Clopper Lake

New areas have been mapped. The Blue, Red and Green courses go into them. A large area in the far southwest for the Red and Blue courses was mapped with the green symbol, due to tree blowdown. Two large rough open fields that Red and Blue runners may choose to cross do have thorns—these are mapped with the vertical green slash symbol.
Many parts of the map have changed and have been updated.
The White and Yellow courses go off trail. Both follow along Great Seneca Creek. The Yellow course goes further off trail along a field edge for high tension power lines. Most of the off trail travel has excellent visibility. Some intermittent fishing trails can be followed along the creek banks. The White course finishes off-trail following an uphill route away from the creek and back to the Finish that is marked by streamers.
The crossing symbol is used to show crossing points both under and over Great Seneca Highway.
Depending on route choices, Orange and all of the advanced courses may encounter sewer line and water management construction. What’s known of the construction as of this writing has been mapped. A sort of temporary road bed made of boards, and surrounded by chain link fencing runs through most of the Long Draught stream valley. This will slow runners who try to cross it. Some areas of the map have been marked out of bounds for the construction (2 areas fenced off near Riffleford Rd.). The vertical black slash symbol shows the out of bounds areas but one may need to look carefully to see it on the map. A water control near Riffleford Rd. is very close to some of the out-of- bounds fencing too.
Over the winter, the park has been dry. Some of the mapped water features may be dry.
As if to make up for the dryness, beavers have continued damming parts of Long Draught Creek. The pond from the dam erected just before the event last year has grown, and a new dam further upstream has been mapped with a similar long narrow pond.
Though not typically in this park any more than any other park that QOC conducts events in, ticks are active. Checking yourself after competing is a good precaution.
The park service once again did spring cleaning-up by using tractors to push brush back further into the edges of the forest and they even cleared some trees in one area. The new clearing was mapped but it may change further.
Most advanced courses and Orange course runners to a lesser extent, will cross a disc golf course. Orienteers are asked to respect the disc golfers’ use of the area. Some serious golfers enthusiastically regard it as their own—they manicure the vegetation and play it in 6 inch deep snow on windy 14 F days. Prize money competitions are held. Orienteers crossing the disc golf course should keep a lookout for flying discs, and are asked to pause when a golfer is taking a shot. Please remember that complaints could lead to QOC not being allowed to cross the area in the future. That would be a shame since the open and scattered open ground there is delightful for running. The disc golf course holes do get moved occasionally so it is possible for point features to be out of date. Many, but not all of the immovable concrete tee-off pads were mapped too.
Green, Red, and Blue course runners will have to cross Riffleford Rd. twice. Riffleford road is single lane each direction and has good paved shoulders that are sometimes used for parking. The traffic on it is usually infrequent but cars do drive 40mph in the area. Caution is needed. Even though competitors will be on the clock, one can usually run along the road when cars are present, then cross when there is a break in the traffic.
The main trail on the southwest side of the road is used by mountain bikers.