Calero County Park
Date: (Sun.) Sep. 24, 2017
Location: San Jose, CA
Event Director: 
- 408.599.9709
Course Setters: Tapio Karras, Anastasiya Gordeeva
Type: B; Regular 7-course B-meet with courses for beginners through advanced
Course Setters' Notes
By Tapio Karras and Anastasiya Gordeeva
Join us as we return to beautiful Calero Park for our annual "B" event. This year, in addition to the regular seven courses (White through Blue), we also offer a shorter and less physical Brown-Y course. Here are the course statistics:
Water Navigational Terrain, Physical
Course Length Climb Controls Stops Difficulty Difficulty
White 3.4 km 105 m 11 1 Beginner Trails, Easy
Yellow 3.1 km 145 m 10 1 Adv. Beginner Mostly Trails, Easy
Orange 3.1 km 215 m 11 2 Intermediate Off-trail, Hard
Brown-Y 2.1 km 145 m 8 1 Advanced Off-trail, Moderate
Brown-X 3.3 km 215 m 12 1 Advanced Off-trail, Moderate
Green 4.7 km 310 m 13 2 Advanced Off-trail, Hard
Red 5.7 km 410 m 16 2 Advanced Off-trail, Very Hard
Blue 7.0 km 500 m 18 2 Advanced Off-trail, Very Hard
Important! Everybody must check in at the assembly area and download their E-stick by 2:00 PM whether they finish their course or not. This way we know that you have returned and do not initiate a search for you.
Park Directions
The event assembly area is at the usual McKean Entrance Picnic Area in Calero County Park. Because everyone uses GPS for driving directions these days, we will only have one orange/white orienteering directional sign at the junction of McKean Road and the park entrance, about a half mile SE of the Bailey Road junction and about 1.3 miles SE of the Calero Reservoir Boat Launch. For GPS navigation, the address is 23205 McKean Road, San Jose. (The approximate coordinates are 37.174928,-121.761078.)
Start and Finish Location
The Start and Finish are both short walks from the parking and assembly area. Proceed 550 meters following streamers on the trail that enters the park directly opposite the assembly area until you see the Start area.
General Information
With the dry weather, the matted grasses, fallen leaves, and loose soils can be slippery. Please be careful. We recommend O-shoes or cleats on the intermediate (Orange) and advanced (Brown through Blue) courses, and shoes with good traction for the Yellow course.
There is a moderate amount of poison oak in the park. It is very dry this time of year, which will reduce the risk of getting an allergic reaction. But without leaves, poison oak can be hard to identify. If you have doubts, we recommend that you wash with something like Tecnu (or dish soap) as soon as possible after the event to remove the irritating oils.
Because of the wet winter, star thistle and other burrs and stickers are thriving this year. We highly recommend long pants and gaiters on all the courses except White.
While course setting, we encountered several rattlesnakes, so you should watch out for them, too.
Course Notes
Calero is very hilly and the course climb statistics are high, even though we have tried to keep the climb to a minimum. We have compensated for the climb by making the courses shorter. Still, we expect the winning times to be at the upper end of the OUSA standards.
The advanced courses include a mix of long and short legs, with the emphasis on both route choice and execution. We hope you find the courses challenging and fair.
All the controls are on well-defined point features. Two of the controls are on metal posts with small signs. These man-made features appear as a black × both on the map and on the control description.
Runners on the Red and Blue courses will encounter at least one barbed-wire fence, which is ruined and potentially hard to see. We have marked an obvious crossing point with streamer tape. Please be vigilant and look for unmarked fences, and take care when crossing any fence.
Map
The maps are printed at a 1:10,000 scale with 25-foot (~7.5 m) contour intervals. Control descriptions are printed on the front of the maps.
Because of the 25-foot contour intervals, there is some loss of detail in the contour information. Contours do not show the deeply eroded reentrants that can make contouring difficult, particularly on the lower portions of the hillsides.
The map uses a "green T" symbol to mark fallen trees. The symbol is oriented to point in the direction of the fallen tree trunk. You will find this useful in identifying down trees. Note that the "green T" symbol has a fixed size, thus it only indicates the direction of the trunk, not its length. For standing stumps and dead trees, the map uses a "green ×" symbol.
On the control descriptions, both fallen trees ("green T") and standing stumps/dead trees ("green ×") appear as a lone tree modified by the ruined symbol. Standing stumps/dead trees also have their height indicated to distinguish them from fallen trees.
Note that many of the mapped fallen/dead trees have continued to rot since the map was produced, and might not be as obvious as you would expect. Also, vegetation boundaries continue to change, and might not always match accurately what is on the map.
Interestingly, we have discovered a lot of streamer tapes and flags in the woods. We are not sure of their purpose, but they seem to indicate animal trails.
We hope you enjoy the courses!
Your Calero event team,
- Werner Haag, Event Director
- Tapio Karras, Course Setter
- Anastasiya Gordeeva, Course Setter