Photo gallery image (click to enlarge)

Burton Creek State Park

Event #5 of 6 in the BAOC 2024 Summer Series

Date: (Sat.) Aug. 3, 2024
Location: Tahoe City, CA
Event Directors: - 415.531.3627, - 415.309.1853
Course Setter: Derek Maclean
Type: C; This is the fifth event of the 2024 Summer Series. Everyone is welcome, including beginners, with free short clinics to explain orienteering.

Related Event Information

2024 Summer Series Event Announcement


Course Setter’s Notes

By Derek Maclean

Welcome to the beautiful, runnable forests of Burton Creek, which were last used for the U.S. Club Relay Championships during the Tahoe 2021 multi-day event. This time, the fifth event in BAOC’s 2024 Summer Series will challenge those more used to typical Bay Area terrain, while acting as a warm-up to Sunday’s National Ranking Event (NRE) at Little Truckee Summit.

We will be using the eastern part of the Burton Creek map, which is never more than about 1 km from North Tahoe High School. All the courses start and finish close to the school. There may be about a 200–400 m walk to the Start depending on the status of ongoing construction work around the school. The Finish is close to the assembly area and parking.

Note that starts will remain open until 1:30 (not the normal 12:30), and that everyone must return to the Finish by 3:00 (not the normal 2:00).

Courses

The following courses will be available: 

    Course     Length    Climb  Controls
    Beginner   2.4 km     40 m      8  
    Short      3.6 km     50 m     13  
    Long       5.6 km     70 m     13

Notes:
  • Please follow the marked route when walking to the Start.
  • Maps for the Beginner course are given out at registration, and can be looked at before starting the course.
  • Maps for the Short and Long courses are provided at the Start, and must not be looked at before starting the course.

The Beginner course is between the White and Yellow standards of technical difficulty, making use of the extensive trail network. Map reading will help you choose the right trail routes, and to find control locations up to 50 m off-trail.

The Short and Long courses have advanced technical difficulty, and almost entirely involve cross-country navigation (i.e., off trails). Those courses will be the ranking courses for the respective Summer Series.

Keep in mind that you can earn Summer Series points from the first course you run at the event, and only if it's one of the ranking courses. That is, you will not earn points if you run the Beginner course first, and then one of the ranking courses.
Intermediate-level (Orange-course) competitors may find the Short course to be a step up from the typical Bay Area Orange technical level. However, there is an extensive network of trails and other catching features to avoid large errors, and many legs are relatively short to reduce reliance on longer compass work compared to the Long course.

Map

The following notes regarding the map are mainly relevant to the Short and Long courses.

Maps for the Beginner and Short courses are printed at 1:7,500 map scale. The map for the Long course is printed at 1:10,000 scale. The contour interval is 5 m, with selected intermediate 2.5 m "form lines" added in places to better indicate certain land forms.

The topography is more subtle than in many BAOC parks, with a maximum elevation difference of only 75 m across the map. Navigation can be tricky in flat areas, and careful compass work and estimation of distance (e.g., pace counting) will be more useful here than is typical in the Bay Area.

The mapped area is almost entirely runnable forest (white) with many open/semi-open clearings (yellow or white/yellow). The map shows a lot of vegetation detail, but this has become less useful for navigation due to ongoing forest management, including tree felling and varying treatment of forest debris. There are few mapped thickets, and variable growth has made them not very reliable for precise navigation. The map has several symbols to indicate trees or bushes of different sizes. Larger green circles or ×s represent larger copses or lone trees; a medium or small green dot shows a medium/small tree/bush. These distinctions appear to be less useful than when the map was last updated, but do give a sense of the feature. Vegetation boundaries are never distinct, but indications of vegetation density provide a guide for ease of passage. Only distinct vegetation features are used for controls.

The 2021 map shows large areas of vertical green lines indicating "slash" — debris from forest management that slows running. These areas have mostly been cleaned up, greatly improving runnability, but leaving many piles of log debris throughout the "slash" areas. You may also encounter these debris piles in other areas where trimming and clearing occurred subsequent to 2021. Sometimes these piles can make it more challenging to see boulders and other features, as the log piles are numerous, and often resemble large rocks.

Boulders are by far the most common feature used for controls. The map shows hundreds of them. Those greater than 1 m in height are typically shown. In some areas there are also quite a few unmapped boulders of smaller size. There are also areas of "boulder clusters" or "rocky ground" that can be quite extensive — they comprise larger or smaller rocks, respectively, but are typically less than 1 m high.

Hazards

You can celebrate the absence of poison oak at this altitude!

However, you should be aware of the possibility of (fast-moving) mountain bikes on the trails.

There will be one water stop on the Short and Long courses, but none on the Beginner course. Considering the dryness at this altitude, and the expected temperature on the day, you should think about whether or not you'll want to carry water on your course.