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Discover a new neighborhood... or one you thought you knew well!!

One of them has a map!Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street Scramble
Urban Adventure Hunt

Explore the streets of Berkeley, Albany, and the Rockridge, Hiller Highlands, and Claremont Hills neighborhoods of Oakland, as well as parts of Kensington and El Cerrito!

Thirty locations are circled on a map. On foot or bike, how many can you visit in 90 minutes? in 3 hours? Score points by visiting checkpoints in any order, and answer a simple question to prove you were there. Those who score the most are the winners! Be competitive or casual; go team or solo. Fun for families, runners, cyclists, and anyone who likes to explore!! Awards and refreshments at the finish.

Getting ready for the start of the 2012 Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street ScrambleLocation and Schedule

On Saturday, 14 September 2013, two event durations will be offered: 3 hours and 90 minutes. You can do either on foot or on bike. Venue change: The headquarters will be at the Finnish Brotherhood Hall.

This is the third annual Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street Scramble. Check out the description and our calendar of Street Scramble events!

This event is the fourth in the 2013/2014 Urban Adventure Hunt series, and your next chance to collect points and win a trip to the series Final, the San Francisco Night & Day Challenge.

Event schedule:

08:30  Registration and check-in open,
       Finnish Brotherhood Hall
09:00  Maps are available for route
       planning
09:40  Briefing and instructions
10:00  Start, all divisions,
       foot and bike
11:30  Finish, 90-minute divisions
11:45  Snacks and refreshments are served
12:00  Awards, 90-minute divisions
13:00  Finish, 3-hour divisions
13:30  Awards, 3-hour divisions
Google Map
View Larger Map

Transit directions: Take BART to North Berkeley station and walk three blocks west to Chestnut Street and two blocks south. Finnish Hall has a parking lot; arrive early to secure a space.

You will score checkpoint visits by texting us the answer to the question on your scorecard. Checkpoint visits will be instantly tabulated, and scores available upon the teams' return. If you'd rather not use the cellphone for any reason, you can instead circle answers on the paper scorecard. More details are here...

This is the map that was used for last year's Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street Scramble:

Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street Scramble 2012 map

Our Sponsors!!

This event has been made possible by the following businesses and organizations. We are delighted to offer a sampling of their products as prizes for this event. Please patronize their offerings and services, and contribute to their programs:

The mission of Road ID is twofold: One, to educate outdoor enthusiasts about the importance of wearing ID. Two, to provide these athletes with innovative identification products that they will want to include as part of their gear. The dream of Road ID is to see the day where wearing ID is as common among athletes as wearing a seatbelt is among motorists.

Road ID
Christ Church

Christ Church East Bay seeks to create a welcoming and vibrant community in part by supporting non-religious, nonprofit community events. Get Lost!! would like to sincerely thank the Church for providing its space for the 2013 Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street Scramble, and beyond.

Road Runner Sports' Fourth Thursday Adventure Runs, held at the San Carlos store, are a total blast!

RRS 3rd Thursday Adventure Run
MerGeo

Seattle's Meridian Geographics is an active outdoor lifestyle company. It produces the Street Scramble, Northwest Trail Runs, and BEAST Adventure Race series. Its showcase events are the annual Seattle and San Francisco Night & Day challenges, and the Rock Creek Ramble, Three15er, and Big Tahoma rogaines.

o21e—the Official Uniform Provider of Team USA Orienteering—makes a line of clothing for adventure running in Los Angeles, California.

o21e.com
Orienteer.com

Scarborough Orienteering, aka Orienteer.com, is a leading vendor of equipment. They carry compasses, SPORTident cards, Inov-8™ shoes, and other gear and produce their own line of o21e suits, club uniforms, and gaiters. Orienteer.com also offers map and compass instruction and group outings, including orienteering and team-building training, as corporate offsites.

The Street Scramble Experience

Street Scramble races can be enjoyed by anyone who (a) can travel under their own power for 90 minutes—walking, running, biking, or moving in a wheelchair; (b) can follow a street map; and (c) likes to explore.

(Strollers and power wheelchairs are OK for those who need them. If you can't read a map, you can be on a team with someone who can.)

When you arrive at a Street Scramble event, you will check in (most events don't sell out and allow onsite registration). Then, an hour before the start time, you will receive a map with thirty (or so) checkpoint locations circled. Each circle has a number between 10 and 99. The point value of the checkpoint is equal to its number rounded down to the tens; for example, Checkpoint 35 is worth 30 points; Checkpoint 12 is worth 10 points. The back of your map will have a description of a feature to be found at each checkpoint, such as "Statue" or "Pier". You will also receive a scorecard with the same information as on the back of your map; use this scorecard if you are not using electronic scoring.

You (together with your team, if you have a team) will then plan which checkpoints you will try to visit, and in what order. You can visit as many or as few checkpoints as you want, and in any order. Your team will need to stay together at all times. You can change your plan as you go along, but it's very helpful to at least start with some kind of plan.

About 20 minutes before the start there will be a pre-Scramble-race briefing, at which the event director will review rules and safety. There will be a countdown to the start, after which you will head out to visit checkpoints. Again, your team must stay together at all times. Checkpoints are found at the precise centers of the circles on the map. When you arrive at a checkpoint location, look for the feature described on the back of your map.

At most locations, you will need to answer a simple multiple-choice question, found on the back of your map and on your scorecard, to prove you were there. Example:

35   Statue, NE side: What is the last word on the plaque?
(a) Arts   (b) Commission   (c) Space

If you are not using the electronic scoring system, circle the correct answer on your scorecard and proceed to another checkpoint. Also write down the time of your checkpoint visit.

We offer two electronic ways to record your checkpoint visits. One option is available at all events and all checkpoints, and involves sending us, the organizers, a text message with your answer to the question on the back of the map. For example, suppose you are Team 1191 and the correct answer to the question at Checkpoint 35 is (a), "Arts". You will send, to the phone number we provide at registration, a message with the text

Putting finishing touches on the plan
35 A
—or—
35A
—or—
a35

and you will get back a confirmation message that says

Team 1191 Checkpoint 35 Answer A at 10:31:23.
The other electronic option will only be available at some events and at select checkpoints that are at locations of participating businesses, and only to those entrants who have a smartphone capable of recognizing QR codes, and the necessary phone app. Simply snap a picture of the code and get on your way!
If you don't have the hardware or the app, just answer the multiple-choice question—on paper or by texting.

To participate in the 90 minute division, you must return to the event center within 90 minutes. To participate in the 3 hour option, return within 3 hours. You can decide which option you want while you're out there. Returning on time requires planning!

Our maps run the gamut from specially surveyed and produced city and wilderness maps to improved USGS topographic maps, and sometimes include off-the-shelf (off-the-screen?) maps. We use information from a variety of sources. Our maps only have a few street names on them, and often no street names at all—so it will be important for you to keep track of where you are on the map.

It is perfectly fine to utilize other maps you may bring, or to look at a map on your smartphone. You can also use the phone's GPS; any GPS units, altimeters, and pedometers are all fair game—but please don't get so distracted by the gadgets as to lose track of vehicle traffic!

When you return, you will turn in your scorecard; if you used electronic scoring, your score will be ready and waiting for you. (In case your phone turns out to be less sweat-resistant than you thought, we can handle answers that are partially submitted electronically and partially handwritten.) All team members must finish together at the same time; your official finish time is when the last team member arrives at the finish line. It is important to be on time because you will lose points for each minute you are late. We will keep your scorecard, but you get to take your map home with you. If your answers are handwritten, we will tally your score while you enjoy refreshments, included in your entry fee. After refreshments, awards will be given out for those with the highest scores in different divisions and categories.

As a minimum, we will award the best men, women, and mixed teams in the following categories: Juniors (each team member must be 20 years of age or younger on 31 December 2013), Masters (40 or older on 31 December 2013), and Open. Awards will also be given to the best family teams; a family team is one that has anyone 20 years of age or younger, and also someone 21 years of age or older.

If you have further questions, you may be able to find answers to them on the Equipment and Detailed Rules pages.

Entry and Registration

Mission Street Scramble 2013 T shirt designThe first 50 teams to enter get technical-fabric T shirts with the Street Scramble design. That's right, a complimentary shirt for each and every team member! Please select the shirt size during the registration process. These shirts can be obtained at the event only if we do not sell out, or if there are cancellations. If you would rather not have another shirt—even as cool as this—we offer a discount.

The design shown is for the 2013 Mission Street Scramble. Design for the Berkeley and Oakland Hills event may be slightly different.

Pre-registration is open. Team members may enter together (be entered by the same person), or separately. If you would like to go with a team, but don't know your teammates' names yet, you can enter yourself and other members can join the team at a later time.

As with all events by Get Lost!!, fees for teams, including families, are capped. Three, four, or five people enter at the team price; each team member gets a map. The fees are:
90 minute event Individual Team        Cal-ARA Team
Enter and pay on or before Monday 19 August $39.00 $74.00 $66.60
Enter and pay on or before Monday 09 September $44.00 $84.00 $75.60
Enter and pay on or after Tuesday 10 September $54.00 $104.00 $93.60
 
3 hour event Individual Team        Cal-ARA Team
Enter and pay on or before Monday 19 August $39.00 $74.00 $66.60
Enter and pay on or before Monday 09 September $44.00 $84.00 $75.60
Enter and pay on or after Tuesday 10 September $54.00 $104.00 $93.60

Fine print: Each team member of the first 50 teams that enter must be entered by the last entry deadline in order to be guaranteed a shirt in her/his size. Because of the lead time involved in printing the shirts, it is not possible for us to provide shirts to late-entering participants.

More fine print: Team member additions after the deadline increase the price, so as to account for the extra cost associated with providing supplies and insurance to the participants at the last moment. Team member substitutions are always free.

The maximum team size at Street Scramble is 5 people. We have found that it becomes increasingly difficult for larger teams to stay together throughout the event, which is required by the rules. If you aren't sure how many of your friends will show up, you are welcome to enter everyone on the same team and then split the team if more than 5 people do show up. By participating as multiple teams, your group will quite possibly be eligible for more awards!

Discounts!!

On top of these prices, we offer the following discounts:

Bay Area OC member registering her/himself $5.00
Active-duty military (at least one member in a team)   early fees apply through the day of the event
No shirt(s) $7.00 individual, $14.00 team
Family (at least one participant age 20 or under) $10.00 per team

The BAOC discount only applies to individuals, not teams. That is, a registration for two people who are both BAOC members will cost less than the team price. A three-person team is always best off taking the team deal.

Examples:

  • California ARA team of 4, standard registration including shirts: $21.15 per person
  • BAOC member going solo, early registration, no shirt: $27.00
  • Family of 3, day-of-event registration, no shirts: $30.00 per person

These discounts are taken and combined automatically by the registration system. Make sure to indicate the team association, individual participant's club membership, and the correct (or at least approximately correct) ages for the team members.

We accept VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and DiscoverWe accept credit cards online through Google Checkout, and cash, checks, and credit cards on site.

Go register!!

Event-Day Information

1. Directions and Parking

Our headquarters are at the Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut Street, Berkeley, CA 94702. There is a small parking lot immediately to the north of the Hall.

The event center is only five short blocks from the North Berkeley BART station.

2. Safety

Safety is our first priority. All cyclists must wear a helmet and stop at all stop signs and red lights. No freeways bisect the course, but some high-traffic streets do; please be careful and cross at dedicated pedestrian crossings.

We strongly encourage you to wear a Street Scramble safety vest to enhance your visibility. You can borrow one from us at no charge.

3. Urban Adventure Hunt series 2013/2014

This event is the third one in our third series. Here is the original announcement, and in brief, it works this way: Each Street Scramble event is worth a maximum of 1000 points, and Mill Valley and Santa Cruz Street Scramble events, with their 7-hour competition, are worth 1600 points. We will add together the points from the 12 events that are scheduled between late June of 2013 and late May of 2014. If your team participates in the 90-minute division, we will multiply its points by 1.5; if it is in the 7 hours, there is no penalty, enjoy all the extra points that a long run or ride in the city entails! In order for event scores to count for the series, your team should keep the same name, compete in the same age/gender category, and maintain at least one common member for the Street Scramble events it participates in.

Prizes: In each category (foot and bike; Open, Masters, and Juniors; Men, Women, and Mixed; and Family), there is a single first-place award to the best team, and it is a free entry to San Francisco Night & Day Challenge on 07 and 08 June of 2014. A team has to participate in at least three Street Scramble events in order to be eligible for the award. But furthermore, we'll combine your points from the Street Scramble events and SFND, and a few very lucky—or fast—teams will win an expense-paid trip to the Seattle Night & Day, which occurs about a month after SFND!!

We will showcase one or two categories for this award. Greg Favor, who attended every single event in the 2012/2013 series, was the winner in 2013, and enjoyed his first Seattle Night & Day.

4. Event rules

Each team must stay together throughout the event. It is not allowed to split up to cover more ground. The finish time is taken when the last team member crosses the finish line.

Travel under your own power only. It is not allowed to take buses, BART, or cabs.

It is not allowed to look up answers to checkpoint questions without actually going to the checkpoint; in particular, you cannot use Street View, Panoramio, or the likes. Using Street View would be just like driving past everyone in a car at a running race! You can, however, use the map on your smartphone, and GPS. You are welcome to use any and all maps of the area you may bring.

Please stay off private property. In Berkeley, access rights tend to be clearly defined in the field (in the streets); almost all public stairways and paths are marked with "Path" and "Walk" signs. However, some of the streets and roads on the map are private. We believe that all are shown with OpenStreetMap's striped symbol (see symbols below). The course will not lead you along private streets. If it says NO TRESPASSING, please turn around.

5. Bikes

All checkpoints without exception are reachable by bike. However, you may have to wheel/carry the bike to reach the ones located on stairs. Most stairs are not traversable on bike, but you can go around on city streets. A road bike is strongly recommended over a mountain bike.

Bikes are only allowed on certain parts of UC Berkeley campuses. You can assume you can bike on the wider mapped streets and roads on campus. Please obey the posted signs.

With the exception of UC Berkeley campuses and to the best of our knowledge, all trails that are in play on this course are bike-legal, no matter what color or shape the trail symbol.

6. Dogs

Dogs are technically not allowed anywhere on University of California property, so this may not be the best event to bring your pups.

7. The map

The map for this event is an off-the-shelf (off-the-server?) OpenStreetMap, with unmodified, default colors and symbols. Please take your time to study them: on the main OpenStreetMap page, select "Map Key" in the lower left-hand corner, then zoom most of the way into an area (say Berkeley) so that the Map Key panel displays all of the symbols. We also copied this symbol panel here, and it will be on the map.

The quality of OpenStreetMap around Berkeley is excellent; all stairs and paths seem to be correctly represented. The only changes we made to OSM were to take off some street names and add elevation contours.

The map is at 1:20,000 scale with 10 meter contour interval. Compared to the symbols for Get Lost!!-made maps, the most important difference is that the meanings of grey and pink/purple colors are reversed. We use grey to show passable built-up areas, and purple to show the impassable ones. OpenStreetMap uses grey for residential, which usually isn't passable, and various shades of pink and purple for commercial and retail, which usually are.

One important map/symbol note that will affect your route choice is the educational ("School and university") fill, which is something like light yellow-green, or off-grey, with a thin red boundary, which may or may not stand for a fence. You should assume school campuses are not passable unless there is a checkpoint on this particular campus. Even when access is OK, often you can get on a school campus and go through only to find fences and locked gates on the other side. So, for example, the main UC Berkeley campus is OK; Berkeley National Lab is not OK (and the course will not lead you there).

Inside parks (various shades of green), you can assume that you can move on and off trail, on foot, in any direction. You can usually get into a park from any point on the adjacent streets. In a few places, you can't go through a park because of construction or a steep slope; we put a purple X across the logical route.

At this Street Scramble, we continue the tradition. An electronic map of the 35 checkpoints will be available at map issue time, one hour before the start. You are welcome to download this map on your smartphone, and use it however you wish.

8. Course notesCreative discourse in the ghetto

The optimum actual distance to travel in order to get all checkpoints is 46.3 km, with ample climb; this route uses stairs, so the distance to travel on bike is over 48 km. The course has 35 checkpoints worth 1000 total points.

All of the checkpoints (and then some for next year) were picked by George Minarik, who used input from our 2012 guest course setter Mary Flaherty. George and Leslie Minarik walked the entire course over the summer, and Vladimir Gusiatnikov checked all of the locations during the week before the event. Checkpoint features are quite obvious compared to some of our other Street Scramble courses (but none are visible in Street View), and emphasis is on going through scenic places on the logical route between checkpoints rather than on placing the CP in the scenic area.

The course is just a bit shorter than last year, so we believe it is possible for a very fit cyclist to get to all checkpoints by bike within 3 hours, but certainly not on foot. Twenty-seven of the checkpoints are in Berkeley, two are in Albany, two in Kensington, two in El Cerrito, one in Richmond, and one is in Emeryville. None, as far as we can tell, are in Oakland, however you will get a chance to climb the Oakland Hills on the way to one of the highest-valued checkpoints.

The late penalty is 10 points for each minute, or fraction thereof. Remember, you can switch from the 90 minute division to the 3 hour division at any time, even while you are on the course.

9. Cellphone scoring

Cellphone scoring will be offered for this event, and here's a short tutorial.

T commandOur receiving phone number is +1 503 567 8924. (It spells out LOST X24. Hope you aren't.)

Start with registering your team's cell phone number. You can send us answers from more than one cell phone. We don't pull the phone number information from your registration, so this step must be done for at least one phone. From this phone, send us a text message that says T followed by your team number. You will find out your team number at check-in, or if you would like to complete this step early, e-mail us and we'll let you know your team number. For example, if your team number is 142, text

T 142

You will receive a short confirmatory message. It may take a few seconds for the system to issue a confirmation to each of your commands and answers, sometimes up to about half a minute, more if your phone moves in and out of coverage.

Q commandAfter you have registered your team number, you're clear to head out on the course! One of the neat features is the ability to retrieve checkpoint questions and answer choices as you go. Just say Q? followed by the checkpoint number, like this:

Q? 42

Checkpoint answerAnd now to the most important part—sending us answers to checkpoint questions! Just send us the checkpoint number and the answer choice, in this order or answer first, with or without a space; the answer (as all commands) is case-insensitive. For each answer, you get a short confirmatory message.

Please take care in answering the questions. Sometimes, teams give a literal answer, for example if the answer choices are (A) 1; (B) 2; (C) 3, a team can text 2. This answer will not count as a wrong answer and the system will simply ask you to try again. Only the first valid answer choice counts. If you send in a wrong answer choice, for example if the correct answer is B and you say A, the mistake cannot be corrected.

S commandYou can find out how many checkpoints you have visited, and how many points they are worth, by texting S?. This score is not graded; that is, the points are calculated without take into account whether your answers are correct or not.

The full command set is

Q?  R?  S?  T/T?  U  W?

We already went over most of those. The remaining commands are: R? tells you how long your team has been on the course; T? replies with your team number on record; U is used to unsubsribe the phone number; and W? lets you know which ones you got wrong.

The system is currently on Eastern time. We may or may not be able to fix that before the event. Finally, if you encounter an error message, please let us know after the event.

Please do not send praise, comments, blame, bug reports, missing checkpoint notes, or status updates to this number—they are all quite welcome, but use +1 971 998 0321 instead. They will all be read and acted upon.

We will not be using QR codes at this event.

10. Pen-and-paper scoring

When you mark your answer, please also make sure to write down the time you visited each checkpoint. Doing this is not mandatory, but allows for some entertaining post-event route analysis. Your finish time will be taken when you hand in your score sheet.

Event staff:
George, Lani, and Vladimir

We maintain a discussion board for all our events on Attackpoint. Popular among adventure-sports athletes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, the site is the one to go to for the latest adventure-running news, schedules, discussion, and gossip.

Forum for the Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street Scramble.

We also post updates to our Facebook pages:

Facebook event for the Berkeley and Oakland Hills Street Scramble.

Created: 18 February 2013
Last updated: 11 September 2013, ver. 002

© 2011–2013 Get Lost!! Running, Racing, Inc.
Street Scramble® is a registered trademark of Meridian Geographics.

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