Western States Orienteering Championships, June 5-6, 2004
Welcome
to the 2004 Western States Orienteering Championships. Both days will be on
maps used for previous U.S. orienteering championships! Day 1 is on the west
portion of the Fallen Leaf map, first used for the 2003 U.S. championships, and
Day 2 is on the east portion of the Spooner Lake map. Standard A meet courses
and classes are available, and the Western States Orienteering Championship
will be awarded to the eligible person with the fastest cumulative time over
the two days in each A class. In addition, recreational courses (white, yellow,
orange, and adventure racer - long orange) are available each day.
You
are eligible to vie for the Western States Orienteering Championship if you are
a member of USOF, and either your primary residence is in a Western state (any
state touching or west of the continental divide), or your primary club is
located in a Western state. You are eligible for fun as soon as you get out on
a course!
White
3.2 km 45 m 2.8
km 20
m
Yellow
3.5 km 70 m 3.0
km 70
m
Orange
4.3 km 120 m 4.5 km 120 m
Brown 3.8
km 85
m 3.8 km 150 m
Green
5.3 km 125 m 4.6 km 170 m
Red
7.1 km 170 m 6.1 km 240 m
Blue
9.6 km 240 m 7.7 km 370 m
Recreational
courses
White
(beginning level – easy, along trails)
3.2 km 45 m 3.0
km 35
m
Yellow
(advanced beginner – mostly on trail)
3.5 km 70
m 3.0 km 90
m
Orange
(intermediate – mostly off trail)
4.3 km 120 m 4.4 km 130 m
Adventure
Race (intermediate – long Orange)
5.8 km 160
m 5.9 km 210 m
All
controls will be set up for both electronic and manual punching. Championship participants will use the
electronic punching system, while recreational participants will use the manual
punching system.
Registration
will be open from 9AM to noon. Parking is at the Sno Park just west of the
Fallen Leaf Campground on Route 89. From South Lake Tahoe, go west on US 50 to
the "Y" intersection with Route 89 and turn right (north) Go
approximately 4 miles to the Snow Park on your left. If you see Tallac
Trailhead Road, you have gone 1/2 mile too far.
There
is a 300 meter relatively level streamered trail walk to the start from the
parking area. All participants, competitive and recreational, start at the same
location. There are portable toilets available at the parking area close to
registration.
The
path to the start and the terrain in view of it are the only available warmup
areas to the south or west of the parking lot; all other areas in those
directions are out of bounds. Those
desiring additional warmup space must proceed from the parking lot back north
200 meters to Highway 89 and then east 100 meters to cross the main creek. All terrain east of the main creek can be
used for warming up.
Safety
bearing is north to Highway 89.
Registration will be open from 8AM to noon. Parking is at the Nevada Highway Department lot just north of the intersection of US 50 and Route 28. From South Lake Tahoe, go north on US 50. After about 14 miles, turn left onto Route 28. Make the first left into the parking lot.
IMPORTANT – We are sharing the parking area with a bicycling event that will have 3500 riders stopping by throughout the day. Please park in the southern portion of the lot, and park as close to other cars as reasonable. There will be a parking assistant to help you. Please respect all bicyclists as you enter and leave the parking area.
There
is a 800 meter relatively level streamered walk to registration from the
parking area. The majority of this walk is along Route 28, so be careful. From
registration, it’s a short downhill walk to the start areas. Competitive and
recreational participants start in separate locations. There are portable
toilets available at the parking area, and there are bathrooms in Spooner Lake
Campground.
All areas southwest of Route 28 (the side of Route 28 that the parking area is on) are available for warmup. Spooner Lake Campground is also available for warmup if you stay within 100 meters of the main campground road.
Safety
bearing is south to Highway 50 or Route 28.
My
preference is for a faster, more "sporty" style of orienteering, and
that is what I have attempted to give you today. As such, the courses make heavy use of the most open, runnable
areas of this map. In fact, after an
initial encounter with some areas of moderate deadfall and brush near the
start, participants on all courses will find themselves spending most of their
time in pleasant forest. Controls in
particular are nearly always in areas of minimal ground clutter. Climb is quite low.
This
event will employ a slightly different start procedure from that used at other
recent BAOC A events. As at previous
events, timing will begin at the start line, from which a mandatory streamered
path leads to the start triangle, where navigation begins. What is different is that participants will
receive their maps at the start line rather than at the start triangle. All participants must follow the mandatory
path to reach the start triangle.
Special
considerations for this event:
1. Several paved one-lane roads cross the
competition area. Every course will
cross them, and the White course will travel along them. While traffic on these roads is rather
light, it does exist. Be extremely
careful of cars whenever crossing or traveling along a paved road! The roads are winding in many areas, meaning
that you and the drivers may not see each other until you are quite close.
2. The meadows may still be quite wet. Please do not cross them except on
trails. The courses are set such that a
meadow crossing should not be an attractive route choice, except on the White
course which follows the trails.
3. For the White course only--First, the trails
that you follow may be flooded with standing water in places. We will place streamers through any area in
which the water makes the trail indistinct.
In the wet areas, you will likely wish to travel on the grass on the
side of the trail rather than in the trail itself (which may more closely
resemble a shallow, slow-moving stream!).
You'll almost certainly get your feet wet anyways. Second, a large tree has fallen across the
trail between controls 5 and 6. We will
streamer a good route around this obstacle.
4. Only a few vegetation point features have
been used for controls, and in each case that feature is quite distinct. However, a review of these features may
still prove helpful. A brown X on the
map represents a rootstock (roots in the air, from a tree that fell in one
piece), and appears in the control descriptions as a rootstock. A green X on the map represents either a
tall stump or a standing dead tree--either way, the roots are still in the
ground. These appear in the control
descriptions as a single tree, modified by the "ruined" symbol if the
feature is a stump, unmodified if the feature is a standing dead tree.
Good
luck here at Fallen Leaf Lake and tomorrow at Spooner Lake!
Sunday’s
courses have been set in the meadows and lower hillsides surrounding Spooner
Lake. You will encounter open meadows, clearings and runnable forest, as well
as some areas with various levels of undergrowth. Several trails, “ancient”
flumes and railroad grades provide handrails for the beginner’s courses and
route choices on the intermediate and advanced courses.
Clearings
are accurately mapped but can be hard to distinguish on the run. Younger pine
trees encroaching on some clearings may not be mapped. Some areas have been
logged in the past couple of years, although most of the logging debris has
been cleaned up. Small patches of wind-blown downfall may be encountered.
Logging debris and slash are especially prevalent in the far western portion of
the map, where the red, blue and adventure race courses may encounter areas
that appear significantly more open than mapped. When in doubt, rely on contour
and rock detail for navigation.
Light
green denotes dense stands of young pine or aspen. This means reduced
visibility but not necessarily an obstacle to running. The dark green areas are
dense areas of brush or aspen, and are best avoided. The green "x"
symbol is used to denote distinct single, mature trees in clearings. The green
"o" symbol is used for a distinct group of trees (i.e. a copse). The
brown "x" denotes a root stock (the upturned roots of a fallen tree)
or a stump (the upright remainder of a broken or logged tree). The root stock
symbol ("Ä") used in the control
descriptions denotes a stump, with the height indicated in meters. There are
many more root stocks and stumps in the terrain than are shown on the map. The
few that are used as control features are distinct and unique within the
surrounding terrain.
There
are a number of indistinct trails on the map that may be helpful in navigation
or simply in getting from point A to point B. Some of these are old logging
roads. Others are remnants of flumes that were used to carry water to the
mining areas of the Comstock in the mid- to late-eighteen hundreds. There even
existed a narrow-gauge railroad that was used to haul timber from the forests
surrounding Spooner Lake. The more obvious of these trails are mapped, although
you may encounter additional ones that aren’t. Expect the occasional fallen
tree or dense new growth to impede your progress on these trails.
The
terrain features areas of intricate rock detail. Boulders smaller than 1m are
generally not shown on the map, unless there are no other rock features nearby.
The rocky ground and boulder field symbols are used to denote rocky areas with
too many rocks or boulders to map individually.
Please
note that, due to the dry winter, the water level in Spooner Lake is several
feet lower than normal. This means that the actual shoreline may be
significantly different from the lake outline shown on the map.
Yellow
course only: The yellow course follows the edge of a clearing up a hillside
between controls #5 and #6. This portion of the course is flagged. Look for
orange streamers running up the hill from control #5.
White
course only: The “special item” (man-made feature) at control #6 is a bench.