By Nick Corsano
There are only two things to be doing on a rainy, chilly day like yesterday: sitting home by the fire, or running through a redwood forest. Sixty-plus folks chose the second option, and showed up at our event in beautiful Huddart Park on the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. We had everyone from pre-schoolers in their rain slickers (who had more fun than anybody) to senior citizens.
It was the first club event at Huddart in over four years, and the first in many more years where we were allowed to run off-trail, albeit in limited numbers. With the support of ranger Pam Noyer, the county park management agreed to allow thirty people on intermediate and advanced courses. As a result, people had to reserve spots on these courses, and that definitely kept the number of club regulars down.
This was also meet number 3 of season number 3 of the (youth) BAOC California Outdoor Orienteering League (COOL). There was a respectable turnout of about a dozen COOL competitors, and several other youngsters in family groups.
The White, Yellow, and Orange courses were set in the eastern part of the park, which features lots of trails, a mix of forest types and relatively benign slopes. A few Orange legs (3, 7, 9) were designed to offer route-choice problems appropriate to the intermediate skill level. Brown and Green made a loop into the lower section of the park before abruptly veering back towards the wilder and steeper western part of the park. The common 750-m leg 5 was the centerpiece of both courses, and offered three distinct route choices: the upper route along the paved road, the lower route on the fire road along the creek, and the middle route along the trail back toward the Start. Matthias and I discussed these alternatives at length. I am convinced that the lower route is the best, but I decided to be conservative and add the 20 extra meters of climb associated with the upper route to the statistics for the two courses. I am eager to see people's choices on RouteGadget.
Many volunteers contributed to the success of the event. I am sincerely grateful to all of these people (and anybody who I may have missed):
Matthias Kohler – Course setter and assistant director
Greg Favor – Course setter and vetter
Kent Ohlund – Course consultant
Steve Haas – Vetter
Brad Wetmore – Insurance
Chuck Spalding – Website updates
Danielle Bonequi and Terry Farrah – Loan of shelters
Jean and Ev Beuerman – Registration
Mark Blair – E-punch and results
Rosemary Johnson – E-punch assistant
Pierre Delforge – Setup
Esther Heller, George Minarik, Nancy Lindeman – Starts
John Marold – Finish
Werner Haag, Dan Greene – Beginners' clinics
Angela Hunter – Cleanup
Joe Maffei, Marina Keating, Wayne Caplinger, Steve Harrison – Control pickup
Finally, thank you to Ranger Noyer, whose support made this event possible. Let's hope we can come back to Huddart next year with fewer constraints.
Lost & Found
Found: A blue U.C. Irvine water bottle. Let me know if it's yours, and we will try to reunite you.
– Nick
RouteGadget