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Bon Tempe Reservoir

Greg Ehrensing Memorial Volunteer Event

Date: Nov. 23 - 24, 2019
Location: Fairfax, CA
Event Director: - 415.456.8118
Course Setter: Johanna Merriss
Type: C; Greg Ehrensing Memorial Volunteer Event; LIMITED ATTENDANCE; RESERVATIONS REQUIRED


Course Setter's Notes

By Johanna Merriss

Bon Tempe is a beautiful and solitary park on the lower slopes of Mt. Tamalpais. The park offers a sampling of the best terrain in Northern California, traversing oak woodland and redwood forest. The topography is typically hilly, but can also be gentle.

The weather is expected to be dry, dry, dry, but with cool temps.

By Water District rules, there won't be any signage. When you get to the parking lot at the end of the paved road (Sky Oaks Road), we will be set up in the rustic rock shelter in the redwood grove picnic area immediately south of the lot.

Courses

    Course   Distance   Climb  Controls  Water Stops
    Brown     3.3 km    149 m     11          1  
    Green     4.7 km    220 m     14          1
    Red       6.1 km    285 m     17          2

There is a 500-meter walk to the Start from the parking lot. It's just off the road you drove in on. The route will be streamered.

The Finish is next to the registration shelter.

The map scale is 1:10,000 with 5-meter contours.

Controls 1, 2, & 3 on all the courses are in an interesting area of the map that we seem to have not used before. The map has not been field checked in that area, but the controls are on well-defined features.

Comments

There are numerous redwood rings. They are depicted on the map by black circles or blobs. When used as a control point, they are depicted in the control description as a circle. The map interpretation of these rings can be deceiving, and there are many redwood trees that are not mapped with these circles.

There is a small out-of-bounds area near the Start. It is easily avoidable on several different route choices.

The water district has an extensive forest-thinning project ongoing. So, in many cases, areas that were mapped as various shades of green are now very runnable. But you will notice there are many green areas that are not yet corrected. There are also numerous unmapped woodpiles associated with this thinning, and of course the usual unmapped animal trails.

The following symbols (and others) are used:

The course setter saw a few sprigs of poison oak. They are easily avoidable.

I saw several large bucks with huge antlers, and many turkeys, hawks, rabbits, and amazingly a bobcat (in the very northern section of the map). She(?) disappeared as soon as she saw me.

All the courses cross roads that have light traffic. Be careful crossing!

I hope you enjoy the courses.