Patapsco Granite

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Registration will open at 6pm on Monday April 1 and close at 12 noon on *Friday* April 5 (the day before the event). Pre-registration is mandatory.

Who's Registered? Check by clicking here.

Course notes:

Courses will close at 2pm - make sure to be back by then.

All Courses: Make sure to check control codes! In several locations on most courses, there are groups of controls quite close to each other, and only one of them will be the one on your course - so double-check the number to confirm it's the right one!

Both the White and Yellow courses have a streamered leg (from the last control to the finish) due to the absence of a path back home from the last control. The streamers consist of 1-foot long bright plastic tape that the runners can follow around some brush and then in an approximately straight line through the woods towards the last control. The open grassy field in the start area will be visible off to the right of the runners, and the woods are not dense, so there should be no need to worry about getting back home.

The White course (map scale is 1:5000) has a few short legs that are not on a path (the last couple of legs), but these occur in open areas, and should not represent major navigational challenges.

The Yellow course (map scale 1:5000) has a few legs that follow linear features through the terrain, as well as a couple of opportunities to try a short compass bearing through the woods to save distance if desired. Note that one short leg has no option to follow a linear feature, but for this leg, the target control will be hung high and visible from a ‘safe’ location. Think before you run (always a good plan), and you will be fine.

Advanced courses:
Over the past several years, the park has gradually become more overgrown with thorny patches. Recent map updates have captured this well, and the map of the southern part of the park is in good shape, but don’t be surprised if you encounter areas where the map is not fully up-to-date.

The highly invasive weed Wavy Leaf Basketgrass has spread over much of the park; at the time of writing (mid-March), the weed is still dormant, and it should not be a problem at the time of the meet. The seeds are sticky and you may find some that stick to shoes and garments. PLEASE make every effort to remove them before leaving the park to avoid spreading the plant to other areas.

Map notes from Ted Good:

1:10,000 5 meter contours. Up to date symbol set.

Trails:
- Horseback riders are major trail users. They sometimes blaze new, unmapped trails through fields or bland areas.
- Rides are mostly old trails. They can be seen on the ground but are quite overgrown. Don't rely on them for quick running.

Vegetation/terrain:
- There is little to no poison ivy.
- During spring, rough open fields are typically open and fast.
- Fight in all cases should be considered impassable.
- The rootstock threshold is 2 meters.
- Areas of thorny bushes and Greenbriar have been increasing. Individual bushes are not mapped. Where bushes start clumping together, they are mapped, either as slash or as solid green, depending on the height and density.
- Old barbed wire fences in the woods have collapsed and are being buried under the leaf clutter, so they are often hard to find.

Rocks:
- Rocks are usually 1 meter in some direction. In areas with fewer rocks, some smaller, but prominent rocks are mapped
- A triangle of three dot stony ground symbols indicates a small rock pile.
- Larger cliffs have tick marks on the symbols; smaller ones don't. In congested areas all the tick marks are left off.

Man-made features:
- Graves use the old, now non-standard, cross symbol.
- Other man made consist of old cars or junk piles.
- The buried pipeline marking poles are not mapped.
- The "Don't drink the water”-signs around the landfill are not mapped.
- There are numerous monitoring wells on the map (blue square symbol). These tend to be silver or black 4 ft high, 6 inches diameter pipes.