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Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch County Park

Date: (Sun.) Feb. 9, 2020
Location: Gilroy, CA
Event Director: - 510.525.1574
Course Setters: Daniel Å ebo, Lubomir Sebo
Type: B; Standard 7-course event for beginners through advanced

Everyone is welcome to attend this event. We especially love beginners. There will be beginner’s clinics at the event to get you started. Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch is a beautiful wilderness park near Gilroy with some wonderful views. In February the park will be green and lush. The terrain is typical oak woodland. It is interesting and somewhat steep. Course designer Lubomir Šebo will set the standard seven courses.

The conditions in the park are perfect: emerald green hills, soft footing, and breathtaking views.

What is Orienteering?

An adventure! Discover the outdoors and discover yourself! You can explore a course by yourself or go as a team with your friends. You will get a highly detailed orienteering map, probably unlike any map you have seen before. The map will have a lot of detail on it, such as fences, boulders, lone trees, vegetation boundaries, and anything else you might see. Your course will be printed on the map.

Orienteering is easy to learn, a challenge to master, and incredibly fun! You can read more about orienteering here.

Schedule

  9:00 AM – 11:59 AM: Registration open

  9:30 AM – 10:30 AM: Beginners’ clinic instruction (free)

 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Starts open

                   2:00 PM: Courses close, checkpoint control pick-up begins

At registration, all juniors must be accompanied by parents or legal guardians, or bring with them a waiver signed by their parent or legal guardian (the registration form is available here (PDF/90KB)).

Note that you can register and start on courses anytime during the open times above. Thus, for example, you do not need to be “punctual” at 9:00 (but you can if you want, but please don't show up earlier and expect to be served).

Beginners’ clinics are 15–20-minute, repeating sessions that introduce the sport of orienteering, and provide enough instruction to be able to complete the beginner (White) course.

Note that you must return to the Finish by 2:00, and then go to the download tent, even if you have not finished your course. If there are unaccounted people after 2:00, we must initiate a search for them.

After you finish, stick around and socialize with other participants!

Costs

The following fees apply at this event:

  $3 for each junior (age 8 through 20) on beginner's (White) and advanced beginner's (Yellow) courses

  $8 for each adult on beginner's and advanced beginner's courses

  $5 for each junior on intermediate (Orange) and advanced (Brown, Green, Red, Blue) courses  

$15 for each member on intermediate and advanced courses

$20 for each non-member on intermediate and advanced courses

  $1 for a compass rental (optional)  

  $5 for an electronic fingerstick rental (if you don't own one; you'll need one to complete the course)

$15 for the lowest-cost individual one-year BAOC membership (optional)  

More information about event pricing is available in the club FAQ. All the prices are also shown on the standard entry form (PDF/90KB), which you can print and fill out in advance to save some time at the event. (You will need one entry form for each group of people going on a course together.)

In addition to the above costs, there is a $6 per-car park entrance fee. Pay at the entrance kiosk. Please try to bring exact change.

Food

Please bring your own lunch and beverages. Due to park restrictions, we will not serve snacks at this event. Water fountains are available in the parking area.

What to Bring

For the beginner (White) course, comfortable outdoors attire and shoes are fine.

Due to the dry weather, matted grasses, and loose soils, we recommend O-shoes or shoes with cleats on the intermediate (Orange) and advanced (Brown through Blue) courses. Hiking boots with an aggressive tread are recommended for the advanced beginner (Yellow) course.

Dry grasses with burrs and stickers are present on all the courses except White. We recommend long pants and gaiters.

A compass is not necessary, but can be helpful. We have compasses available for a $1 rental fee.

We time the courses with the SPORTident system, so each entry/team needs to have a SPORTident fingerstick. If you don’t have your own, you can rent one at registration for $5. (Use of the E-punch system is easy. You can learn how at the event, or read about it here.)

Courses

Here are the final course statistics:

                                            Water                                     
   Course   Length      Climb     Controls  Stops  Navigation     Map Scale   Map Size
   White    3.5 km    70 m  2.0%      9       0    Beginner       1:7,500     Letter   
   Yellow   3.5 km   110 m  3.1%      9       0    Adv. Beginner  1:7,500     Letter
   Orange   4.5 km   150 m  3.3%     13       2    Intermediate   1:7,500     Legal
   Brown    4.1 km    80 m  2.0%     15       3    Advanced       1:7,500(*)  Legal
   Green    5.6 km   180 m  3.2%     12       3    Advanced       1:10,000    Legal
   Red      6.5 km   250 m  3.8%     15       4    Advanced       1:10,000    Legal
   Blue     8.1 km   310 m  3.8%     17       4    Advanced       1:12,500    Legal

(*) A limited quantity of Brown maps printed at 1:10,000 scale will be available at the Start upon request.

Note that there are two Start locations:

• The Start for the White and Yellow courses is 0.5 km (with 50 m climb) from the assembly area.

• The Start for all the other courses (Orange through Blue) is 1.5 km (with 90 m climb) from the assembly area. Plan on taking at least 20 minutes to get there.

Be sure to read the Course Setters’ Notes for more information.

Request for Volunteers

Here is a list of volunteer tasks we are seeking to fill in order to produce this event. The list is compiled in order of need.

Control Pickup: after 2:00

Beginner Clinics: 9:30–10:30

Breakdown: 1:30–2:30

All volunteers will be able to run a course!

By volunteering you will alleviate the amount of time and effort expended by the other volunteers who are working to make this event a success. Do not be shy, email today.

Your help is appreciated.

Driving Directions

The event headquarters will be at the boat launch accessed from the "Coyote Lake" entrance to the park. Do not go to the "Harvey Bear Ranch" entrance to the park!

The approximate coordinates are 37.093,-121.543.

From San Jose, go south on highway 101. Allow at least 50 minutes from the junction of 101-280-680. Take exit 357, Leavesley Road/CA-152W (which is before the CA-152E exit), and go east on Leavesley Rd 1.8 miles. Turn left onto New Avenue, and go 0.6 miles to Roop Rd. Turn right onto Roop Rd.

Go 3.2 miles to Coyote Reservoir Rd and the park entrance. (Note: At approximately 2.8 miles along Roop Rd there is an entrance on the left​—​do not take that entrance​—​instead, continue on to Coyote Reservoir Rd.) Once you turn onto Coyote Reservoir Rd, go 1 mile to the entrance kiosk. Pay the $6 entrance fee, and then continue 1.3 miles on the main road toward the boat launch parking area. Registration and parking are at the north end of the boat launch parking area. The parking spaces are designed for vehicles with boat trailers. There will not be any boat trailers present, so please park two cars in each of these parking spaces.

There's a map here that shows the location of the event.