Patapsco Avalon

Course notes:
The start (400m walk) is on the other side of the river from registration. All courses will cross the river. Participants are required to use either the road bridge or the swinging bridge (Red/Blue) to cross the river. Courses are set so it is logical to use the bridges.

The railroad tracks are active! Beware of trains. Red and blue courses will cross the tracks. The red course has an option of running along the tracks but this isn’t recommended. Orange, White/Yellow/Orange will use a tunnel under the tracks. Green/Brown courses are not affected by the railroad. Sometime trains park on the tracks; in the event this happens do not cut through the train - either take a tunnel under the tracks or go around the train.

White/Yellow/Orange courses use park roads. They also go through the car tunnel under the railroad which is narrow. Be careful of cars. To enforce use of the tunnel there are one or two duplicate controls on the white/yellow courses so be sure to punch them each time on your course.

All the courses are quite physical with some very long steep sections. Spiked shoes are recommended as it can get quite slick on the steep slopes.

Brown/Green/Red/Blue: Because of all the trails, the courses were not very technical. To add challenge, I removed all the footpaths and small footpaths from the maps used by the advanced courses. You will definitely see trails but without them on the map use them at your own risk. Indistinct trails and rides are still on the map. There are some odds and ends pieces of trail which may be confused with other symbols.

Red/Blue: Because the courses are on both sides the river it wouldn’t fit on a single page. There is a map on both sides of the paper.

Map Notes

• Root stocks are mostly 2+ meters tall. I updated the map and added new ones and removed the old ones so they should be fairly accurate.
• Even though it is winter, check yourself for ticks. I got one on me while vetting. No poison ivy.
• Rock: there is a lot of variation in rock. In some rock areas the rocks are quite large. The more isolated rocks tend to be smaller than a meter. If it was distinct then I mapped it.
• Rocks larger than a meter in some direction were mapped.
• Larger rocks are at least 2 meters high.
• Stony ground varies. Most rock is smaller. It is hard to see under the leaves some times.
• The woods are very open with excellent visibility. The footing can be excellent to poor. The leaves can make the footing treacherous, especially on the slopes.
• Trails: This is a heavily used park with lots of bicycles. The bikers have moved a lot of trails. I updated the ones I found but it is possible I missed a few.