By Matteo Guareschi

Welcome to the second event in the 2026 Summer Series in toasty Diablo Valley College, this year with three new construction areas. Hopefully those will make for an even more exciting map next year.

Diablo Valley College is renowned in the Bay for its many levels (up to 4) and maze-like buildings. While we only really map two levels, I found it particularly fun that, at times, the lower level will become the upper one and vice versa. Be prepared to be on your toes!

One more clue, the campus is reasonably flat, but stairs and elevation can make a big difference in a fast Sprint. Keep an eye on the contours.

Map ↑

The map is printed at 1:3,000 scale for all the courses, and the contour interval is 10 feet.

As this is a Sprint event, we follow the IOF International Standard for Sprint Orienteering Maps (ISSprOM), including the multilevel addendum. Matej Sebo put together some helpful notes for the 2022 U.C. Berkeley event to better describe multi-level mapping.

A blue × on the map indicates a fire hydrant.

Courses ↑

Please note that for this event we give course lengths as the best-distance (optimum-route) length, not as the usual straight-line distance. (This difference is standard for Sprint events.) This effectively makes the courses shorter than usual, even though the numbers are similar.

Since this is a Sprint event, special rules apply. Be sure to read about them in the event announcement.

While not a direct subset, I have tried to keep the Short course as a best-of the Long course. It is unlikely that you would want to run a second course to look for a different challenge (but you might want to do that for more exercise or practice).

Due to the mazy and small nature of the campus, the Beginner course can be a bit harder than a normal White ("Beginner") course, but likely easier than a Yellow ("Advanced Beginner") course. The Beginner course does not require any multi-level orienteering.

The Long course will have a map flip after a few controls, and a map exchange later on. At the map flip, you can simply turn your map over (it will be printed two-sided). At the exchange, you will find a box with new maps (one-sided).

Note: The map exchange is located at a control. Do not forget to punch that control!

The Short course will have a map flip after a few controls (the map is also printed double-sided) — there is no map exchange.

The Beginner course will have a single, one-sided map (i.e., no flip or exchange).

The final course statistics are as follows:

Course      Length    Climb  Controls
Beginner    1.6 km     25 m     18  
Short       3.3 km     50 m     22   
Long        5.4 km    100 m     33

Notes:

• As noted above, the course lengths are measured along the optimum route, not the normal straight-line distances.
• This event will follow the rules for Sprint courses, which are described in the event announcement.
• Since the Long course has more than 30 controls, SPORTident fingersticks SI-Card5 (ID 1–499,999) and SI-Card8 (ID 2,000,001–2,999,999) cannot be used. High-capacity E-sticks will be available at the event.

There is no water on the course, but there are plenty of water fountains on campus — you are bound to encounter a few on your course.