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Sunol Regional Wilderness

Date: (Sun.) Apr. 25, 2010
Location: Sunol, CA
Event Director: - 510.747.8003
Course Setters: Mark Blair, Theo Verhoeven
Type: B; Standard 7 courses plus Long Orange course


Course Setters' Notes

By and

It's time once again for the annual BAOC spring pilgrimage to Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness, a favorite venue we've been using for almost as long the club itself has been around. The grass is soft and green, the ground is soft but not too muddy, and the wildflowers are out in droves. If the weather we've been having continues until Sunday, temperatures will be in the comfortable 60s or 70s (Fahrenheit), making conditions ripe for an idyllic springtime romp in the woods. Your heart will sing, or at least hum along pleasantly.

The Terrain

Sunol Regional Wilderness consists of about half open grassland and half light or moderately dense forest of oak, laurel, and madrone. All orienteering courses this year will mainly traverse the open grassland areas on the east side of the map. The extended rainfall has nurtured a rich carpet of soft green grass and other short ground cover. It has also left the ground fairly soft in most places. These conditions should make for some fast running and pleasant hiking.

The Courses

At Sunol, according to traditions dating back many centuries, we always set the "standard 7" courses. This year we've also set an eighth, "Long Orange" course that caters to the likings of Adventure Racers. Physically this course will provide an advanced-level workout with only intermediate-level navigation skills required. Here are the statistics for the 8 courses:

                                           Technical          Physical  
   Course        Length   Climb  Controls  Difficulty         Difficulty
   White         1.8 km    60 m     10     Beginner           Easy
   Yellow        2.2 km   115 m     12     Advanced Beginner  Moderately easy
   Orange        3.8 km   230 m     14     Intermediate       Good workout
   Long Orange   5.3 km   325 m     18     Intermediate       Very tough
   Brown         4.2 km   217 m     11     Advanced           Fairly tough
   Green         5.3 km   270 m     13     Advanced           Very tough
   Red           6.3 km   382 m     13     Advanced           Greuling
   Blue          7.1 km   412 m     16     Advanced           Possibility of collapse

All four advanced courses (Brown, Green, Red, Blue) will use a remote self-start located 1.5 km and 200 m uphill from the registration area. Please allow yourself at least half an hour to reach this start if you intend to run one of these courses. (Experienced participants who have run at Sunol a few times will recognize this as the familiar walk up Hayfield Road toward "The Barn".)

The White, Yellow, Orange, and Long Orange courses will not use a remote Start. The Start for these courses will be manned and will be right next to the registration area.

All advanced courses, except the Blue course, will be a bit more physically challenging than usual, in terms of both distance and climb. But on all four advanced courses, almost all the climb is in the first third of the course, so you can look forward to an exuberant downhill glide through the final two-thirds. The Orange course is also a little more strenuous than usual.

Beginners wheeling small children in strollers should be advised that this is possible on the White course but not on the Yellow course.

The Map

The BAOC map of Sunol Regional Wilderness is one of the club's older maps, originally drafted in 1991 by George Kirkov. As with any older orienteering map, this map is "showing its age" as the terrain it represents slowly changes in many small ways that cannot be corrected by club map personnel at the rate those changes occur. You may find that part of a trail is now overgrown, nearly invisible, or takes a slightly different turn than the map shows. Sizable portions of fence may be severely deteriorated or even entirely missing. A live tree shown on the map may now be a dead tree. Areas of vegetation may be somewhat smaller or larger than shown. With that said, we can also say that the map is fairly accurate in all its parts. We have tried to correct all significant inaccuracies that might be encountered while running one of the courses.

The important thing to remember about the BAOC map of Sunol is the contour interval. On this map, adjacent contour lines differ by 7.5 meters in elevation, not the 5-meter contour difference that is almost always used on BAOC maps. A hillside may be a lot steeper than you might expect. Try to visualize three contour lines for every two that you'd normally see!

On the Sunol map, a green × symbol represents a "lone tree" or "distinguished tree". This is a living tree with no other trees nearby, or a tree that stands out in some very noticeable way from any other trees around it. A green o symbol represents any other kind of small, living vegetation feature, like a bush, a small copse, or a small thicket. A brown × symbol can represent either a standing dead tree, a dead tree with pieces left standing, or a completely fallen dead tree whose rootstock (the root system at the bottom of the trunk) may or may not visible.

The Hazards

Well, all this rain we've been having has brought some good news and some bad news. The good news is that everything is still fresh and green, and the wildflowers in some areas are nothing short of spectacular. The bad news is that part of this green bounty consists of little leaves in groups of three that are shiny and itchy. This is poison oak, the Sunol spring salad. We make no attempt to candy-coat it: The poison oak at Sunol is particularly lush this year and will be at the height of its potency in late April. However ... all courses have been designed to avoid it to the maximum extent possible. We strongly recommend that all event participants wear long pants. Wear a short sleeved shirt only if you're very familiar with the appearance of poison oak.

As mentioned above, the terrain of Sunol is fairly steep, even by BAOC standards. On all advanced and intermediate courses you'll encounter steep hillsides. Sturdy shoes are a must, and cleats are strongly recommended.

Most of the open grassland in Sunol Regional Wilderness is used for grazing. You may see quite a few cows in these areas. Some cows can become a bit perturbed if approached too closely. Avoid passing between a cow and her calf. In the rare situation that you find yourself surrounded by a group of cows that won't get out of your way, try singing to them. This has been found to have a calming effect on both cows and bulls, and may explain why you always see cowboys singing to their cattle in all those old Western movies. We've found that classic Western folk music ("Home on the Range", "The Streets of Laredo", etc.) works quite well. "Paint It Black" (Rolling Stones) caused an approaching bull to turn tail and bolt off in the opposite direction a few years ago when sung by one of the course setters.

Deer and small flocks of wild turkeys are also quite common at Sunol. These animals are not a hazard, and are generally quite a magnificent sight when encountered. The occasional bobcat (like a large, buff-colored house cat) is spotted at Sunol, but these critters generally tend to avoid human beings. No mountain lions have been reported in the area recently, and no terrorists have been sighted.

The Joys ...

... of Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness will swallow you up when you come join us for a fine spring run or hike. We'll see you there.