By Rex Winterbottom (Regional Event Coordinator — Sierra Nevada)
Thanks to all who came to Browns Valley!
Last fall, we had attendance in the range of 60 people. This spring, we may have eclipsed 100.
Behind the scenes, there was some strife. But come event day, we got to enjoy some orienteering. Never give up. Never surrender.
George Minarik had to surrender. He was ready to go as course consultant, but our course setter Richard Thorsted had a difficult schedule, but still wanted to set the courses. We waited, and waited, and then George had to go on vacation.
Andrejus Masalkovas, hero of the Cal-O-Fest 2023 for saving the Golden Gate Park event by course setting, stepped in as vetter/course consultant. He gave feedback on Richard Thorsted’s interesting courses that explored different routes than the fall event.
And then... we discovered a problem... somehow, mysteriously, the Blue course was 10 km, and the Brown course was 5 km. Something going on with the scale...
So the Friday before, 1 day before control placement, 2 days before the orienteering, all courses had to be redesigned, using the existing control points Richard scouted.
Not wanting to induce panic and discourage attendance, I didn’t want to put up last-minute course stats. However, many people then came ready to do Blue — we had like 25 people wanting to do Blue (by comparison, at the better-attended Coyote Lake event, there were 13 people on Blue) and we had printed 15 Blue maps. So we hand-drew two Blue maps on existing Red maps and a few others did Red instead. That boosted Red participation from 5 to 7 people. Sorry about the lack of Blue maps.
But perhaps the biggest snafu was the lack of access to the school campus, which we paid for in advance. After multiple phone calls to school district numbers that failed to reach anyone, I tried Vacaville police. They called the city public works department, and somehow they got someone to show up and let us in, which finally gave us bathroom access, about 1 hour later than we were supposed to be in. (At our fall event, we went through the same process, and had no issues with having someone show up and let us in at the scheduled time.)
So sorry about that.
Give us credit for the awesome weather though. Although the ground drying out a bit made the cow-pockmarked trails and hillsides a bit more ankle-twisty.
Still, the lack of star-thistle was glorious.
Thanks to all of our helpers!
- Richard Thorsted, our course setter, stayed for the duration, helped with setup, and greeted finishers, and helped with take down.
- Andrejus Masalkovas, in addition to course consulting, printed the maps.
- Steve Gregg came early for setup and did a variety of tasks. Brian Ritchken also helped with setup.
- Starts were handled by Olga and Gary Kraght early, and Scott Aster late.
- Registration was administrated by Sarah Williams with help from Brian Ritchken and Dennis Wildfogel.
- Julia Doubson delivered clinics.
- Western Race Services, aka Jay Hann, handled results.
- Control Pickup was handled by Kathleen Lan, Josh Munic, Johan Grobler, Kristen Bremm, Tac Sugiyama, Mark Sinks, Theo Verhoeven, and Tom De Vre.
- Take-down happened with the support of Derek Maclean, Steph Maclean, Richard Thorsted, and Tac Sugiyama.
- Always thanks to Chuck Spalding and the Webmasters for content management and web formatting of the Event Announcement, Course Setter’s Notes, and Results.
- And thanks to Tapio Karras for taking on RouteGadget! It's available as linked below — please post your routes.
White Course (1.2 km, 75 m climb, 9 controls)
Time Time
Pl Name Club Time Behind Lost
1 Henry Tracey 26:11 1:18
2 Josh Badger 26:13 0:02 1:20
3 Ursula Alwans 26:42 0:31 1:07
4 Joe Young Group 41:30 15:19 11:40
5 Lillian & Karen Group 45:54 19:43 9:12
6 Mighty Monkees Troop 7062 1:24:00 57:49 24:25
Rebecca Lindholm DNF
Yellow Course (1.9 km, 130 m climb, 12 controls)
Time Time
Pl Name Club Time Behind Lost
1 Richard Treadwell 47:21 3:49
2 Paul Treadwell 47:30 0:09 3:48
3 Jenna Thorsted BAOC 49:32 2:11 6:45
4 Melissa Bonilla CHSOC 1:18:18 30:57 22:07
5 Haight & Holtzen Group 1:27:54 40:33 13:37
6 Michael Jacobson 1:28:13 40:52 13:30
7 Gera Group 1:41:06 53:45 13:36
8 Darwin Deniro 1:52:33 65:12 37:04
9 Bernat Group 1:53:19 65:58 24:54
10 Rory Deniro 1:54:33 67:12 34:30
11 Reiff Group 1:55:43 68:22 34:43
Oliver Robinson BAOC DNF
Scott Aster BAOC DNS
Orange Course (2.8 km, 140 m climb, 13 controls)
Time Time
Pl Name Club Time Behind Lost
1 Richard Treadwell 1:01:31 2:38 2nd course
2 Paul Treadwell 1:02:08 0:37 2:57 2nd course
3 Uryansky Group 1:17:08 15:37 2:02
4 Joe Young Group 1:32:05 30:34 11:47 2nd course
5 Calloway Group 1:35:03 33:32 7:46
6 Luis Cervantes CHSOC 1:36:05 34:34 15:43
7 Rebecca Dun 1:48:35 47:04 19:31
8 Shelburne & Wang Group 2:01:09 59:38 23:59
9 William Nguyen BAOC 2:03:01 61:30 13:26
10 Ian Lewis De Alba CHSOC 2:19:13 77:42 28:04
11 Leta Krechetov BAOC 2:29:32 88:01 12:39
12 Sturgeon Group 2:41:15 99:44 31:26
13 Katy Robinson BAOC 2:45:09 103:38 11:06
Amelya LaRocca CHSOC DNF
Ryah Newton CHSOC DNF
Jazzy Avila CHSOC DNS
Brown Course (3.1 km, 145 m climb, 12 controls)
Time Time
Pl Name Club Time Behind Lost
1 Wayne Staats BAOC 29:00 1:26 2nd course
2 Werner Haag BAOC 39:28 10:28 0:26
3 Tyler Williams BAOC 43:36 14:36 4:53 2nd course
4 Stephanie Maclean BAOC 51:31 22:31 4:59
5 Yana Konovalenko BAOC 53:00 24:00 14:38
6 Kostia Turcheniuk 53:07 24:07 3:32
7 Michael Robinson BAOC 57:03 28:03 6:28
8 Andres Pena Tauber 1:01:18 32:18 8:44
9 Jerry Skirvin CHSOC 1:04:09 35:09 8:58
10 Taelyn Ailes CHSOC 1:07:02 38:02 15:21
11 Johanna Merriss BAOC 1:10:14 41:14 14:25
12 Nick Corsano BAOC 1:18:20 49:20 15:36
13 Joseph Geddes BAOC 1:32:14 63:14 11:28
14 Evan Custer BAOC 1:32:47 63:47 10:18
15 Jeff Lanam BAOC 2:16:54 107:54 36:28
Dennis Wildfogel BAOC DNF
Laura & Rob Group BAOC DNF
Mirjana Spasojevic DNS
Miroslav Trubelja BAOC DNS
Green Course (4.1 km, 180 m climb, 16 controls)
Time Time
Pl Name Club Time Behind Lost
1 Tapio Karras BAOC 1:05:01 2:44
2 Matt Marlow 1:07:51 2:50 5:22
3 Tac Sugiyama BAOC 1:11:43 6:42 1:41
4 Steve Gregg BAOC 1:14:30 9:29 3:00
5 Eric Rosenzweig BAOC 1:15:34 10:33 4:04
6 Derek Maclean BAOC 1:18:50 13:49 5:08
7 Greg Lennon QOC 1:20:58 15:57 3:06
8 Marie-Josée Parayre BAOC 1:26:36 21:35 15:36
9 Kyle Poland GCO 1:30:49 25:48 8:06
10 Kathleen Lan BAOC 1:34:45 29:44 14:18
11 Kathleen Lennon QOC 1:36:15 31:14 8:01
12 Josh Munic 1:38:23 33:22 12:31
13 Isai Vazquez CHSOC 1:45:51 40:50 6:47
14 Shura Krechetov BAOC 1:56:27 51:26 23:41
15 Sean Robinson BAOC 2:01:15 56:14 24:04
16 Jasmine Slater CHSOC 2:13:50 68:49 15:59
17 Olga Kraght BAOC 2:25:38 80:37 38:01
Gary Kraght BAOC DNF
Kevin Hinkley, Terri Hunt BAOC DNF
Laurel Larson Group BAOC DNF
Dylan Perez Sanchez CHSOC DNS
Red Course (5.2 km, 290 m climb, 22 controls)
Time Time
Pl Name Club Time Behind Lost
1 Brian Ritchken BAOC 1:17:18 4:47
2 Julia Doubson BAOC 1:17:32 0:14 0:50
3 Lubomir Sebo BAOC 1:26:51 9:33 9:03
4 Tyler Williams BAOC 1:48:52 31:34 12:40
5 Theo Verhoeven BAOC 2:15:21 58:03 4:58
6 Kris Andersen GCO 2:21:09 63:51 24:17
7 Gavin Wyatt-Mair BAOC 2:39:24 82:06 17:51
Blue Course (6.0 km, 375 m climb, 26 controls)
Time Time
Pl Name Club Time Behind Lost
1 Yurii Konovalenko BAOC 1:08:51 0:48
2 Mark Sinks BAOC 1:21:40 12:49 0:00
3 Wayne Staats BAOC 1:22:32 13:41 2:31
4 François Léonard BAOC 1:28:15 19:24 3:30
5 Jeffrey Kabel BAOC 1:30:46 21:55 2:38
6 Tom De Vre BAOC 1:48:04 39:13 4:38
7 Andrej Masalkov BAOC 1:49:07 40:16 4:44
8 Sam Barker BAOC 1:52:39 43:48 12:47
9 Josef Estrada CHSOC 2:08:34 59:43 14:06
10 Emily Ellsworth BAOC 2:10:08 61:17 24:25
11 Weichun Fong BAOC 2:14:07 65:16 22:53
12 Raynar Malasaga CHSOC 2:18:32 69:41 10:11
13 Chris Haney BAOC 2:19:43 70:52 18:56
14 Gili Elias ASA Tel-Aviv 2:20:02 71:11 9:19
15 Noah Bean CHSOC 2:28:14 79:23 21:22
16 Kristin Bremm NAVX 2:29:46 80:55 17:03
17 Johan Grobler NAVX 2:30:01 81:10 19:00
Grooman & McHugh Group GCO DNF
DNF
= Did not finish (one or more controls
missed)
DNS
= Did not start
DSQ
= Disqualified
MSP
= Mispunched (one or more incorrect
controls)
OVT
= Overtime
RouteGadget
AttackPoint