Petrified Forest Rogaines
2023

EVENT DETAILS

Update: Monday, October 9, 2023
Event Headquarters: Rainbow Forest Museum Parking Lot (inside the park)
The event headquarters are inside the park. There is a fee to enter the park. "America the Beautiful" and other national park passes are accepted. Click here for more information. Please consider carpooling to minimize the cost to enter the park.

Early Packet Pickup: Friday, October 13, Travelodge Motel, Holbrook, AZ.

Update: Wednesday, October 11, 2023 Updates:

• Packet Pickup:
  Friday, 6:00 to 8:00 PM at the Travelodge Motel in Holbrook (See the List of Preferred Accommodations for directions to the Travelodge Motel.)
  Saturday, 8:00 - 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum)
  Sunday, 8:00 - 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum)
  


• Event Headquarters - Rainbow Forest Museum, Inside the South Entrance, Petrified Forest National Park
  (Directions to Rainbow Forest Museum)
  
  • Participants must check-in at Event Headquarters each morning between 8:00 and 8:30 AM.
  • The pre-race briefing, including map distribution, starts promptly at 8:45 AM.
  • We will transport participants to the start location immediately after the pre-race briefing.
  • On Saturday, the remote start is located at the bus drop-off point.
  • On Sunday, the start is near the event headquarters at the Rainbow Forest Museum.
  • Note: Portable toilets are available at the Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum). No camping is available inside the national park. See the List of Accommodations for information about camping and other lodging possibilities in the Holbrook area.
  • We will have an emergency portable camp toilet available at the start locations. We will not provide a full port-a-jon at the start locations. We highly recommend you take care of business at the portable toilet at the Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum).


• Transportation to Event Start Locations
  
  • The start/finish locations for Saturday's event has no parking for participants. We will use two 14-passenger school buses to transport participants from the event headquarters to the start location.
  • The pre-race briefing, including handing out maps, starts promptly at 8:45 AM at Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum).
  • On Saturday, the first trip to the start location will leave immediately after the pre-race briefing. We're sorry for any inconvenience. It's the only way we're able to get everyone to the start location.
  • Note: If necessary, we will make multiple trips to transport all participants to the start locations. If we're not able to fit all participants into one trip, we'll take a second trip to the start location. If a second trip is necessary, we may have to arrange for a second mass start.
  • On Sunday, the start location is near the location of the pre-race briefing.


• Saturday Night Meal
  

  We have arranged for a meal at the El Rancho restaurant in Holbrook. We'll meet at the restaurant at 6:00 PM. We have arranged for people to order off the menu and to pay with separate checks. Please let us know if you plan to join us for the meal.

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, 2023, 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: (Pre-Register ), (Reg List ) 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 Because of the pre-registration requirement, we use 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 7. The regular registration fee is $30 per person per day. A $5 discount each day is applied if you register for both days ($50 for both days.)
• Late Registration: Register by 11:59 PM Arizona time on Wednesday, October 11. The late registration fee is $40 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 must complete the form before the event and either scan it and send it to us by e-mail or regular mail.

Packet Pickup

• Friday, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM outside the Travelodge Motel (List of Preferred Accommodations)
  
• Saturday, 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum)
  
• Sunday, 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM at Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum)
  

EVENT HEADQUARTERS

The Event Headquarters IS NOT at the Visitor Center. Instead, the event headquarters is located at the Rainbow Forest Museum, just inside the south entrance to the park. We will conduct a pre-event briefing each day at 8:45 sharp, followed immediately by bus transport to the start location (Saturday only). Please plan your travel time accordingly.

Carpool to the Events
Because of the fee required to enter the Petrified Forest National Park, we suggest participants find a way to carpool into the park. We'll provide further details at least one week prior to the events. We suggest that participants arrange to meet outside the south entrance to Petrified Forest National Park, then carpool to the Event Headquarters (Rainbow Forest Museum). There is plenty of parking just outside the south entrance to the park. There is a fee to enter the park. "America the Beautiful" and other national park passes are accepted. Click here for more information. If you carpool, you can save on the entrance fee.

ACCOMMODATIONS

There are a number of options for accommodations in the Holbrook area. The lodging options includes 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.

RESTROOMS

Portable toilets are available at the event headquarters at the Rainbow Forest Museum. On Saturday, we'll provide an emergency camp toilet at the start location. On Sunday, the start is near the Rainbow Forest Museum. There is a restroom available each day at the finish. Please note that the terrain throughout the national park is barren. There aren't many places to find privacy.

MAP AND TERRAIN

The map scale for both day's events is 1:15,000. The maps do not use the standard brown color for "open terrain" but instead use white (to avoid wasting ink when printing the maps). While the maps do not meet the standard for high-quality orienteering maps, we promise we'll only place controls on easy-to-see mapped features. For those of you who love running in the forest, you've come to the wrong place! 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. You will NOT be disappointed!

COURSE NOTES

• Water: We'll have one water/aid station on each course. The stations will be manned by a volunteer with radio communications back to the finish location. We want these events to be as safe as possible. We hope you'll all plan to visit our manned water station to help keep our volunteer 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 at the mandatory pre-race briefing at 8:45 each day. On Saturday, we'll then transport participants to the start location. By handing out maps before the bus trip, we're helping to ensure you don't bother us during the drive to the start location. The start locations each day are near transportation stops, so you don't have to factor in additional time for hiking to the start. The mass start begins each day at 9:30 AM pile-poil.

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:

Schedule details will appear here at least one week prior to the event dates.

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: