By Nik Weber, GCO

Arena

Event parking is in the Woodward Tahoe skate-park-complex parking lot (also Boreal Mountain ski area, Auburn Ski Club, and Bubly Tahoe Tubing — it’s a big lot), past the small kid’s skate park that is set up in the parking lot.

The Start and Finish for all the courses are located in the Donner Summit Sno Park and Pacific Crest Trail trailhead parking lot — but please do not park there. The Start is about 450 m from the northeast corner of the main parking lot (i.e., the entrance), down Boreal Ridge Road — follow the pink flagging. You will turn right into the trees shortly before the Start Area itself. Warming up should be done along the road to the Start Area — please watch for vehicles.

The walk from the Finish back to the Assembly Area is a reverse of the walk to the Start Area.

General Map Comments

The maps have the scale 1:7500. The contour interval is 5 m.

Trails

Some trails on the map are fairly indistinct, with the exception of the Pacific Crest Trail, its feeder trails, and a dirt road that goes up the ski run on the southwest edge of the map. Smaller, “narrow” trails are also intermittently indistinct when they cross bare rock — most of these spots are short and the trail can be found easily on the other side of the rock, but there are a few extended stretches that might be encountered on the advanced courses where the trail is not very identifiable. Caution should be taken in using a trail, or lack thereof, for navigation.

Vegetation

The white forest is very open and fairly runnable in spots, with widely-spaced trees and high visibility, but there is some slash that can get thick in some areas. Gaiters are recommended mostly for the fallen branches — you can get away with shorts if you don’t mind a few scratches on your shins and knees.

The “rough open with scattered trees” is also very open and runnable with widely-spaced trees. The difference from white forest is sometimes minimal, especially at the edges where the two blend together.

The dark-green and green-crosshatched areas are usually near water features, and can vary from bushes that are fairly easy to get through, to chest-high grass or other plants that would be runnable if you could see your feet, to dense bushes that are difficult to fight through. If the area is small, you can probably get through it. There might be other unmapped bushy areas, especially near bodies of water that are under the forest canopy that LIDAR might have missed.

Rock Features

Like most of the maps of the Tahoe area, in areas with few rocks almost all boulders are mapped well, and in areas with many rocks only the biggest or most distinctive are mapped. Usually “small boulders” are less than 1–2 m tall. This map has a lot of “moonscape” — bare granite expanses with scattered trees and boulders in various stages of brokenness strewn across them.

There are many boulder fields and many cliffs. Note the difference between mapped uncrossable cliffs and passable cliffs. Do not try to climb the uncrossable cliffs, and use your best judgment for the passable ones​—​please err on the side of caution.

Boulder clusters are usually piles of boulders, and boulder fields can contain multiple separate boulders too close together to map separately, or too small to really consider mappable. Any of these features around the control sites should be mapped fairly consistently, and the rock in question should be obvious in the field.

Water Features

These will probably still be pretty wet, but starting to dry out. Small seasonal streams are easily crossable, but some regular streams mapped with solid blue lines are wide and ankle deep in spots (or possibly deeper — I did not walk in them to measure). You are allowed to cross if you want. The ponds are full, and the edges should be mapped accurately. The swamps could be wet, muddy, or dry — in the spirit of being close to Nevada, deciding to run in them might be considered a crap shoot.

Finish Area

The last few controls for all the courses are fairly close together near the Finish. Make sure you read the map carefully so you do not miss any controls, especially White and Yellow runners. Each control is on a different feature, so make sure you also look at the control descriptions — don’t punch a control on a tree if your control description says rock. There is no GO control, so do not blindly punch whatever control everyone else is punching either, because the courses have different final controls. As always, be sure to verify that the control codes are correct when punching.

Out of Bounds

The shoulder of the highway is out-of-bounds, as are the rest area and associated parking lot. The road to the Start/Finish is also out-of-bounds. The ski park to the south and west is OOB as well, as it is a major mountain-bike downhill course, and they bomb down the hills and probably can’t stop very well even at the best of times.

Specific Course Comments

All Courses

Due to the fairly limited area, and somewhat restricted geography of the map, there is a shared first control for all the courses, and while the Orange and advanced courses share a final control, White and Yellow have separate final controls. So don’t be confused if you see someone coming into the Finish from a slightly different direction.

There will be no water on the courses due to the short expected finishing times. Please carry water if you feel like you will need any.

The emergency bearing is north or downhill to highway 80 and then west (turn left). Please do not walk on the highway or any entrance ramps, or the rest area or its associated parking lot.

White Course

The White course has an unusual situation due to the lack of trails. There is an out-and-back segment with a loop, so you will be passing a control on your way out that you will punch on your way back.

Note: If you happen to punch a later control on your way out by accident, it’s okay! Just make sure you punch it again on your way back, and your run will count. For example: If you punch controls 1,2,3, then you see number 8 on the trail and punch it, then realize, oops, I punched the wrong one, just keep going to 4,5,6,7, and then 8 again, then finish as usual. In this example, as long as you punch 1–8 in order, it doesn’t matter what other controls you punch in between. (If this doesn’t make sense, please ask for clarification at Registration or during the Beginner Clinic.) This White course is a little harder than a typical White, because I couldn’t put a control at every trail or road junction. Thus, careful navigation will need to be done, especially to the first control (which, remember, is shared by all the courses), and from there to the trailhead across the parking lot. Some trails are indistinct — they will be flagged with pink flagging anywhere they are overly difficult to see.

Yellow and Orange Courses

The Yellow and Orange courses are potentially a little more difficult than usual, as they utilize more linear features than just trails, but many legs also offer more off-trail choices that could reward competitors with faster times. Bring your compass and gaiters.

Yellow runners: Some of your indistinct trails might be flagged with pink flagging, while some might not. If you see flagging, you can be sure that is a trail, but your route choice might take you on trails without flagging as well.

The Orange course makes good use of catching features.

Advanced Courses

The advanced courses might be a little on the short side, but there will probably be enough slash out there to make up for it. If anyone feels like they are not tired enough at the end of the race, the control pick-up crew is always happy for more volunteers. 😉

The Brown course was split into a Short Brown and a Long Brown to allow for the range of physical abilities typical on the Brown course. If you are unsure, please contact the Registrar for help to choose which Brown course you would like to run.

Hazards

Wildlife

There isn’t much that you will come across, but there are black bears in the area that will most likely run away from you faster than you will run from them. Chipmunks and ground squirrels are everywhere, and sometimes let you get close before they startle you. Do not feed the chipmunks or ground squirrels because they can carry plague (Yersinia pestis).

Altitude

Less oxygen at 7200-feet elevation makes it harder to climb the hills and run fast. Pace yourself, especially if you are not in peak condition. You will also be closer to the sun, so you will get sunburned easily — wear sunscreen.

Drought

Please carry water if you think you might need it. You will be sweating, but won’t necessarily notice it because of the low humidity. So you might lose significant amounts of sodium, and might want to carry some kind of sports drink to counteract this.

Rocks

Watch your footing and don’t climb anything you feel uncomfortable about. There are areas on the hillside where sloped rocks are lightly covered with sand. These can twist an ankle if you are not careful. Also, on sloped rocks, watch for stepping on sticks that will roll from under your feet (or at least make sure your kids aren’t around to video you for their TikTok channel).

Vegetation

There is no poison oak, and few plants with thorns, but gaiters are a good idea anyway, because there are a lot of sticks and low bushes.

Course Statistics

Lastly, here are the details of the courses:

    Course        Length    Climb  Controls  Navigation
    White         1.5 km     30 m      8     Beginner  
    Yellow        1.5 km     40 m      9     Adv. Beginner
    Orange        2.4 km     85 m      9     Intermediate  
    Short Brown   1.6 km     40 m      8     Advanced  
    Long Brown    2.1 km     50 m      9
    Green         2.9 km    110 m     12
    Red           3.5 km    125 m     15
    Blue          4.3 km    175 m     17

Beginners should be aware that the distances shown are the cumulative straight-line distances between controls. The climb numbers represent the amount of ascending that would be done on the "optimum route" (in the Course Setters' opinion), without regard for any descending. Because you won't travel in straight lines, and might not follow the optimum routes, your actual distance and climb will be somewhat more than what is shown above, and will depend on your route choices (and any errors you make).