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Evergreen Valley College

Event #3 of 6 in the BAOC 2026 Summer Series

Date: (Sat.) Jul. 11, 2026
Location: San Jose, CA
Event Directors: - 707.567.3496,
Course Setter: Werner Haag
Type: C; 2026 Summer Series event #3: beginner course and two Summer Series courses; beginners and non-members welcome; free beginner instruction available; participation in other Summer Series events is not required (DATE CHANGED FROM JUNE 27!)

Course Setter's Notes

By Werner Haag

This is an open campus, and the courses wind through the campus, the adjacent county park, and possibly urban development. Much of the Long course and some of the Short course is on dirt paths or softer terrain. School is not in session, so I expect the campus to be mostly empty. Nevertheless, please be courteous to any pedestrians, and slow to a walk if you are in a building courtyard, hallway, or canopy.

Courses

The course details are below. (The Short course has gained 0.1 km and 1 control from the previous stats.)

    Course      Length   Climb  Controls
    Beginner    1.5 km    30 m     10  
    Short       3.2 km    55 m     19  
    Long        5.1 km    90 m     25

Course Comments

Map: We have a new ISSprOM¹ map, thanks to Misha Kreslavsky. The contour interval is 2.5 m. The scale is 1:2500 for the Beginner course. The scale is 1:4000 for the Long and Short courses, with one (complicated) two-level building complex magnified (scale TBD) on the back side of the map. The map is rotated 30 degrees from magnetic north for ease of printing — that is, the edges of the map are not parallel to magnetic north-south.

A newly-mapped area will be used for the Long course. (If all goes well this year, we plan to have the Short course visit the newly-mapped area next year.)

Control Flags: Many control punches will be on traffic cones, per EVC permit requirements. Many of them will not have an actual O' flag, but will simply be a blue E-punch unit taped to the top of a bright orange cone (e.g., something like this (https://baoc.org/wiki/images/c/c1/Control_on_Cone.png)).

Poison Oak: None on the Beginner course. There is possible exposure at one control on the Short course, and at several controls on the Long course.

Roads: You will be crossing roads on campus, which generally have very little traffic. Nevertheless, please use caution. See the special notes below for required road crossings on the Long course.

Terrain: Mixed pavement/buildings with considerable dirt paths or unpaved terrain on the Short and Long courses, Some short but steep hillsides are possible route choices, so soft cleats are recommended (hard cleats are not permitted in the campus). Some areas are grassy with stickers, so ankle gaiters are a good idea. Short pants are probably OK for those not susceptible to poison oak.

Water: The only water provided on the courses will be at control #16 on the Long course — there will be none on the other courses. You might find a few working drinking fountains on the campus proper (but they are not shown on the map). (On the Short course, there are working water fountains between controls 15 and 16 if you can find them.) Consider carrying water if you expect to be out for more than 45 minutes, or if it's hot when you start.

Doors: It is illegal to open or pass through any doorway to enter a building, whether the door is open or not. Fence gates that are standing open are OK to pass through.

Olive Green: Any area with this color is strictly out of bounds, and should not be crossed even if is physically possible. Generally, these areas are fenced in and inaccessible anyway, except for housing developments on the edges of the map.

Two-Level Mapping

All the courses enter two-level mapped areas, and utilize the unique mapping of those areas, so all participants should familiarize themselves with the information below.

1) Map areas that are accessible at two levels are mapped (according to ISSprOM) with the upper level shown by cross-hatching of white and the upper-level map color. Cross-hatched areas can be passed at both lower and upper levels (except for white/dark-grey hatched areas, which are described below). The areas with hatching indicate the existence of a lower level, and the color of the hatching describes the upper-level. For example, the enlarged map segment at the right shows a bridge over areas of road, clearing, and forest — none of which are mapped under the white-cross-hatched paved bridge.

2) Black triangular "teeth" indicate where the lower level can be accessed (e.g., along the sides of the bridge).

3) Black square-dotted lines are walls at the lower level that cannot be crossed at the lower level. However, it might be possible to cross those lines at the upper level (e.g., the two-square-dots line at the NE end of the bridge), but not if there is a solid line next to the square-dotted line, which indicates there is also a wall at the upper level (e.g., the building walls at the SW end of the bridge). Note that the square-dotted lines are the only features that are mapped at the lower level, beneath an upper level.

4) Dark-grey buildings cannot be accessed at any level, even if the boundary is a square-dotted line.

5) A paved square/rectangular area in the middle of a building complex is at the lower level if there are black triangular "teeth" marks entering the adjacent canopy, and is at the upper level if no black triangular "teeth" marks are shown. (A sample map below shows examples of both situations.)

6) Paved hallways without black triangular "teeth" marks and blocked by square-dotted lines can be entered only at the upper level. They are inaccessible at the lower level. (There is an example in the sample map below.)

7) A picture of a two-level area is given on the right, with the photographer standing on the upper level. It appears that the upper level has a canopy above it (which would cause the upper level to be mapped as white/light-grey hatched). But the ceiling of the upper level is open to the air, so that ceiling is considered to not exist. Therefore, in this case, the upper level is considered simply a paved path, and thus would be mapped with white/pavement-color hatching. Some of the EVC campus buildings do indeed have canopies on top of upper levels, and these are mapped as white/light-grey hatched (e.g., see a map segment below).

8) Further confusion is caused by the distinction between light-grey and dark-grey cross hatching, which are difficult to distinguish on the map. Light-grey hatching indicates there is a canopy over the upper level. Dark-grey hatching indicates that the upper level is a building, which can be passed only underneath (i.e., because the upper level cannot enter a building) — an example would be a parking garage under a building. Both such areas exist on the EVC map. The solid right-angle circled in red in the right-hand picture indicates a wall on the upper level that cannot be passed, but the hatching indicates it can be passed underneath on the lower level, below the dark-grey hatched and pavement-color hatched areas (note that there is no square-dotted line inside the red circle "blocking" the lower level).

9) The Control Descriptions for two-level areas use the "upper" and "lower" descriptors to indicate the level the control is on. For example, in the control descriptions at the right, Control 32 is on the lower level at the south corner of the pavement, and Control 42 is on the upper level at the west corner of the building. Control 59 (stairs) uses the "underneath" description, because stairs are not mapped as two-level areas.

We are trying to follow ISSprOM to give BAOC members practice in reading Sprint maps. ISSprOM is, euphemistically, "not crystal clear" for two-level mapping. Please don't shoot the mappers or course-setter.

Another Sample Map Segment

Now that you understand the map symbols (😉), consider the enlarged map segment at the right that shows a two-level building. The blue lines show access on the lower level and the red lines show access on the upper level (those lines are not on the real map). As described above, the black triangular "teeth" marks indicate where the lower level can be accessed, and the square-dotted lines indicate walls at the lower level (which can be crossed at the upper level).

Finally, don't worry too much, because there aren't many controls that need this two-level detail, and you will be able to let your legs run free in the open air on much of your course.

Special Information for the Long Course

The Long course will enter a newly-mapped area south of Yerba Buena Road.

Crossing Points: There are two required crossing points to enter and leave this area. Please use extreme caution when crossing. I expect to have a crossing guard at the entry point, but if none is available, be sure to push the pedestrian-crossing button to initiate the yellow flashing crossing lights.

At the first crossing point, competitors must stop running, push the crossing-light button, check for traffic, and when it is safe, proceed as quickly as they like to cross. There is not much traffic at this light, so the wait times should not be more than several seconds. The road itself is out of bounds except for the crossing — immediately after the crossing it is a OK to run along the road in the bike lane for about 40 meters up to the south-side navigation entry point where the out-of-bounds marks have been removed. The remainder of Yerba Buena Road is out of bounds, and must not be crossed or run on except for the second crossing point described below.

There are no other locations where running on a road would be useful or near the course, except in on-campus parking lots and roads, which should be essentially free of traffic on event day.

The return crossing has about a 2-minute minimum time. It is at a major intersection and competitors must stop running, push the crossing button, wait for the pedestrian light to show "go", and then cross the road. There are controls shortly before and after this crossing, and E-Punch will assess a 1:50 minimum leg time, regardless of how fast you actually are. The maximum wait time for the pedestrian traffic light is about 1:20, plus about 15 seconds going to and from the crossing on either side, so there is no benefit to rushing through before the signal allows. If the light turns to "go" quickly, you might as well take a 1:20 minute breather, just like those who need to wait for the light. However, if you are extremely slow, and your time exceeds 1:50, your actual time will be used for that leg, so do not dally too long after crossing.

Deep Gully: The area south of Yerba Buena Road parallels a deep gully that is mostly uncrossable, but becomes crossable at the far east and west ends. The uncrossable section is marked with a thick contour-colored line, while the crossable sections are indicated with a standard thin blue stream line. The stream bed should be almost completely dry by the time of the event, and in these sections it is somewhat runnable and a possible route choice. Please use appropriate caution when approaching the gully as it can be quite deep and hazardous. Some controls are placed close to, but at a safe distance from the edge.

Mapper's Comments

By Misha Kreslavsky

In the Notes above, Werner mentioned "a new map". Technically, it is the old map. I did almost no field work: I took a very brief tour between the buildings in the campus center, and spent half an hour checking the two-level building together with Werner. I did a few things to the old map:

1. I formally converted it to the Sprint map standard (aka ISSprOM 2019-2).
2. I replaced the contours with better ones from the 2020 lidar survey. There was substantial construction and terraforming on the campus after 2020, which made some of the 2020 contours wrong. I fixed a few places, but there are still some wrong contours between the buildings.
3. I edited a few places to make the map neater and more accurate, including the two-level building. Werner made many improvements, and added a new part of the map south of Yerba Buena Road.

In summary, the map is better than it was last year, but still not as accurate and detailed as a Sprint map should be (for example, the Presidio Bonus Sprint map (https://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=580), or the DVC map (https://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=581), or the U.C. Berkeley map (https://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=542)). I'm sorry I could not spend more time on it.

Regarding the two-level building: Werner wrote "ISSprOM is, euphemistically, 'not crystal clear' for two-level mapping." I'd put this differently. ISSprOM is logical and universal. But when applied to two-level buildings, it is absolutely not intuitive. Tunnels and underground crossings come out nicely in Sprint maps. Two-level buildings, however, are mapped as if they were a very complex terrain (in some places the surface is at the 2nd floor, while in others it is at the 1st floor) with a network of tunnels. Every time I look at that building on the map, I see a new minor mistake in my mapping...

In conclusion, one more quote from the Course Setter's Notes above: "Please don't shoot the mappers or course setter."

See you at EVC!

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¹ ISSprOM = International Specification for Sprint Orienteering Maps (which is available here [8.0MB PDF]). A one-page list of Sprint map symbols is available here (PDF/600KB).