2024 Wednesday Evening #1 – Bellevue College

Map & Course Notes

Woo! It’s a brand new map at a venue that’s never been used for orienteering!

And part of the map is VERY complicated.

At first glance, Bellevue College seems like many of the other community colleges that we have mapped, like North Seattle College, South Seattle College, Edmonds College, and Shoreline College. The area is generally pretty flat, buildings and sidewalks are generally aligned on a grid, there are huge parking lots, and there is some green space and sports fields around the edges.

All of this holds true at Bellevue College, except the heart of campus features a complex of six large buildings, interconnected with 2nd-level skybridges, balconies, breezeways, open-air interior corridors and staircases. In total, there’s over 1 kilometer of 2nd-level pathways here, with another 1 kilometer of pathways underneath. But don’t assume that the upper level is a duplicate of the lower level. Some passageways only go through on the upper level, some only go through on the lower level, and some go through both. And dead-end hallways oftentimes don’t have the same lengths on the upper level vs. lower level.

Thankfully, the latest mapping standard for “sprint” orienteering has 3 symbols to make mapping this complex area possible.

• White diagonal crosshatching. If you see this pattern, that means that there are two levels here. The colored part of the pattern shows what is on the upper level (usually a canopy, but it can also be under-the-sky concrete or a solid building). The white part of the pattern just shows that there’s another level underneath, which is almost always runnable concrete.
• A line of black “sharkteeth”. If you see this, it means two very different things: it’s passable if you’re on the lower level, and it’s not passable if you’re on the upper level. This is used extensively on the map because of all of the skybridges and balconies (you can run on them and under them). If you’re approaching a line of sharkteeth from the “pointy” side of the teeth, then you can go under. If you’re approaching a line of sharkteeth from the “top” side of the teeth, there’s a wall or railing preventing you from getting down.
• A line of black square dots. This shows you where building walls and passageways are on the lower level only, and you will only see this symbol in conjunction with the white diagonal crosshatching.

Want to learn more? Here’s a document from the International Orienteering Federation with more details about these multi-level symbols.

Thankfully, everything in this area of campus is just on two levels, which makes for an unambiguous map. Course #1 stays only on the lower level. Course #2 goes to the upper level only once (and climbs at a very straightforward location). Course #3 is where you’ll be challenged a few times!

Complex? Yes. Ambiguous? No. If you ever find that you’re on the wrong level, just find some stairs. There are 17 staircases that connect the upper and lower levels of this area!

Speaking of stairways, many of their shapes (and the immediate building geometries surrounding them) are simplified a little bit to aid in map legibility. Also on the subject of map legibility: there’s a lot of urban stuff on a campus, things like picnic tables, benches, light poles, garbage cans, fire hydrants, signposts, and power lines. If these were all mapped, it would be a bunch of clutter, so they’ve all been omitted. Very large utility boxes and air conditioners have been mapped as buildings (at their minimum size). Smoking shelters are mapped as buildings.

Also, again to aid in legibility in tight spaces, many “tags” have been removed from passable fences, railings, and retaining walls. If it’s a thick black line, it’s uncrossable, but if it’s a medium black line, it is ok to cross.

As always, stay out of the olive green. On this map, it’s predominantly used where the adjacent neighborhood is, but you can run on the the streets there. And for the sports fields.

There’s a 5-story parking garage here that’s also out-of-bounds.

Vegetation around campus this time of year makes you wonder if Bellevue College has any landscapers. Generally-speaking, most vegetation around campus is pretty passable. It’s just not pristinely manicured like you might expect on other campuses. There’s extensive use of basic “light green” and “rough open with scattered thickets”.

Maps #1 and #2 are at 1:3000 scale. Map #3 is at 1:4000.