Spring Lake, Santa Rosa

Sunday, Oct. 31, 1999

by Gary Kraght, 415-383-4429, and Scott Aster

Welcome to Spring Lake County Park, one of BAOC's most northern maps. Located minutes from downtown Santa Rosa, Spring Lake is flat and developed, with a beautiful lake and plenty of reminders of the intensive mining that occurred there in the past century. It abuts onto Annadel State Park, which is neither flat nor developed but has even more mining scars.

October is a wonderful time of year to orienteer here, as we avoid the heat of summer but the winter drenching rains have not begun yet. Plus, the poison oak is very minimal in the vicinity of the courses, and the meadows do not contain star thistle!

Course statistics: 

White       2.8 km distance      75 meters climb
Yellow      3.8 km distance     130 meters climb
Orange      3.3 km distance     190 meters climb
Green       3.6 km distance     220 meters climb
Red         6.0 km distance     375 meters climb
The White and Yellow courses tour the area in close proximity to Spring Lake, while the Orange, Green, and Red courses journey east, touring parts of Annadel not seen since Day 2 of the A-meet held there two years ago. The areas where we are placing controls HAVE been checked carefully to make sure the map is accurate when approching the control from ANY direction!

The advanced courses are quite technical! Many legs are relatively flat, running through terrain loaded with point features (i.e. rocks, pits, dot knolls, you name it) requiring careful navigation to find the controls. Most of the climb on both advanced courses happens on one or two legs near the beginning as you head away from Spring Lake.

The Green course has been shortened a little as we will not be offering a Brown course, and it should not be too physical for regular Brown course participants to complete.

Directions

We will meet at the Oak Knoll Picnic Area. To get there, take US Highway 101 to Santa Rosa. Exit onto Highway 12 going east (toward Sonoma). The freeway portion of Highway 12 terminates in 1.5 miles and takes a left turn onto Farmers Lane. Do not take this turn. Instead continue straight onto Hoen Avenue. Continue through the stoplight at Summerfield (1.5 miles more), then take an immediate left onto Newanga Avenue. There is a direction sign for Spring Lake County Park here, and there will be an orienteering sign up as well. Newanga leads into the park. At the ranger's kiosk, pay the car fee, turn right, go up the hill, and you are at the Oak Knoll Picnic Area.

See you there!