(On this page you’ll read about Aid Stations, Drop Bags, and Driving Directions to all off-ridge locations of event interest.)

Aid Stations

Three staffed on-Ridge: Topa, aka Lion Cyn (100M’ers only, visited twice), Ridge Road Junction (two visits), and Gridley Top (three visitations). Maybe two unstaffed on-Ridge stations, to improve access to water on longer hauls between on-Ridge stations (e.g., Topa to Ridge Junction for 100M’ers, then again Gridley Top to Ridge Junction on your haul home). Six off-Ridge stations: Sisar Cyn (no crew access), Rose Valley (two visitations), Howard Creek, Cozy Dell and Gridley Bottom.

Each staffed station will be stocked with vittles and liquids to keep your tummy happy (basic fare of corn & potato chips, cookies & candy, ginger ale & puddings, soup where it’s cold or late in the miles, booze, too?), across the different meals one encounters thru the day. Beyond the basics, each Aid Station will devise some menu designed to keep them happy while serving you, and what a surprise it’ll be when they offer you what they’re eating.  YUM-O!!  You potentially could have pancakes in early day, then be treated to crackers and pate for happy hour later in the day.

Medical supplies will be marginal at best, so if you’re prone to hellacious blisters and/or blood upchucking abdominal gyrations, plan to carry your own salve and mystery potions. Most of any truly wondrous treatment you may wish to receive likely will occur at the off-Ridge stations, since the on-Ridge stations won’t have the flexibility or luxury to add to their capability or inventory once they get to the Ridge – their first priority is basic needs, luxury items added only if there’s room in the vehicles transporting the staff and their supplies to the Ridge.  Paté, fortunately, doesn’t take up much room…

As to electrolytes, Hammer products will be our prime supply.  Your bags will have a combo of gels/pouches, and at each aid station we’ll have repeats of those plus Heed as fluid.  Should your own tummy not tolerate that brand, feel free to bring (and self-consume, vs getting someone to spoon feed you) your own.  As we near the event, should other similar goodies magically appear before our eyes, we’ll certainly share with you, either as additional goodies in your bag or available at the Start for you to carry.

In the chart below, station closing time reflects the dynamics of 2010, which had special consideration for the very late starts of Karlos Meltzermeiero’witz and MooMan Campbell.  Similar conditions could exist in 2011, but we’ll wait until Start Group assignments are made to alter the chart to reflect projected reality.  So that, for example, using 2010’s situation, both Meltzer and Campbell functioned as their own Start Group late Saturday morning, we expecting that they’d cover the final miles from Gridley Top to home faster than the less speedy folks, so their cutoff time at Gridley Top would be later than the Start Group that peeled out of the Start chute at 6PM Friday night.  Sound confusing?  Good, cuz we certainly don’t want anyone gaming a system that’s already gamey enough!!

The critical choke points, from the perspective of letting you proceed on your merry way along the designed route, will be (1) Howard Creek — if you’re showing signs of mental focus issues or wavering on your feet, that will be our sign to send you back across the ridge towards home — and (2) Gridley Top — where you may be invited to just head across the ridge and home rather than visit Gridley Bottom, because you’re late enough that you’d jeopardize keeping our stations open well into Sunday and past breakfast at Thacher.

Aid Station	Open – Close Times	Chief Honcho Dictator
Start-Finish Thacher	F 2:00 PM – Su 10:30 AM	Stan Jensen / Dave Combs
Sisar Cyn	F 8:30 PM – Sa 7:45AM	Bill Kee / Wes Abundis
Topa (aka Lion Cyn)	F 11:30P – Sa 2:30 PM	Manley Klassen
Rose Valley	Sa 3:00 AM – Sa 8:00 PM	Rob Tucker
Ridge Junction	Sa 8:15 AM – Su 9:00 AM	Mark Wieneke
Howard Creek	Sa 12:30 PM – Sa 8:30 PM	Mike Epler
Gridley Top	Sa 2:30 PM – Su 6:45 AM	Luis Escobar
Cozy Dell	Sa 3:45 PM – Su 1:00 AM	Bill Van Antwerp
Gridley Bottom	Sa 10:30 PM – Su 5:30 AM	Bill Kee / Wes Abundis

Drop Bags

Accessible only at the off-Ridge A/S’s. Your bags must be at the S/F NLT than 4PM on Friday (all 100M’ers and early start 100K’ers) or 10AM Saturday (for later 100K start groups only, but then only for Howard Creek, Cozy Dell and Gridley Bottom A/S’s), else you’ll just have to camel for yourself the rest of the weekend. With potentially not insignificant variations between off- and on-Ridge temperatures (read the 2010 reports for real history on this point!!), suggest you plan at least to carry a suitable windbreaker for those time periods when the swing between middle of the night and sun-warming daylight is the most prominent. The on-Ridge stations do not plan to cater to shivering bodies – they’ll be intent on keeping themselves warm (you’re moving, they won’t be) so they can best serve you. Robbing them of their own heat because you didn’t plan well enough for your own will only jeopardize good support for all runners.

How small/big should your drop bag be?  If you’re packing a “normal” size carry-on luggage item, that’s way too much — bring a crew if you’re that high maintenance!  Something closer to a kid’s school backpack (and yes, for what some of those kids lug around, their spinal docs will be wealthy for decades) ought to be a good target.  Too, make it too small (4″x4″x4″) and it likely could get lost in the shuffle.

HEED THIS:  Part One: Mark your bag with your LAST NAME all in Caps (only Campbells, Dyatts & Martins, add first initial), and make your name both visible enough (no black marker on navy blue, somewhere prominent on the bag) and large enough (at least two inches in height and not pencil-point thin) that our Volunteers can quickly find your bag among all the others.

Part Two: You’ll also prominently mark your bags for these stations: Sisar Cyn, Rose Valley, Howard Creek, Cozy Dell and Gridley Bottom.  100M’ers – you may use the same bag for both Sisar Cyn and Gridley Bottom (the same Vol crew does both stations), but mark for both locations, as those just for Sisar will not migrate to Gridley Bottom.  We’ll have designated Aid Station spots at the Start/Finish where you can place your bags, but don’t miss the time window for getting them there – we will NOT make a special trip to deposit your bag where you want it.

Guess what can happen if you ignore these instructions?

Driving Instructions to A/S and S/F

(Navigating through these instructions will be substantially enhanced if you can also cross-reference either the Google Earth image (w/ the push-pin landmarks of C2M) or Sespe Wilderness map of Ojai. Without those or another map, what follows is just narrative.) Once in town, of course, it gets easier. Start Point is the juncture of Rtes 33 and 150 at the western end of Ojai.

From the Start Point, heading North (toward the mountains, away from Ventura) on Hwy 33, towards Rose Valley and the “back side” aid stations:

(a) 3 1/4 miles to Cozy Dell A/S site, with parking on the left side of the road, with the Cozy Dell TH sign at the far end of the dirt lot (behind the photographer in this shot).

The Cozy Dell A/S will be at the Friend’s Ranch warehouse loading dock, with only enough parking for Aid Station staff.  The walking distance from Crew Parking to the Aid Station is only 100 feet, but you DO cross the road, so be watchful of Saturday night traffic.

(b) Another 4.5 miles up Hwy 33 is the Wheeler Gorge Campground, shortly after which you’ll begin a 6+ mile curvy ascent – and be careful in this stretch; it’s a popular biker route on weekends – to the turn-off for Rose Valley, just at the rise of that climb. You’ll see a sign before the turn-off, then just after the turn onto the road, your sanity check is this sign.

(c) A mile in from the sign is a CalTrans service road, the space before the gate dedicated for our Howard Creek Aid Station.  If you’re crewing, you’ll visit here after your visit(s) to the Rose Valley station.   About another two miles down RV Rd is a right turn — a sign used to be there, but as of 9/10/10, it still hasn’t been replaced — for the Rose Valley Campground, the camp less than half a mile from that junction.  Just before the campground is a large area for parking, which will also serve as the Rose Valley A/S.

Now, back to the “front side” of the Two Moon world…  From the Start Point (Hwy 33 & 150 junction, in town), heading East (parallel with the Ojai ridge) on Hwy 150:

(a) After approximately one mile, you’ll come to the stoplight that marks “downtown” Ojai, and at the right end of that next block is the town’s character coffee shop.

(b) About another mile past that stoplight is the left turn (with signage just before it) onto Gridley Road, towards the Gridley A/S.

(c) Gridley Road dead ends at the A/S, which nestles in a round’ish lot just before a private gate.

Parking is very limited there, so overflow parking will be directed just under a half mile down to the Shelf Road access (GB Shelf Rd).

(d) About 1.3 miles beyond the turnoff for Gridley Rd from Rt 150 sits Boccali’s (at the “Y” with Reeves Rd), a popular local eatery (yummy pizzas and other freshly made dishes) and weekend biker hangout, where we’ll have Friday’s lunch pre-Start.

(e) From Boccali’s, turning left on Reeves Rd, travel about another mile, and turn left onto McAndrew Rd (you’ll see a large rock on the left, painted to show direction to Thacher), and follow it to the top of the hill, where the marked road turns left, and straight ahead is the entrance to Thacher School.

Drive up and to the right, and staying to the right, use any of the parking spaces (either paved or dirt). Do NOT park in spaces that abut Thacher buildings, nor drive anywhere leftward from that 1/8 mile of parking/road from the entrance to…

(f) Towards the top of the road, you’ll see a sign for Gymkhana,

that dirt road leading toward the right, thru a (what shows here as a puddle but by then hopefully is just) a small streambed

and thru a small avocado orchard, at the end of which you’ll find the Horn Canyon Trailhead to the left, and down to the right, the Athletic Field that serves as the Two Moon Start/Finish (see the pic under Lodging with the tent on the field).  You can also get a “cleaner” picture of the Thacher grounds by visiting their website, Thacher.org, to view their pdf campus shot.