Occoquan

As noted before, this season, registration for our Occoquan meet will be at Shelter 3 (not shelter 4 as in the last several seasons). In terms of course map scales, white will be at 1:5,000 scale and all other courses (including yellow) will be 1:7,500. Course setter Sidney Sachs set courses in the shade of the woodland part of the Occoquan map as much as possible.

If you were not at the event last year you may notice that a major construction project in the park two years ago resulted in significant modifications to the athletic fields and other open and built-up areas of the park. Most of the baseball and soccer configurations have been removed, leaving open fields, and the multi-purpose trail has been extended to form a complete loop the open fields. New parking lots and drainage infrastructure have been added. These changes are reflected on the map.

Most of Occoquan Park--both the open fields and the woodland area lying on both sides of Mordor Road--is very open and runnable. Deadfall, a big problem in other parks, is minimal in Occoquan. There were many more decayed root stocks to take off the map than there were new ones to add. The only severe undergrowth is concentrated along the sides of and between the trails in the area due north of the start. There is scattered refuse, especially around the fringes of the woodland area, that is not shown on the map.

Please conduct any road crossing with caution! Although traffic density is generally low, and speed humps are in place to restrict vehicles to 20 mph, there is always the chance of someone driving fast and not looking for runners.

This relatively small orienteering area (around 1 square kilometer) that we are using is almost never used by the general public. It is divided in the middle by a road to the Fairfax County Trash area. All courses except the beginner course will cross this road. All of our earlier events at Occoquan were on Sundays when the trash area was closed. Saturday, however, it is open and normally has a lot of traffic, mainly trucks, that must go slow (about 15 mph) because of the speed bumps. You shouldn't have trouble crossing the road but please be careful to look both way before crossing. After crossing the terrain on the east side of the road, there are no trails so pace count is highly recommend. This is one of the reasons there will be a 50 meter pace count set up near the registration area. Please also note some of the hills and re-entrants are very steep. One of the controls that I was going to place in a re-entrant is very deep so I moved it to the very top.

Please note the White course will not be completely on trails. At one point, it will go uphill 65 meters. It will be flagged with little orange flags. The next control will be along the top of the ridge line for about 200 meters. The course setter believes going along ridge line will be an easy linear feature to navigate. To help you, he suggests that you use the 50 meter pace course before starting to get your pace count. Then on the leg along the ridge line, he suggests that you count your paces to the control at the end of the leg. It should be a few steps more than four times whatever you have for a 50 meter pace count.

The Yellow course also has a control on the top of a different hill. Also several legs use other types of handrails then trails. At the ninth control be careful crossing the gully.

Occoquan Park is known for chiggers. Please protect yourself accordingly with long sleeves, long pants, repellent, vinegar or sulfur powder.