A beautiful mid-winter day greeted participants at the Valentine's Day orienteering event at Las Trampas. The recent string of rainy weekend days was broken, as an occasional ray of sunshine made its way down to the muddy slopes and open oak woods. Over 130 participants enjoyed the wide open views and challenging courses. Check out the results, splits, and photos!
The courses were generally well-received, despite the fact that some scoundrel set a control shared by the Red and Blue courses on a feature that was poorly mapped. And this control came at the end of a leg that "featured" 140 meters of climb! Luckily cool heads prevailed, and no uprising was recorded.
Participants on the White course faced an unexpected triple whammy: 7 percent climb, an indistinct trail through dark woods, and the crossing of a tree that fell across the muddy trail just days prior to the event. But all ten participants were up to the challenge, led by club president Evan Custer in just over 25 minutes.
Careful control code checking was required on the Yellow course, which passed right by several tempting but incorrect White course controls. The fastest time was turned in by Matthew Kucera, running his second course after being narrowly beaten by the Prez on White. Among those without the unfair advantage of having run a prior course over most of the same terrain, Sierra Boyd was the clear victor with a time of 36:40.
The challenging Orange course featured a contouring leg that ended in a large re-entrant. Successful finishers of this course may well be ready to move up to an advanced course. Mark Rice turned in a stunning performance, finishing nearly twenty minutes ahead of the field. Mark then turned around and completed the Brown course, quite an achievement in this steep, muddy terrain. But he was no match for Dennis Wildfogel, who posted the fasted Brown result by far.
The Green course, which featured a harrowing plunge into a deep reentrant, had a European flavor as the visiting Norwegian Christian Froeyd took a narrow victory over our resident Estonian Neeme Loorits. Matthias Kohler took the Red course, which along with Orange featured a 250 meter final leg with an 80 meter vertical drop.
The recent trend of tight competition continued on the rugged Blue course, on which Panu Haaramo took an eight minute victory over a closely grouped pack of six, with three more within striking distance. I am certain that no other club in the country could field a Blue course team of eight or ten runners that would come close to what we have right here. Go BAOC!
As always, the event was made possible through the efforts of the volunteers, including those on the following list. I apologize in advance for any omissions.
White 1.5 km 105 m 7 controls Evan Custer 25:03 Matthew Kucera 28:15 Omar Leung 44:05 Kraig Kaiser 45:50 S. and Rory Maclean 51:24 Rebecca Weber and Diane Hall 52:01 Bob Cooper 55:06 Glenn Wheatland 60:19 Lauren Katzive 60:22 Manfred, Philipp and Daniel Kopisch 63:57 Yellow 1.9 km 135 m 8 controls Matthew Kucera (2nd course) 27:09 Sierra Boyd 36:40 Sean Coady 49:14 Grimes Donnelly 49:56 John and BJ Spindler 52:49 Julie Fruetel 53:06 Glenn Wheatland (2nd course) 54:39 Lauren Katzive (2nd course) 58:43 Leif Kirschenbaum 62:06 Steve Krause, Jacq. LeSage 71:18 Galena Shakhnovsky 74:53 Burbank ROTC Group 3 82:51 Burbank ROTC Group 4 86:57 Kate and Vaughen Smith 90:54 Ev and Jean Beuerman 92:56 Li Khang Saechao MSP Dan Hobbs MSP Steph. Morrison, Emma Hoare DNF Orange 3.3 km 220 m 8 controls Mark Rice 70:15 Eric Redmond 89:31 Sean Coady (2nd course) 92:15 Shawn Larsen 94:14 A. Warmuth and Ken Douglas 95:02 Paul Allman 99:57 Emma and Glenn Shelton 121:40 P. & R. O'Neill, L. Gonzalez 130:26 Mack Cuttitta 141:18 Thomas and Margie Olson 170:12 Tom and Marianne Olson 175:58 Burbank ROTC Group 1 DNF Burbank ROTC Group 2 DNF Julie Fruetel DNF Joe Rivera DNF Brown 2.9 km 165 m 8 controls Dennis Wildfogel 55:42 Meg Gerstner 82:52 Harold DeMoss 84:05 Mark Rice (2nd course) 88:12 Randy Thomas 96:57 Jeff Lanam 109:19 Leslie Minarik 143:26 David Meredith 144:41 Nancy Lindeman OT Horizon group (8) DNF Green 4.0 km 255 m 11 controls Christian Froeyd 48:06 Neeme Loorits 49:41 Hannu Haarma 57:47 Gary Carpenter 64:11 Derek Maclean 67:57 Mike Poulsen 73:44 George Minarik 78:11 Gary Kraght 79:19 Rob Williams 84:15 Mike Fleishman 100:49 Robert Lewis 106:08 Stacy Goss 110:13 Ian Ramsey 119:18 Aileen Abernathy 133:40 Terry Gleason 160:05 Phillip M. Hoare DNF Oleg Shakhnovsky DNF Red 5.5 km 360 m 11 controls Matthias Kohler 75:05 Dan Greene 83:23 Tapio Karras 89:08 Bob Cooley 92:33 Kelly Wells 94:47 Rex Winterbottom 95:03 Alan Glendinning 103:53 Susanne Wallenborg 112:01 Mark Blair 115:19 Ralf Willeche 122:44 Eric Rosenzweig 127:17 Trevor Pering 151:01 Deb.Wojtowicz, Kev.Schoenfeld DNF Bob and Sharon Reader DNF Blue 7.6 km 450 m 15 controls Panu Haaramo 94:05 Doug Stein 102:15 Syd Reader 103:50 Michihiro Kamijima 105:46 Magnus Wallenborg 106:14 Neal Barlow 109:28 Steve Gregg 110:26 Kent Ohlund 122:00 Van Boughner 124:33 Mark Prior 126:35 Gavin Myatt-Mair 151:48 Steve Smith 164:25
Steve Kent Doug Syd
Copy 3:50 2:42 4.23 |
C-1 (142) 8:15 10:24 8.30 11:23
1-2 (108) 7:47 8.24 8.01 6:46
2-3 (110) 6:36 10.44 6.34 6:26
3-4 (129) 6:21 6:30 7.21 7:36
4-5 (130) 4:09 4:03 4.43 3:26
5-6 (136) 5:24 8.24 5.32 5:52
6-7 (145) 12:11 12.18 10.07 10:33
7-8 (132) 5:27 7:13 4.50 6:21
8-9 (152) 5:10 5:01 5.26 4:37
9-10 (236) 5:12 7:20 5.27 6:17
10-11 (238) 5:54 7:40 4.59 5:34
11-12 (239) 9:02 6:20 5.50 |
12-13 (240) 15:24 14:08 13.13 19:49
13-14 (245) 6:40 7:24 4.48 6:07
14-15 (105) 2:15 2:29 2.05 2:29
15-F 0:42 0:45 0.28 0:35
TOTAL 110:27 122:00 102.16 103:50
Map copy:
Doug: Need to draw circles faster.
Steve: Not quite as slow as usual--the Blue course is getting very
competitive, and I didn't want to lose as much time as I did at Joe
Grant.
C-1
Syd: Headed pretty straight, slipping and bumping my head on a branch in
the first reentrant. Could see the bag from the last trail you cross.
Doug: Went SW on the road to the clear area W of road, then cut across
the stream at the fork. This was bad because I was stuck in the
stream for a while, slipping down the banks. From there, up the spur
and around to control.
Steve: Pretty much straight, climbing up the steep spur directly S of
the fight patch. Was careful crossing the very first reentrant, as I
didn't want to get my feet wet and muddy right off the bat--seems
ridiculous now that I worried about that!
1-2
Syd: Pretty much contoured over.
Doug: Tried to go straight, countouring downhill. I ended up in the
horrible reentrant Steve mentioned. Spent some time slipping around
in there.
Kent: Stopped and looked in one reentrant too early, just for a moment
but lost a few contours which is real costly here.
Steve: Contoured NW as described above, then dropped pretty much
straight N to control.
2-3
Syd: N, across reentrant, then fence, along trail a ways, then across
stream to road, road for a bit until the reentrant, up to the bag.
Doug: Directly N to road, up road to clump of trees next to road, then
up to control.
Kent: First looked in the wrong major reentrant (1-2 min lost). Then
overran the control reentrant and had to come back (3 min lost for a
total of 4-5 min lost)
Steve: Straight N down the open area, pretty much straight from there.
Met Steve Smith and Neal Barlow at the bag. Neal had started 4
minutes before me and was moaning about his big error at control 2.
3-4
Syd: Went around the first spur, almost to road, then up to trail, went
over to the fight a bit too much, then down to the control.
Steve: Pretty much straight, trying to keep Neal in sight.
4-5
Syd: Pretty straight.
Steve: Ditto
5-6
Syd: Pretty much contoured, except down through the reentrant before the
control.
Doug: Followed the footpath to the little clearing near the control,
then contoured around to the control.
Kent: Missed the control just to the left (below). I knew that I was
close but made a 3 min loop to find it.
Steve: Was still tailing Neal, but lost sight of him in the woods on
the way to 6. Was running fast and lost map contact, but was
fortunate enough to quickly pick up the ditch heading SE 100 m W of
the bag. Straight in from there with minimal time lost.
6-7
Syd: I disliked this leg before I even started it (long climb). Up the
reentrant with the ditch to the fence, then fairly straight to the trees.
Came into the trees at the right contour, and saw the bag in the
reentrant.
Doug: Directly S up clearing to the fence, then climbed straight
toward the control. Found it lower than I expected after seeing
someone exit.
Kent: I felt slow, but I guess everybody else were struggling here
Steve: Long slow trudge up the hill. Saw Neal again about 100 m above
me up the hillside. Neal had still not found the slightly misplaced
bag when I arrived, and we spent a minute or two looking for it
together. I found it first and took off ahead of him.
7-8
Syd: Contoured to recommended fence crossing, road to road bend, then
contour to control. I find it interesting that there is such a variation
in times for controls 8, 9, and 10.
Doug: Ran trail to road bend, then across flatish area, then contour
to control
Kent: Too flat, can't run with speed right now
Steve (7-10): Neal passed me again about halfway to 8. I ran hard
trying to keep him in sight for the next several controls.
8-9
Syd: Contoured, a little bit up over the spurs in the middle. Along trail
then just above fight patch, then looked at the 'tree' just as I was
passing it for the next lone tree.
Doug: NE down to the trail, then followed it around to the lower
trail. This wasn't great because the trail was really muddy and slow
to run on.
Kent: A bit more uphill, this helped. Took the upper trail.
9-10
Syd: Pretty much SE off trail to bend in trail, then trail to near trees,
contour over to them.
Doug: Run on the trail
Kent: Too flat again, also hesitated a bit around the control
10-11
Syd: Back to the trail all the way to above the control.
Doug: Run on the trail
Kent: Took the lower route, maybe it was slower
Steve: Lost Neal on the way to 11. We both took the trail high, then
dropped down to the bag.
11-12
Syd: Along the upper edge of the vegetation, down spur, past the man-made
whatever, then down and across to the top of the elongated clearing just W
of the control.
Doug: Same as Kent, except went around the hill because I didn't
decide my route soon enough.
Kent: Up over the saddle, then down through the clearing with well and
over open ridge and followed correct ridge to control
Steve: Poor route choice. Ran SE to big trail, and in retrospect the
best route would have been to run the trail SE to the strip of open
which takes you NE almost all the way to the bag. Instead I tried to
go straight, but had difficulty reading the fight patches, open areas,
and contours. Eventually got to the bag but my hesitations probably
cost 2-3 minutes.
12-13
Syd: A little W of straight, over saddle, and down open spur into the
briarpatch. Actually, there was only a little bit of fightishness where I
went, but enough to be slow. Down into the reentrant and the control.
Doug: Like Steve, went NW up to bend in the big trail. Then went
straight N downhill on clear spur. Then for some reason I continued
down the spur into the forest and way down into the big, huge, nasty,
slippery reentrant. Eventually spotted the fight way up above me and
expended lots of energy getting up and out around the west side of the
fight. Saw Van on top of Fight Ridge and followed him into the
control. It felt like I lost a lot of time in the big reentrant.
Kent: Up over ridge, then trail to the left and picked up correct
ridge to the control. (too tired to go straight)
Steve: UGH! Went NW up to the bend in the big trail, but instead of
going straight from there (which I heard wasn't too bad), decided to
run the trail about 300 m to the open area on the spur heading N. The
problem was that the reentrant at the bottom of this spur was almost
uncrossable. Apparently whichever course Abby was on went straight
from Blue11 to Blue13, as I saw Abby looking down in horror at this
reentrant, wondering what she should do. I plunged right into the
reentrant and slowly picked my way around the logs, slippery rocks,
and waterfalls--this was a really dangerous place to be. I'm
wondering now if Abby did the same thing or had more sense and took
another route.
13-14
Syd: Across the open, up to just north of the hill (faint trail and
vegetation boundary), down to trail, and just followed it to the stream.
Hesitated a bit before i realized that the bag was on the other side of
the stream.
Doug: Very tired. Follow Van. I think we went over the hill.
Kent: Contoured over the open ridge, ended up too far to the
right. contoured back along the edge of the clearing and down to the
valley close to the control. Hesitated a bit 100 m from control. (lost
~1 min)
Steve: At this point I've had more than enough climbing for one day,
and ran all the way around the big hill. Good running all the way!
14-15
Syd: Mostly followed the fence. The control area was the muddiest spot I
had to go into.
Doug: Very tired. Follow Van.
Steve: Trail was a total mudpit-not fun
15-F
Syd: Gravity helps a lot. Still, Doug beat me by 7 seconds! (and 1.5
minutes total)
Doug: Run fast and try to stay ahead of Van.
Steve: How does Syd sprint so fast after almost two hours??