Map linkRed course at Mississippi Bar. This was a GCO event at a park next to the Sacramento River, and the terrain was defined by gold-rush era activity: massive piles of rounded, football-sized stones littered the area. Those cobblestones were slow to run on, but the huge expanses of cobblestones also had a multitude of knolls, depressions, fine re-entrants, and winding ridgelines. Apart from Vasquez Rocks and possibly Anza Borrego, I don't think I've seen terrain this intricate anywhere in California.
The course began with some typical Bay Area hills on #1, #2, #3, and #4, and followed it up with some trail-running/compass legs to #5 and #6. #7 was where the real fun started, as the course headed straight through the heart of an intricate, surreal landscape defined by nothing but cobblestones. I'll admit I "cheated" and used the dark green areas to approach #8 and #9, taking compass headings off my last known point and hitting both controls pretty much straight-on. I tried to read the contours to #10 and barely missed the control to the left; fortunately it was visible from the back side of the knoll.
#11 was about getting out of the cobbles as fast as possible; I bailed south to the indistinct trail, which I followed northeast to just above the control for an easy attack. For #12, I followed the cobblestone fields south of the forest, which were ironically more passable than the forest itself. At the tip of the gully, I veered northeast towards the control. To #13, I took no chances and bailed due west to the trail, avoiding the green entirely. The area around #14 was mismapped, with multiple thickets north of the control, but fortunately the bag itself was relatively visible.
To #15, I ran past the two steep knolls to approach it from the south, and for #16, I decided to take the southern route along the field instead of risking going straight through the cobblestones. My one mistake of the day came on #17, where I was initially looking for the control at the base of the hill, west of the actual location, in some unmapped thickets.
This was truly amazing terrain, as well as a rare chance to experience 2.5 meter contours in the Bay Area!