By Scott Aster, Course Setter (Brown & Sprint Courses), 4/26/08
This Sunday should be a great day at Indian Valley. Full course setters' notes will be available when you register, but here are some important tips for the day.
Orange course entrants only: The campus has erected a chain link construction fence across a likely route between two of your controls. This fence is not mapped. Follow the fence in either direction to get around it. Do not climb this fence!
The Brown course will definitely challenge your technical skills to a high degree, while taking it easier on the physical effort. I have kept the climb relatively low without sacrificing a tough technical course.
I have had a great deal of fun designing the Sprint course. I encourage everyone to try it, as I have wound the course rather whimsically around the map, sending you over, under, and through features normally not visited on any orienteering course. Definitely check the modifiers on your clue sheet! If you don't, you will reach several control features and not see the control!
There are few hazards at Indian Valley, and the terrain footing is pretty good. Trail running shoes should be sufficient for most people on the courses. There is some poison oak (PO) on the map, though the courses stay away from the worst of it, and what you will encounter is easy to avoid. The PO at Indian Valley grows low to the ground, from 3 inches to 24 inches high at most, and I have moved a couple controls to minimize possible contact.
I have twice now seen a rattlesnake soaking up the sun on a rock near a Brown control. He has paid no attention to me and I'm sure he would appreciate it if you don't step on him. Keep your eyes open!
Indian Valley has a couple of nice perks we don't always have at our other venues: a huge parking lot, drinking fountains, flush toilets, and access to the swimming pool's locker room and showers! There is also a large lawn area, great for picnics after your course.
One last note for the adventurous. All five courses are almost completely independent of each other as far as controls go (almost none shared between courses), a good opportunity to do more than one course, or try all five!
See you on Sunday!
Driving Directions
To get to the Indian Valley campus, take Highway 101 through Marin County to southern Novato, and exit at Ignacio Blvd. Go west on Ignacio Blvd as far as you can go, where it terminates at the College of Marin Indian Valley campus entrance. Follow the campus road to its end, and park in the huge parking lot. Registration will be next to the swimming pool—the same spot we have used in the past.