Fountainhead

White and yellow maps will be printed at a scale of 1:5,000; all other maps will be 1:10,000.

The park is, as it has been from the beginnings of orienteering in the area, a fine sample of spur and reentrant terrain with generally open, runnable woods. Somewhat steep, as reflected in the climb numbers for several courses, but not outlandishly so. Visibility not as high right now with leaves on as at some times of the year but still fairly good - hark back in memory to our event last September rather than the one in January and your expectations should be well calibrated.

The map, dating back to our national meet in autumn of 2014, is holding up well so far though all, at least all running orange or advanced courses, should keep in mind that new root stocks can pop up anywhere at anytime and that knolls, cairns and boulders on the map may all be somewhat smaller than strict compliance with ISOM permits . White and yellow participants shouldn't encounter any major changes in the terrain from what is on the map. All other courses are likely to encounter a short section of the Bull Run Occoquan Trail that has been rerouted - where it used to climb straight up the nose of a spur, it now climbs up a broader, adjacent spur by making a couple of switchbacks. The new section of trail has not been accurately surveyed but has been sketched in on the competition maps using a dashed magenta line (the marked route symbol). Ultralong participants (perhaps others too but they were only seen during course design in areas visited only by the UL course) are likely to see some temporary hunters stands (metal ladders capped with seats and strapped to trees with several loops of webbing) which have not been added to the map, as well as at least one new unmapped trail that, while not extremely distinct on the ground, has been blazed with frequent patches of blue paint on trees near eye level.

Some courses have plausible routes along roads or the edges of parking lots and the UltraLong course requires two crossings of the park entrance road. Please exercise appropriate caution when running across or along roads and other paved areas where cars may be lurking.

Please also make every effort to stay out of out-of-bounds areas depicted on the map, including the archery area, the mountain bike trails, and areas outside the park boundaries.