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Golden Gate Park

Date: (Sun.) May. 31, 2015
Location: San Francisco, CA
Event Director: - 415.456.8118
Course Setter: Ralf Burgart
Type: C; Multiple courses, including beginner courses, starting from Marx Meadow

Plan to come out and enjoy a fun, challenging, and poison-oak-free experience, exploring the many hidden wonders of Golden Gate Park!

Our annual visit to the largest urban park in the Bay Area will emphasize route choice and scenic beauty, while sending you into areas of the park you may never have known existed. Your course may take you by/through an equestrian ring, lawn bowling fields, buffalo paddock, windmills, waterfalls, fly casting pools, redwood groves, and more hidden monuments than you can imagine. There is also a surprising amount of "undeveloped" land scattered here and there to give you brief moments of feeling like you are out in the wild, not in San Francisco!

All the fun starts at Marx Meadow (see below for directions).

We hope to see you at the Park on May 31^st!

Schedule

• Registration opens at 9:00 AM, and closes at noon.
• Starts run from 9:30 until 12:30. You can start anytime during that period.
• The courses close at 2:00 PM. Everyone must return to the Finish by then, and check in at the E-punch table.
• Note: A special 2-hour Orienteering Basics Clinic will be held from 10:00 AM to noon.

At registration, all juniors must be accompanied by parents or legal guardians, or bring with them a waiver signed by their parent or legal guardian (the registration form is available here (PDF/100KB)).

Beginner's clinics will be given throughout the morning. They are short, repeating sessions that provide an introduction to orienteering and enough instruction to be able to complete a beginner (White) course.

Plan to hang around afterwards for plenty of food, drink, and socializing.

Costs

  $3 for juniors on beginner's (White) and advanced beginner's (Yellow) courses

  $8 for adults on beginner's (White) and advanced beginner's (Yellow) courses

  $5 for juniors on intermediate (Orange) courses  

$12 member price for intermediate (Orange) courses

$18 non-member price for intermediate (Orange) courses

  $1 for a compass rental (optional)  

  $5 for an electronic fingerstick rental (if you don't own one, you'll need one to complete the course)

$15 for the lowest-cost individual one-year BAOC membership (optional)  

For extra people on a team, add $5 per adult on beginner's courses or $7 per adult for intermediate and advanced courses (with lower prices for juniors). Fees are reduced for a second course.

See below for the fees for the special 2-hour Orienteering Basics Clinic.

More information about event pricing is available in the club FAQ.

Courses

We will be using E-punch for this event! Don't forget your E-sticks (or you can always rent one at the event).

The White course (which is for beginners) will be short and will stay on trails and roads. Several other courses will be offered, with the longest taking you from one end of the park to the other.

Here are the final course details:

   Course                     Length    Climb   Controls
   White                      2.0 km     40 m       7  
   Yellow                     2.8 km     45 m       8
   Orange                     3.2 km    100 m      10
   Long Orange 1 ("Brown")    3.9 km     90 m      11
   Long Orange 2 ("Green")    5.2 km    110 m      18
   Long Orange 3 ("Red")      6.5 km    170 m      19
   Long Orange 4 ("Blue")    10.8 km    275 m      30

Beginners should be aware that the course lengths above represent the cumulative straight-line distances between the controls. The actual distance you will travel will depend on your route choices (and any errors you might make), and will certainly be somewhat longer. The Climb numbers represent the amount of ascent one would experience on the "optimum route", without regard for any decent along the course.

Be sure to read the Course Setter's Notes for more information.

Special Orienteering Basics Clinic

There will be a special 2-hour Orienteering Basics Clinic at this event. The clinic, which will cover basic map reading & directional skills for people new to orienteering or who want to teach orienteering to children, will be conducted by , coach of the U.S. Junior Team. A descriptive flyer is available here (PDF/300KB).

This is a fundraising event for the U.S. Junior Team. The fees for the clinic will be $50 per adult and $25 per youth. (Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.)

You must register for the clinic here (https://www.orienteeringusa.org/eventregister/). (Click on "Orienteering Basics Clinic" and then "Register now!", and enter your information. You must complete a registration for each person who will be attending.) Please note that the clinic will be canceled if less than seven people register. You can see who is attending by clicking on the "View Registration/Start List" button on the registration site.

Directions to Marx Meadow in Golden Gate Park

Note: No directional signs will be posted!

Marx Meadow is on the west side of the park, northeast of the Polo field, on the north side of JFK Drive. You can park along JFK drive and walk into the meadow. If you park on Fulton St (the north side of the park), the block between 26th and 27th Avenues is closest to Marx Meadow.

There's a map here that shows the location of the event.