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Indian Valley College

Date: (Sun.) May. 11, 2025
Location: Novato, CA
Event Director: - 415.895.6039
Course Setter: Petra Sundstrom
Type: B; We return once again to the verdant hills around the Indian Valley College campus. There will be 6 standard courses (White through Red; no Blue), with free introductory instruction for beginners, who are very welcome, as are non-members.

Related Event Information

Event Results Course Setter’s Notes Attackpoint Event Page (https://attackpoint.org/eventdetail.jsp/event_58986) Last Year’s Event

Please note that fees and time limits apply. Events are typically not canceled due to bad weather.


Welcome to orienteering at Indian Valley College. BAOC has held orienteering events at Indian Valley for around 30 years, starting back in the days when we still used punch cards and we had to make our own map corrections (on the clock!). The College of Marin more recently launched a multi-year major reconstruction project at their Indian Valley campus, and then COVID intervened. As a result, BAOC took an eight-year hiatus, and finally returned in 2024. We have a new map thanks to Bill Cusworth, and we are returning to this lovely venue again in 2025.

The mapped area has the college campus in the center, which is mostly flat but with a network of deep ravines. To the south is an area of typically steep and wooded Bay Area hills with few trails, while to the north are gentler hills interspersed with meadows and a trail network. Spring flowers are out! Poison oak is abundant in places, but the courses (try to) avoid the worst of it.

Petra Sundstrom is the course setter again this year. She has designed a mixture of courses for this event:

The course details are in the Course Setter’s Notes, which you should make sure to read.

Please consider volunteering to help at the event. Most of the positions have been filled, but we still need one or two volunteers to handle the second start shift (11 to 12:30). See below for more information.

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

The following standard BAOC event schedule will be followed:

   9:00 AM – 11:59 AM: Registration is open
   9:30 AM – 10:30 AM: Beginner instruction is available (free)
  10:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Starts are open for all the courses
                    2:00 PM: Everyone must have returned to the Finish
Note: Participants under age 18 who register at the event must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian, or bring with them a waiver signed by their parent or legal guardian (the registration form is available here [12KB PDF]).

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

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

Note: Beginners are given their White or Yellow course maps at registration. You should get your map before joining a beginner clinic.

Everyone must return to the Finish by 2:00 PM, and then promptly go to the download tent, even if they have not completed their course. Please do not leave without checking in! If there are unaccounted people after 2:00, we must initiate a search for them.

Costs & Registration

The following fees apply for this event:

  $3 for each junior on a Beginner (White or Yellow) course
  $8 for each adult on a Beginner (White or Yellow) course
  $5 for each junior on the Intermediate (Orange) or an Advanced (Brown through Red) course  
$15 for each adult member on the Intermediate (Orange) or an Advanced (Brown through Red) course
$20 for each adult non-member on the Intermediate (Orange) or an Advanced (Brown through Red) course
  $1 for a compass rental (optional)  
  $5 for an electronic fingerstick rental (if you don’t own one; each group will need one to complete their course)
$15 for the lowest-cost individual one-year BAOC membership (optional)  
Notes:
  • Juniors are age 8 through 20 (under age 8 is free).
  • At the event, we can accept payment by cash, check, or credit/debit card (but no electronic payments — e.g., PayPal, Venmo).
  • There is no charge for a second course (but you must end up paying for the more expensive course — e.g., the Orange course after the Beginner course).
  • Members of other orienteering clubs can pay the "member" fee. (We hope your club would do the same for our members. 🙂)

More information about event pricing is available in the club FAQ. All the prices are also shown on the standard entry form (PDF/12KB), 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.)

Optional Online Registration

Online registration has closed, but you can still register at the event.

Notes:
  • Online registration is not required​—​you can register at the event.
  • You can see who is registered here (https://eventreg.orienteeringusa.org/eventregister/reglist/home/indianvalley2025) (but keep in mind that others will register at the event).

Location at the College

Registration and E-punch will be at the same location as last year (not adjacent to the old college swimming pool) — next to the "FARM", which is a big, red building with the word "FARM" on it in big letters. The building is next to the ball fields, and near the end of Parking Lot 6 (look for BAOC directional signs). The driving directions are below.

Venue Facilities

There will be an open restroom near Registration, and an outdoor water fountain.

What to Bring

For Beginners courses (White and Yellow), comfortable outdoors attire and shoes are fine.

Because of poison oak (see below), long pants are recommended for all the courses except White.

For the Intermediate (Orange) and Advanced (Brown, Green, and Red) courses, the steeper hillsides can be a bit slippery due to lots of dry leaves and loose dirt, so shoes with good grip are highly recommended.

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 E-punch 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

The final course details are below. They are significantly different from the previous details. Be sure to read the Course Setter’s Notes for more information. 

    Course    Length    Climb  Controls  Navigation
    White     2.2 km     40 m      9     Beginner  
    Yellow    3.2 km    125 m     11
    Orange    4.0 km    165 m     14     Intermediate  
    Brown     4.0 km    160 m     17     Advanced  
    Green     5.0 km    305 m     18
    Red       6.3 km    405 m     23

Beginners should be aware that the distances shown are the cumulative straight-line distances between controls. The climb numbers represent the amount of ascending that would be done on the "optimum route" (in the Course Setters' opinion), without regard for any descending. Because you won't travel in straight lines, and might not follow the optimum routes, your actual distance and climb will be somewhat more than what is shown above, and will depend on your route choices (and any errors you make).
The Brown, Green, and Red courses have double-sided maps, with two courses. The first course is a standard orienteering course on a 1:7500-scale map. After completing that course, turn over your map for the second course, which is a Sprint-style course around the college campus on a 1:4000-scale map. Please be aware that both courses start with a control 1. The Start is not anywhere close to the campus, so there should not be any confusion about which side of the map to start on. Also, be aware that the last control on the first course is shown as the first control on the Sprint course. You do not need to punch that control twice (but you can if you want to).

The walk to the Start from the assembly area is an easy, slightly up-hill, 500 m walk. Plan on taking about 10 minutes for that walk. There is a short walk (about 150 m) from the Finish back to the assembly area.

Hazards

For participants on all the courses except White, the park has some poison oak that you will want to avoid. It looks like this. Bathing as soon as possible with dishwashing soap or a commercial product such as Tecnu, and washing clothes and shoes, is strongly recommended to remove the irritant oil. (Note that you can be exposed through clothing, and that stalks without leaves are still a risk.)

Deer ticks are found in this area, and they might carry Lyme disease. So, please be sure to check yourself carefully after the event.

Volunteers Needed

April 29th update: We are still looking for one or two volunteers to handle the second start shift (11 to 12:30). You can either go out early and help after doing your course, or be the very last start and go out late. If interested, please send email to Gary Kraght, the Event Director ().

Request for help with E-punch:

As Stephanie mentioned earlier this week, we have very few people trained in handling the E-punch system. I haven't been able to get away to do a course for the last few events, so I'd really appreciate someone who is willing to take a shift. I intend to wait until registration closes, so the work will be mainly downloads, which usually requires little interaction by the operator. I'll train you in what you will need to do.
Thanks,
Jeff Lanam () (Posted to the BayONet (https://groups.io/g/BAOC) May 9, 2025)

Driving Directions

Note: We will be parking at the same lot as last year, which is a different lot than we used prior to last year. The approximate coordinates are 38.07665,-122.58294.

To get to the Indian Valley campus, take Highway 101 through Marin County to southern Novato, and exit at Ignacio Blvd (exit 459 from northbound 101, or exit 459B from southbound 101).

Note: For people coming on Highway 37 to Highway 101, or south on Highway 101, Ignacio Blvd is one exit to the south of the 37/101 interchange. However, there are other route choices for those people that might be more direct.

Coming from the south, you will turn left onto Nave Dr, then left onto Ignacio Blvd.

Coming from the north, you will turn left onto Enfrente Rd (first turn possible), then left onto Entrada Dr, and then right onto Ignacio Blvd.

Go west on Ignacio Blvd as far as you can go, where it terminates at the College of Marin Indian Valley campus entrance. Continue on the campus road to its end, and park in Parking Lot 6 (approximate coordinates 38.07665,-122.58294), with overflow parking in nearby Lot 5.

Note: There are signs about parking fees. They do not apply on Sunday.