, there is a water fountain on the course, on a perfectly reasonable route between two controls. This water fountain will both be marked on the map and indicated on the clue sheets.
As of last weekend, there is still a fair amount of standing water in the park, so you will almost certainly finish your course with wet feet. There is also an impressive unmapped lake near the water control, which all Orange course competitors will get a good look at (but should not need to cross!). The trails are for the most part firm and runnable, although you will need to splash through the occasional water puddle.
The goats are currently in the open field south of the parking area, which hopefully means they will still be in that area, or will be gone for good, by the day of the event. However, in the three weeks or so since the goats were last in the competition area, the grass has grown up a lot, and will make for slower running speed than if the grass had been more recently grazed. There will probably be significant elephant tracks formed by the end of the day. Run early if you don't want to use them—run late if you do!
There is a significant amount of poison oak in some of the forested regions of the park. I've routed all the courses away from the worst areas, but there is no way to avoid the stuff completely. You'll be able to easily avoid the largest clusters, but you might not even notice the individual shin- to knee-high shoots until you have already run through them. So, if you are very sensitive to poison oak, be sure to take the usual precautions.
The parking kiosk was manned last weekend, so be prepared to pay a parking fee.
The long-range weather forecast currently indicates that the weather will be beautiful on the day of the event, so come out and enjoy what should be a wonderful day of orienteering.