Petrified Forest Rogaines

October 8, 2017 Updates:

• Packet Pickup:
  Friday, 6:00 to 9:00 PM at the Motel 6 courtyard (See the List of Preferred Accommodations for directions to Motel 6.)
  Saturday, 7:00 - 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters
  Sunday, 7:00 - 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters
  
  
• Event Headquarters - South Entrance, Petrified Forest National Park (Directions to the Event Headquarters)
  Participants must check-in at Event Headquarters each morning between 7:00 and 8:30 AM. After check-in, we will transport all participants to the start locations. For our orienteering events this year, we are not allowed to take personal vehicles into the park. (See details below.)
  
  
• Transportation to Start/Finish Areas
  The start/finish locations of this year's events have limited parking. National park officials agreed to let us use the locations if we limited our parking in the park. We originally arranged for a single school bus and driver to transport all participants to the start/finish locations. Last Friday, the School District learned that their new insurance does not cover transportation for non-school activities. So, with one week left before our events, we had to scramble for alternatives.
  
  We will transport participants to the start/finish locations in two 14-passenger school buses. Because we have more participants than will fit in the two buses, we will have to make two trips to transport participants into the park. The first trip will leave promptly at 8:00 AM. The second trip will leave at 8:40 AM. We're sorry for the hassle, but it's the only way we're able to get everyone to/from the start/finish locations.
  
  At packet pickup, we will ask everyone to pick a time to board the buses, either 8:00 or 8:40. We ask that everyone board the buses promptly at their selected time.

DESCRIPTION:

Please join the Greater Phoenix Orienteering Club and the Tucson Orienteering Club as we present two days of orienteering events at the Petrified Forest National Park in eastern Arizona. On both Saturday, October 14 and Sunday, October 15, 2017, we will offer a 4-hour event called a "Rogaine" in which participants navigate on foot using only a map and compass to different locations within a designated area. Participants are allowed to visit as few or as many locations as they can within the 4-hour time limit.

Our orienteering events at the Petrified Forest National Park offer an excellent opportunity to practice your navigation skills while at the same time exploring an incredibly beautiful and unique National Park. The Petrified Forest National Park has offered us an excellent and rare chance to practice our sport inside a National Park. We hope you'll take the opportunity to join us and discover this amazing national treasure.

NOTES:

Pre-Registration (Event Registration) (See who is registered)
Pre-Registration is Required! The Petrified Forest National Park does not allow any money exchange within the park. In addition, there is a strict limit to the number of competitors the Park is allowing for our events. Because of this, pre-registration is required for the events using our on-line registration site.

Registration/Fees (Event Registration) (See who is registered)
Because of the pre-registration requirement, we have setup an on-line registration site to help with the registration for the Petrified Forest Rogaines. Fees for the events are set on a staggered scale to encourage you to register early. (Early registration helps when it comes to printing the maps!) The entry fees are the same for each event and are per participant. Individuals who wish to compete as part of a team still must register and pay individually. We are allowing individual participants as well as teams of 2-4 individuals. If you would like to compete as a team, we ask that you include the name of your team in the "Notes" box of the registration screen.

• Regular Registration: Register by 11:59 PM Arizona time on Sunday, October 1. The regular registration fee is $25 per person per day ($50 for two days of orienteering).
• Late Registration: Register by 11:59 PM Arizona time on Sunday, October 8. The late registration fee is $35 per person per day.
• Onsite Registration: We are unable to offer onsite registration.
  We're sorry, but in order to meet national park rules, we must close registration the weekend before the events. There is also a strict limit to the number of participants we can invite. Please help us by registering early.
• Refunds: We regret that we are unable to refund registration fees after registration is complete.
• Electronic timing:We are not using e-punch. The two events will use a manual punch system. The registration form requests that you enter an e-punch number or check a box to rent an e-punch card. Please ignore the e-punch requests on the registration form.

Parental Consent Required (Click here for more information)
All participants under age 18 are required to have a signed parental consent form on file with the club. You can complete the form before the event and either scan it and send it to us by e-mail or bring it with you to the event.

Packet Pickup
We have the following options for packet pickup:

• Friday, 6:00 to 9:00 PM at the Motel 6 courtyard (List of Preferred Accommodations).
• Saturday, 7:00 - 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters
• Sunday, 7:00 - 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters

Event Headquarters
For both day's events, the "Event Headquarters" is located just outside the south entrance to the Park, approximately 20 miles southeast of Holbrook on US 180. (Directions to the Event Headquarters).
The Event Headquarters IS NOT at the north entrance to the park along I-40!!! Participants are required to check-in at Event Headquarters each day.

Transportation to/from the Events
The logistics and park rules for this year's events requires us to transport all participants in 14-passenger buses. We have two 14-passenger buses for the transportation. Since we have more participants than will fit in the two buses, we are forced to take two trips to the start/finish areas. We apologize for the inconvenience.

At packet pickup, we will ask each participant to choose a time for transportation to the start location. The first trip on each day will leave at 8:00 AM. The second trip will leave at 8:40 AM. It takes approximately 20 minutes to reach the start locations each day. Please be ready to board the bus promptly at your selected time.

After the events are finished, we will shuttle participants back to the south entrance of the park. It will take two trips to get everyone out of the park. We again apologize for the inconvenience.

Parking Passes: Parking In the Park
Due to our agreement with the national park, participants will not drive their personal vehicles into the park for the events. You are welcome to visit the park before and/or after the events. Park entrance fees apply when you enter the park on your own.

Accommodations
There are a number of options for accommodations in the Holbrook area. The lodging options include deluxe and standard motels, RV sites, cabins, paid camping, and free camping. You can click on the List of Accommodations to see the places we have used for lodging in the past. We appreciate everything the local Holbrook businesses have done to help with our weekend of orienteering fun.

Saturday Evening Group Meal
We made arrangements for the group to eat together at the Mesa Italiana restaurant in Holbrook. Those who eat with us will order off the regular menu and pay for the meal themselves. As you can imagine, it will be easier if groups of you could pay together rather than having a bunch of individual checks. We'll leave it to you do decide how to organize into groups.

The Mesa Italian restaurant is located on the east side of Navajo Boulevard approximately 0.3 miles southwest of the Motel 6 in Holbrook. See the List of Accommodations for the location of Motel 6. We appreciate the Mesa Italiana management's willingness to provide a place for 30-50 of us to eat together. Please do whatever you can to make our visit easy for the restaurant's staff.

Map and Terrain
The map scale for both day's events is 1:15,000. The map will not use the standard brown color for "open terrain" but instead will use white (to avoid wasting ink when printing the maps). While the map will not meet the standard for high-quality orienteering maps, we promise we'll only place controls on mapped features. Please note that while the word "forest" is present in the name of the national park, those of you looking for a nice run in the forest will be disappointed. We can count on one or two hands the number of trees we walked by during course setting. The unique landscape in the Petrified Forest National Park is very rugged and very barren. You'll get to explore a badlands of rocks, gullies, cliffs, and most of all, petrified wood! We have specifically chosen sites for the controls which will take you through geologic layers with some of the heaviest concentrations of petrified wood in the park.

Course Notes

• Water: We'll have three water stations on each course. Two of the water stations will be manned by a volunteer with emergency radio communications. We want these events to be as safe as possible. We hope you'll all plan to visit our manned water stations to help keep our volunteers entertained.
• Punch System: We will use standard manual controls. This means you will record your visit to a control by punching a control card using the punch attached to the control bag. We will NOT use electronic punching. For some of you, this is a throwback into prehistoric times, which is somehow appropriate with all the petrified wood laying around you. We hope you're not too disappointed that you won't be able to use the fancy SportIdent card you just purchased.
• Map Distribution: We'll hand out maps just after the mandatory pre-race briefing at 9:10 each day. The events don't start until 9:30. We have a remote start each day which means you'll walk a short distance (500-600 meters) to get to the start line. While you have some time to look at the map and plan your route, you'll want to plan enough time to get to the start line by 9:30.

Awards/Categories
We will present awards to the top 5 finishers overall as well as the top 3 finishers in each class. Each event has a minimum of three classes of teams: Male Open, Female Open, and Mixed Open. Depending on attendance at the events, we may expand the categories to include age-groupings. For purposes of the Petrified Forest events, a "team" consists of one to four members.

SCHEDULE:

FOOD:

WHAT TO BRING:

• Whistle (Mandatory for all. Available for purchase for $1)
• Compass (Mandatory for all. Available for rent for $1)
• Water. There will be water at the start/finish. We will also have one or two water stations on the course. However, you are strongly encouraged to bring your own water bottles or a camelback.
• Sun screen. There is little or no shade on the course.
• Sturdy hiking shoes and long pants are recommended. You won't encounter a lot of vegetation but there is a fair amount of loose terrain.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Follow this hyperlink for directions to the South Entrance. The Event Headquarters are located just outside the south entrance to the park.