[BR-Crater] Crater Assault 3 plans & directions

[Ian Kluft]

Tom KG6BRK said he'd like to rendezvous in Reno on Friday.  (He's coming
from Placerville.)  I think early afternoon will probably work best.
I'll ask Heather, Lowell and anyone else who's coming what time works
for them.  If possible, I'd like us to rendezvous for a convoy so we
can look out for each other.

I just got a call from Bob Verish.  He and Moni Waiblinger are already
in Northern Nevada and will meet us at Upper High Dry.  (Bob is a Stratofox
member who qualified during our assistance to the Fossett search last year,
and a geologist with impact crater experience.)  I gave Bob a summary of
the directions included below.

We need a POC (Point of Contact). Stratofox's normal procedure when we have
a crew going outside of cell coverage is that someone who isn't going can
take the reports of people enroute and as they leave and return to cell
coverage.  On an extended trip, the crew would call the POC whenever going
to town.  The POC is also a contact for friends and family to contact the
crew in the field.  will also forward to the mail list any news from the
team in the field.  This is still good practice for a real tracking event
at Black Rock, though the POC has a much bigger workload on those events.

Just so everyone knows where to go, here are the directions...

While you can drive GPS-direct to most places on the main Black Rock playa,
it's trickier getting to the mountains.  You have to intercept the trail that
exits the playa.  For the Black Rock Hot Springs exit trail, we developed a
procedure with a series of waypoints which circumvents the Quinn River Sink
area, which had mud and standing water on SF2 in 2003.  In 2006 at SF3 we
used this new procedure to get to Upper High Dry.  In 2007 at SF4, we
backtracked the route to get out in a white-out sandstorm.

   Map for traversing the playa:
   http://www.stratofox.org/events/craterassault3/ca3_black_rock_approach.png
   
   Map for traversing the Black Rock Range to Upper Hi-Dry:
   http://www.stratofox.org/events/craterassault3/ca3-map.png
   
   GPS driving procedure summary:
   http://www.stratofox.org/events/craterassault3/uhd-gps-procedure.png
   
   Waypoints used on the above maps:
   11-mile playa entrance at Hwy 34      40.772556, -119.262139  BR-11MI
   divert point from main road           40.924538, -119.141922  BR-DVRT
   exit trail intercept point            40.953326, -119.037724  BR-ETIP
   Black Rock Hot Springs playa entrance 40.966306, -119.019167  BR-BREN
   Black Rock Hot Springs trail jct      40.973434, -119.008407  BR-BRHS
   Upper Hi-Dry camp site                40.989444, -118.964861  BR-UHDC

This is the procedure:
1) Enter the Black Rock playa at the 11-mile entrance (BR-11MI)
2) Follow the main trail up the west side to the Divert Point (BR-DVRT)
3) From BR-DVRT, travel GPS-direct to the Exit Trail Intercept Point (BR-ETIP)
4) From BR-ETIP, follow the trail to the Black Rock playa exit (BR-BREN)
5) Continue straight NE at the Black Rock Hot Springs trail junction (BR-BRHS)
6) Be careful on the climb up to Lower High Dry - ravines are on both sides.
   We call that the "sobriety test section". :-)
7) Follow the dam/berm at Lower High Dry to the NW side where there's an easy
   entrance to the lakebed.
8) Follow the trail to Upper High Dry.  We'll camp behind the island (BR-UHDC)