• Heaton Park Details v1

Safety

This is a night event in Winter and the weather may be changeable. Therefore, you may be required to carry or wear a hooded waterproof jacket.

A back-up lamp and whistle are compulsory. 

Carrying a mobile phone is strongly recommended.

Location

Nearest town: Prestwich, North Manchester

• Grid Ref: SD830045
• Postcode: M25 2SW
• Latitude: 53.53808
• Longitude: -2.25768
• Google Map
• Streetmap (OS 50k)
• Bing Map (OS 50k)
• OpenStreetMap

Directions / Parking

Heaton Park Hall Car Park off St Margarets Road, off A665, south of M60 Junction 17.

Signed from St Margarets Road.

From Junction 17, turn North towards Bury and then immediately right to the A665 where you turn right onto the A665 (Bury Old Road) and back over the motorway.

St Margarets Road is on the left after about 1km.

NB. The speed bumps in the park are very severe.

Registration & Start Times

Registration is in a tent in the Car Park.

Registration: 17:00 to 18:30. Starts: 17:30 to 18:45pm

Start: 100m from Registration

Finish: Adjacent to Registration

Course closure will be at 20:15pm.

It is a punching start with no pre allocated individual start times.

Apart from the start and finish controls all controls will be SIAC enabled.

PLEASE DOWNLOAD IMMEDIATELY AFTER FINISHING, EVEN IF YOU RETIRE, SO THAT WE CAN BE SURE ALL RUNNERS ARE SAFELY BACK

Course Information

Courses will be offered as follows:

Orange - 3.2km / 65m /10 controls

Green - 4.1km / 95m / 14 controls

Blue - 5.9km / 145m / 18 controls

The map scale wil be 1:10,000

Control Descriptions will be on the map and loose copies (TBC) at Registration. Maps will be handed out at Registration and apart from Orange should only be opened after punching the Start box. Your co-operation in this respect would be appreciated

Explanation of colour courses

• White are very easy with all controls on paths. They are mainly used by 6-10 year olds and family groups.
• Yellow use simple linear features like paths, walls and streams. They are mainly used by under 12’s and family groups.
• Orange progress to basic use of the compass and route choice. They are ideal for novice adults or experienced youngsters.
• Light Green are ideal for improvers as the navigational difficulty begins to increase and uses simple contours and point features.
• Green are used mostly by experienced under 18’s and adults wanting a short but challenging course with a very hard navigational difficulty.
• Blue are a longer, more physically demanding course in comparison to the green. The distances are more varied between controls and the course attracts experienced orienteers.
• Brown & Black are very physically demanding and have a very hard navigational difficulty. They are for experienced orienteers only.
• Score means visiting as many controls as possible in any order in a specific time, like 45mins.

Entry Details

Everyone should Pre-register (no entry fee) using the MDOC Registration System https://mdocentry.org.uk. This will guarantee a map is available

Online entry closing date Thursday 25th January

Limited EOD, subject to map availablilty

Seniors (M/W21+) £6.00
Juniors (M/W20-) £3.00

SI cards will be available for hire but note that lost SI cards will be charged at £40.

Please pay for your entry at Registration by contactless payment or correct cash

Terrain Description

An undulating large urban park with patches of wooded areas with many tarmac paths interconnecting them apart from in the northern part (Blue course only)

As it is winter, the Light Green vegetation may not be as severe as the map suggests in many places. Marshes will be extremely wet due to the bad winter.

Facilities

Unfortunately, there are no toilet facilities.

Contacts / Officials

Organiser/Planner: Chris Rostron 01663 764799 or 07929 516649 on the night