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2012 Golden Goat, Golden Kid, and Junior Goat

Coyote Lake–Harvey Bear Ranch County Park

Date: (Sun.) Nov. 4, 2012
Location: Gilroy, CA
Event Directors: - 408.599.9709, - 408.313.3753
Course Setters: Matej Sebo, Lubomir Sebo
Type: Extra long courses with a mass start -- sorry, no beginner courses at this special event, but experienced beginners are welcome on the Mini-Kid course


If you are coming to the Goat, please preregister ASAP by sending an e-mail, so that we know how many maps to print. So far only 12 people have signed up. Surely more of you plan to come!

Matej & Lubomir have done a great job on this new map, and the courses should prove to be fast and tactically interesting. The Course Notes are below.

– Werner


Course Setters' Notes

By Matej Sebo & Werner Haag

The 17th annual BAOC Golden Goat will be held at Harvey Bear Ranch and Coyote Lake County Park in Gilroy (near Henry Coe State Park). The map is fresh and new, the views are spectacular, and the courses are some of the most strategic and grueling yet.

Map & Location

Our location for the 2012 Golden Goat is Coyote Lake, Gilroy, home to our club's newest map. This park is home to a diverse array of animals. While field checking, the course setter saw a multitude of deer, several large herds of wild pigs, a tarantula, a flock of turkeys, assorted ground squirrels, hawks, and quite a few cows. No mountain lions, bears, rattlesnakes, or angry hornets have been sighted so far.

The contours are generated from USGS LIDAR data by Bob Cooley, and thus very accurate. The contour interval is 5 meters. Vegetation boundaries are also reliable and detailed. This map uses the black dotted "vegetation boundary" symbol to distinguish between forest and open land. This greatly improves readability, but makes it a little harder to quickly identify rock features.

All major trails and fences that you will encounter are on the map. Gates in the fences will be highlighted with the purple "crossing point" symbol. These crossing points are not mandatory, but they do help in negotiating the barbed-wire fences.

The park contains a multitude of diverse rock features. Most of the major ones are on the map, but you might encounter some unmapped ones as well. Generally, rocks that are in the open and visible from a distance are on the map. Extensive areas of stony ground are also prevalent — most of these are not mapped.

Large lone trees are mapped with the hollow, green, circle symbol; small lone trees and bushes are shown as green dots. Brown ×'s are fallen trees, green ×'s are dead trees that are still standing. Not all fallen and dead trees are on the map.

Hazards

Harvey Bear Ranch and Coyote Lake is a steep park, so cleated shoes are recommended for the Goat and Kid courses. However, if you do wear cleated shoes, be aware that many of the open, grassy areas of the park are strewn with small (less than a foot in diameter) rocks. These rocks are usually not visible until you are almost on top of them, so watch your step!

As mentioned previously, there is abundant wildlife in the park. However, the animals that you will encounter (mostly of the bovine kind) are docile, and will run away if approached.

The park contains a substantial amount of poison oak. However, all the courses have been designed so that the poison oak is completely avoidable. At this time of year, poison oak bushes are easily identifiable as leafless clumps of vertical, reddish-brown sticks.

The Goat and Kid courses will pass through a region of the park that contains steep cliffs. Remember: if it is mapped as impassable, it probably is!

Although this is technically not a hazard, I would also like to remind all runners to carefully read the map when approaching a control. Remember, not all of the controls you see will be your own. Although punching a wrong control will not automatically lead to a mispunch (if you then punch the right one), running to the first control you see can potentially waste time and energy!

Special Rules

The Golden Goat has traditionally been a grueling, long, mass-start event where following is explicitly allowed. This year's Goat is no exception.

One of the controls in this year's Goat will be a fork. The map will show two controls (7A and 7B, for instance), and competitors must choose which one to visit. Those running the Golden Goat will also have the option of skipping two controls anywhere in the course. Skipping the controls at the beginning and end of the fork, or even the forked control itself, is allowed. Skipping two consecutive controls is also allowed. For Goats, skipping the right controls will be key to winning.

Runners on the Golden Kid will not have a fork, and may not skip any controls. Keep that in mind if you start with the intention of doing the Goat, but possibly switching to the Kid.

The Golden Kid will be a subset of the Golden Goat course. Thus, Kid maps and Goat maps will be identical. About halfway through the Goat, a purple dashed line clearly marked "KID" will provide a shortcut for Kid runners (refer to the 2005 Goat map for a similar example). At this point, competitors will be able to decide whether to continue on the Goat, or finish on the Kid.

Just a reminder: not all controls will be your own, so pay close attention to details on the map and check each control code before punching! (Note that if you accidentally punch the wrong control, you will just lose time, but not DNF as long as you get to the correct control eventually [in the correct order].)

Schedule for the Goat and Kid

Please plan on being at the event center, and registered, by 9:30 AM. We will be holding a pre-race briefing that reviews the rules at around 9:40 AM, after which we will be heading up to the Start. The mass start for the Goat and Kid will happen promptly at 10:00 AM.

Due to the length and difficulty of the Golden Goat course, the overtime limit has been extended to 4.5 hours. The course setter strongly recommends that all Goat competitors who arrive at control #12 after 12:00 take the shortcut and continue on the Kid.

All courses close at 2:30 PM. Please check in at the Finish by that time, even if you do not finish your course. Otherwise, we will assume that you are injured, and we will initiate search and rescue.

Course Statistics

   Course         Distance   Climb   Controls
   Golden Goat    13.2 km    785 m      24
   Golden Kid      8.2 km    395 m      15
   Junior Goat     4.1 km    165 m      18

No, that is not a misprint! The Golden Goat this year is indeed 13.2 km long, making it the second longest Goat in club history. Please note that these statistics are for the entire course, without skipping any controls! Choosing the two "correct" Goat controls to skip may save climb, distance, or both. Remember, however, that the Kid does not permit skipping.

The Start and Finish for the Golden Goat are about 500 meters up the hill from the Marina parking lot.

There will be three water stops on the Goat and two on the Kid. However, carrying water is strongly encouraged.

Important hint: remember that not all controls will be on your course, so read the map and control descriptions carefully, and check each control number before punching!

Junior Goat

This year, we will also be offering a Junior Goat, suitable for beginning or intermediate orienteers who can complete a White, Yellow, or Orange course without getting lost. Most of the Junior Goat controls are Yellow course level, although some are slightly easier, and some might be a little more challenging.

Important reminder: remember that not all controls will be on your course, so read the map and control descriptions carefully, and check each control number before punching!

Please plan on being at the parking lot, and registered, by 10:00 AM if you wish to compete. We will have a pre-race briefing at around 10:10 AM, after which we will be heading up the hill to the Start (which is at the same place as the Goat start). The mass start for the Junior Goat will be held at 10:30 AM.

The course closes at 2:30 PM. Please check in at the Finish by that time, even if you do not finish your course. Otherwise, we will assume that you are injured, and we will initiate search and rescue.