Bon Tempe Reservoir
Greg Ehrensing Memorial Event for BAOC Volunteers 1
Date: (Sun.) Dec. 8, 2024
Location: Fairfax, CA
Event Director: 
- 408.568.6740
Course Setter: Martin Kunz
Type: C; Volunteer appreciation event; ONLY ON SUNDAY this time; as in the past, participation is limited to only club members who have volunteered this year; PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED; NO BEGINNER OR INTERMEDIATE COURSES
Related Event Information
Event Results Required Online Registration (https://eventreg.orienteeringusa.org/eventregister/register/start/bontempe2024) Event Announcement
Course Setter's Notes
By Martin Kunz
Courses
The course stats are:
Course Length Climb Controls Map Scale
Very Short 1.4 km 25 m 6 1:7:500
Short 3.3 km 110 m 13 1:7:500
Medium 5.2 km 235 m 15 1:10:000
Long 6.7 km 290 m 21 1:10:000
The Short, Medium, and Long courses have waterstops.
As every year, this event benefits from one of the nicer orienteering terrains in the BAOC kingdom. It is now even more enjoyable, since the map has gradually improved and is now really good. Big thanks to Bill Cusworth! Even the legendary "Hillside of Death" is now tame, accurate, and without the potential to swallow orienteers and never let them out again.
If you happen to be the first competitor to get to a given control, that control might not have been awoken yet. That means it won't respond to an SI Air stick unless you insert the stick into the control unit. Doing so will awaken the control for everyone else (thank you).
Map
The contour interval is 5 meters.
Solid black lines forming a closed loop are stands of redwood trees. The shape on the map represents the boundary of the stand of trees. The control descriptions use "Vegetation boundary" (416.000) for these locations.
There are quite a few prominent standing dead trees in the terrain and on the map. These are sometimes "snags" (i.e., a large trunk with no limbs or crown, presumably from a lightening strike) or, more often, a tree that looks like it died from disease and still has many limbs and branches). Both of these are represented by green ×s on the map (ISOM 2017-2 symbol 419, "Prominent vegetation feature"). When used as a control, the description is "Prominent tree" (IOF Ref. 4.9; a simplistic child's drawing of a tree) with the appearance (Column E) qualifier "Ruined" (IOF Ref. 8.11). This qualifier is drawn as an arrow bending over, and usually denotes something that has fallen to the ground, but not in our case: we are using it to mean "dead", but standing.
As with most maps, there are more rootstocks in the terrain than there are on the map. Some still have trunks attached to them, some not. Any root stocks used as control locations are very visible in the terrain. The symbol used for a root stock on this map is a small, brown triangle.
There are several very distinct, but ephemeral, animal trails that are not on the map.
Similarly, vegetation boundaries are changing rapidly on this map. While they have been updated in many instances, there are still some sections on the map (e.g., green areas on the Hillside of Doom) where the vegetation boundaries are less than perfect.
Hazards
Watch out for cars and bicycles when you cross Sky Oaks Rd (the paved road that you drive in on, and the only paved road on the map). In particular, bicycles often go very fast on the one downhill section of Sky Oaks Rd, so be very alert when you cross there, as the lines of sight are not very good. There can also be cars and bikes on a gravel road that the Medium and Long courses have to cross, but traffic moves much more slowly on that gravel, and also lines of sight are good.
Cleated shoes with metal tips are recommended, but if you don't have shoes like that, at least wear rubber cleats.
Rocks and fallen logs can be slippery, even if they don't appear to be wet. Try hard not to step on a fallen log.
The thorns and stickers are not bad at all, but they are out there. If you don't want to spend time after the event picking things out of your socks, you might consider wearing gaiters.
The only large animals in the park are deer, who will generally run the other way if you get near them.
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1 We use this event to remember Greg Ehrensing, a dedicated BAOC member, who died in 2018 (at orienteering age 60). Greg particularly enjoyed this event "in his backyard" (since he lived nearby). He directed and course-set this event several times, as well as always helping out at this event and many others with whatever was needed even when he wasn't on the crew that day.