The OMM 24

Last year we failed to actually get to the OMM. Work was complete chaos, I hadn't booked the friday off, and when it got to midweek I just wasn't capable of planning, packing and getting there.

This time I was still stupidly busy, but I'd booked the friday off well in advance. Good job, since we were driving up to Scotland!

On the friday we got up late, had a leisurely breakfast, packed a few extra bits then set off. We were giving Mandy Goth a lift, since her team mate Jackie Scarf had driven up early to meet some friends on the way. It was about 5 hours to get to Glen Artney, and even with a coffee stop at Annandale we were there in plenty of time. We helped Mandy get her tent set up, then took my bag back to the marquee for registration and to go get some food.

The food options were pasta (no good for me), chilli including sweet potato (equally chancy) or vegan burger. So I had a couple of vegan burgers and a couple of beers. We sat around for a while chatting among ourselves and to a team of a young woman and a chap called Chris who was very familiar looking (another event maybe, or a Craggrunner race), then Karen and Rowena appeared briefly. Eventually around 9 we went back to the van for a couple of glasses of wine and some chocolate, and an early night.

Our start time was 8-8.15, and after a walk across the fields through the mist we got to the start pretty much on time. We dibbed, picked up our maps and off we went.

We looked at the map and worked out a tentative plan for the first few controls, then headed up the hill. I was boiling with my Paramo on and had to delayer quite quickly. It took a little while to get ourselves dialled in to the map scale and symbology, and the first control came up sooner than we expected.

We carried on up the hill for the second control, which was in a re-entrant between two small summits and really easy to find because it was surrounded by people (this was a bit of a theme all day). Then on down the other side of the hill towards a third control by a river. This involved a lot of bracken bashing through rocky, rubbly slope.

From the next control we climbed up, and up, and up onto the unnamed summit to the south. The next control was in a reentrant on the west slope below the summit. We overshot slightly in the cloud. A brief clearing in the clag gave me chance to take a bearing from a plantation in the valley below and we worked backwards to locate the control.

At this point we had a bit of a rethink. We didn't have a definite plan, I suggested a loop that would involve quite a bit of additional climb. Claire's better at totalling up points than I am, and suggested a different loop that gained us an extra 20 points and reduced the climb but involved a longer downhill distance. I agreed, and off we went again.

The control was at the foot of a crag about 1.5km away. As we followed the ridge top, we could clearly see the crag below. People were passing by on their way to other controls not on our course. We stuck to the ridge almost to the crag, then there was a nice clear route down to it.

From there we contoured gradually up and round a short nose to get onto the ridge behind, and another control in a reentrant, before dropping down the nose to a control on the (southerly) crag. It was actually south west of the first crag we found and not very obvious - one of the more interesting controls of the weekend.

2 more controls involved a long slog across tussocks and deep grass, then we dropped down a steep embankment past a large metal stag (full of pock marks - a practice target for stalking) to the mid camp. Bizarrely there was a control out the other side of mid camp, so we nipped out to that then passed through the finish with 8 minutes in hand.

Day 1 we scored 220, which put us somewhere in the middle. Pretty good with the limitations we had on speed - we'd navigated mostly quickly and accurately and made good route choices.

We opted for a high up spot for mid camp. It was a bit windy, but dry underfoot. It did involve picking our way through a bog to reach the loos, but there was a way round by hopping over a fence. We pitched and got changed, then I went to fetch water. The queue for the water was absolutely huge - about 20 minutes - as the pressure was very low. Eventually I managed to fill up my 2l bladder and we made a cup of tea.

Overnight it rained hard and got very windy. A bit of water got blown into the tent, but not too bad. Worse was the cold wind blowing on our feet from the ventilation in the foot end. Eventually we both put our feet in spare drybags, which solved the problem nicely.

I slept really well, the best I ever have in the tent I think. Claire much less so, although apparently my snoring wasn't as bad as that from a neighbouring tent.

We woke at 6 as people started moving around, then the piper started. We got up fairly promptly and depitched efficiently enough that we were actually at the start on time, for a change. The queue for medium score was long though, and it took a while to get started. Oddly, we were queuing right behind a chap called Toby, who I keep bumping into (Fellsman 2ce, 5 Trigs).

This is when one of those things happened. Those things where you screw something up really badly, and keep doubling down on the mistake. Leaving the start, I favoured going for a fairly direct route back. Claire suggested an alternative that gave us some more scope, which I readily agreed to. Then as one, without checking our compasses, we headed off in completely the wrong direction. I was following what I thought was a road (yellow line on an OS map) without realising that the yellow line on the Harvey OMM map was "river, may be uncrossable after heavy rain".

We continued in this completely wrong direction for quite a while, confirmed in our idiocy by seeing other people on the route (probably a linear). We kept making the map fit the ground, and ignored some massive red flags that should have warned us.

Eventually we figured it out, after about 30 mins. So in the end we lost about an hour by the time we'd backtracked to near the start. There were still a lot of starters coming through, as we'd been on one of the earliest starts.

Whether we'd lost time or not, there was a fairly obvious route to follow - there wasn't a massive amount of scope for route variation on day 2. We dropped into a long line of people heading for the first control, in a re-entrant between two minor summits. Once we reached it, we found that the col was a mass of deep groughs.

Our tentative plan called for us to pass to the north of the next summit to get a control below a crag. It took a long time to fight our way through a km of big groughs, and by the time we reached the point where we should have been veering west I wasn't confident we had the time.  Looking at the map, I thought we could go for a control on a reentrant to the south of the summit, but we were worried about time and ended up dropping down a reentrant early (as I thought) and accidentally landing straight on the control - not my finest navigational moment!

We dropped down the rest of the reentrant onto the river, then picked up another control. I'd favoured going straight over the next ridge to reach the finish, picking up a ten and a twenty on the way. Claire suggested a better route with less climb that got us another ten points, and I readily agreed.

We opted to take a high line to avoid bog in the valley bottom, and this put us in a long line of people again. We were sticking to the trods as much as possible, which eventually dropped us straight onto the control in a reentrant.

From here we were dropping sharply onto a control on a boulder, which involved a load of bracken bashing and hidden rocks. By this time Claire was struggling badly with the knee injury that has been bothering her lately, but we only had a couple of km to go with over half an hour in hand, straight along a clear trod (with many, many other people).

We got to the finish in good time, with 7.5 mins in hand. Once we'd dropped off our tracker we got a cup of tea and a veggie wrap. We didn't want to hang about too long, so we headed back to the van to get changed and warmed up, then headed homewards.

Kit list

• UD Fastpack 40
• Nordisk Halland tent
• Rab Neutrino 200 sleeping bag
• Alpkit inflatable mat
• MSR 750ml ti pan**
• Windshield
• MSR 300ml mug
• Platypus 2l water bladder
• Sawyer inline water filter
• Long ti spoon
• Hydrapak water bottle with Pure Clear water filter
• Suunto A30 compass
• chinagraph pencils
• First Aid Kit
• Leatherman micra
• contact lenses
• glasses
• OMM flash tights (worn day one)
• Raidlight winter tights (worn overnight and day 2 - bit too warm)
• Awdis long sleeved t shirt (worn day one)
• Berghaus short sleeved t shirt (worn briefly day one)
• Arcteryx warm long sleeved zip top (worn overnight and day 2. Bit warm)
• Paramo Velez Adventure light (worn most of the weekend)
• Montane Prism primaloft (worn at mid camp)
• 2 pairs Bridgedale running socks (one for each day)
• Buffs
• Columbia outdry extreme jacket (carried but not worn)
• Kalenji waterproof overtrousers (carried but not worn)
• Silva head torch
• Rab gloves
• Fleece biking hat
• 
  

**Claire also had her Alpkit Ti pan. I brought the MSR because it's a bit bigger, which gives us enough water for both tent meals (or two full cups of tea) at the same time. It also fits the windshield better, for more efficient gas use. We thought we might use the 2nd pan for cupasoup but didn't, so we probably won't bother in future.

Food

• 2 * tent meals
• 2 * large malt loaves
• 6 cereal bars
• 250g of cheese

Lessons Learned

• Check the compass when starting from mid camp. Every time, no matter how confident we are.
• I carried one malt loaf too many.
• The foam wrapping I made at the last minute for the stove windshield was excessively bulky

Dales Top Ten - incomplete second attempt, this is getting silly...

 Attempt 1 didn't go brilliantly well, but I didn't really know the key bits of the route. Attempt 2 was derailed by other things, but was a useful learning experience (and actually, a really nice night out on the hills)...

A few weeks back Claire was asked to do the FRA relays, specifically the navigation leg. Since it was around the Burnsall area where we've done a lot of walking lately, she was actually quite keen. She suggested that it would be a good weekend for me to have another go at the Dales Top Ten, since we'd be in the area anyway. So the plan was that Claire would pick up the van from Kettlewell, come to meet me at the halfway point and be on hand in case I ran into trouble.

Friday night we were all packed and ready to set off around 8. A last minute flurry of lift organisation gave us a passenger to Appletreewick from Hebden Bridge, so we set off promptly at 8.15

Dropping Claire & her team mate Pauline in Appletreewick at about 9.15 I headed on to Kettlewell. We'd arranged that Claire would walk up to Kettlewell after her leg of the race to pick up the van, and meet me in Garsdale around 10pm. I'd actually underestimated the distance from Burnsall to Kettlewell, and Claire had quite a job getting to Garsdale in time. 

I was ready to leave Kettlewell at 10.20, and headed out over the southern end of Firth Fell. After the uber-fail of Swarth Fell and High Seat last time, I'd got Karen's route from her birthday run last year and, while I hadn't recced any more than last time, I knew Karen's route would at least be passable.

At Arncliffe I set off up the road towards Malham, a route I've never used on foot or any other way. It's a completely different view to the Monks Path on the other side of the valley, and very scenic. Some cows on the road were a bit dubious about me, but peaceful enough.

Turning onto the Pennine Way I started up towards the top of Fountains Fell. The signage at the top warning about mine shafts seems to be more strident these days, but there's a clear trod to the summit cairn.

Karen and I had talked about her route off Fountains Fell towards PYG. We'd wondered whether it would be better/quicker to backtrack onto the PW and drop onto the road. In the event I was tempted by the clear trod heading in the right direction. While the trod disappeared fairly quickly, I picked out a pretty easy line and cut a big corner off.

Down at the road I stopped for some food sat on a boulder, then carried on up the PW towards the shoulder of PYG. Inevitably on a nice sunny day there were quite a few people going up, but I was able to pick my way around them, then again on the way back down.

Into Horton, and through the works at the railway station introducing a new footbridge. I started to see lots of Y3P walkers from here, and stopped to chat with the odd one.

The top of Ingleborough was pretty busy. There were a lot of folk around, obviously 3P walkers, many with bluetooth speakers and the like. I stopped in the wind shelter which was weirdly empty while I ate some malt loaf then got going.

I filled my bottles from the stream at the path junction above the steep climb then started picking my way down between the walkers climbing up.

On the way up Whernside there were huge numbers of walkers coming down, most of whom seemed to be struggling with the descent. They had marshals with walkie-talkies with them, it seemed to be some kind of organised event taking place from the Hill Inn.

The top of Whernside was in thick cloud. I stopped at the wind shelter to change my socks and eat again, and talked to a small group of young men who'd walked up from Ribblehead and wanted to know what was the quickest way down. I suggested they go back the way they'd come up, rather than down towards Chapel-le-Dale. Hopefully they managed in daylight.

Dropping down into Kingsdale on a nice clear trod, I layered up at the bottom with my waterproof rather than the windproof gilet I'd worn up to that point. Then shortly after stopped again to put on my head torch as it was getting properly dark.

Along the Occupation Road then straight up along a wall on tussock & bog to the col between Crag Hill and Great Coum, then onto Great Coum and across sparse heathland to the summit. The going was fairly easy on this section, until I started heading downhill. I had to weave around a couple of crags and kept losing the trod in bogs, but eventually found my way back down to the Occupation Road.

I followed the Occupation Road down to the public road, which was fairly awful. The surface was rocky and rubbly, and there was a lot of water running down it. At the bottom I turned a short way along the road then down an unmarked path across a field and out onto another road. I followed this road for several km. Karen had said she didn't like the amount of road in Dentdale. There was a potentially nicer but slower path through fields to my right, but I didn't have the OS map with me and wasn't sure I remembered it well enough. (I did have the Harveys map, but the 1:40k is a bit hard to follow through farms etc, so it was just for safety)

Finally leaving the road I went up a dead end lane which became a walled track up onto the moor. A very wet, boggy walled track. Followed by a very wet, boggy path down into the woods. My feet were absolutely saturated, but I knew I was meeting Claire at the bottom of the hill.

I got to the van feeling OK, just a bit tired. I changed my clothes and ate some pizza, and had a cup of tea. Unfortunately I'd forgotten to fill the van water tank (and I'd forgotten that I'd bought a bottle of emergency water and left it in the cab!) so we only had one cup of tea each (and I drank half of Claire's too). We sat around chatting for about 45 mins before I headed out back into the night.

I was feeling pretty positive as I ran/walked along the road towards Grisedale. I was making good time, feeling dry and relatively clean and newly fed. I turned off up the road into the dale and filled my bottles from a roadside stream. After a prolonged meander that was much nicer in this direction I finally left the tarmac for a path along the side of Swarth Fell. Once I reached a large reentrant I cut straight up and started wading through yet more bogs towards Swarth Pike summit.

Up on the summit things dried out and I followed the GPS through the thick cloud to Swarth Fell summit, over coarse rocky heath. I like the summits around here, the ground is sparse and easy to walk on. That's a bad thing of course, it means erosion from centuries of over-grazing, but it's easier going than what was to come on the other side of Mallerstang.

Backtracking to Swarth Fell Pike I took a clear trod leftwards into the valley. This was a good path, wet in places but clear, which reached the road right by the "Welcome to Cumbria" sign. I stepped over the border to make sure I'd actually visited the county, then got on up the other side along Hell Gill.

This was one of the grimmest sections last time, and it was pleasant to turn left onto the other side of Hell Gill and find a clear path leading up Archie Styrigg. Again, wet in places but clear and obvious, it went almost all the way up to Gregory Chapel cairn, disappearing in a bog briefly on the way.

It was cold on the top of Gregory Chapel. I dropped down to the col and back up to High Seat, then backtracked to start the long meander to Great Shunner Fell. This was actually a nice section, although sometimes frustrating as it was hard to make progress. The moon was out above me even though I was in cloud, and it a was a good time to be out on the moors. Passing a wind shelter I took the opportunity to sit under cover and eat some malt loaf and pizza, then carried on along the faint trod.

Following the fence round the sharp angle on Hugh Seat, the ground started to get rougher. I missed the stile onto the left hand fence and had to backtrack a few yards.

In spite of being enjoyable, this section was the beginning of the end I think, and also the place where I learned some important lessons. It's a long way from Hugh Seat to Great Shunner, and the ground is rough and hard going. None of it is in any way runnable, and it's high up and exposed. I was walking fast but not running, and so probably not generating enough heat to keep me properly warm.

At one point towards the end of the leg my toe caught on a rock and I came down so suddenly my chin hit the ground. Spitting sand out of my mouth I picked myself up, and crossed over the nearby fence at a corner, then caught my foot on the corner tension wire and... fell on my face again.

Eventually I reached the sharp upturn to Great Shunner summit. I was tired (obviously, it was about 4am) but generally OK. I pushed up through the heather and bilberry onto the top where it was absolutely bloody nithering. The south westerly wind was enough to buffet me around, and certainly enough to chill me very rapidly. I'd considered stopping at the wind shelter but decided it wasn't sheltered enough and I just needed to get down off the hill.

Except of course this is Great Shunner Fell isn't it, and getting down off it isn't quite that easy. Because it's about 2km at almost the same height before you start to drop into the valley.

Great Shunner is like a microcosm of the Pennine Way. There are slabs. Many of them are underwater. Many more are in bogs. There are bogs where people have avoided the slabs that are in bogs. The path is clearly visible but you can't keep your feet dry for 2 minutes at a time.

Talking to myself, I was saying "I need some shelter while I eat. What I need is a massive peat grough... like that one there". I sat down on the lee side of a grough, put my primaloft on over the top of my waterproof, and ate a few bits: some malt loaf, a nut bar, some nuts. The salted cashews were delicious through the night, but I'm not sure how much energy I was getting from them.

From this point on it went from bad to worse. Even with all my layers on I couldn't keep warm. I wasn't shivering but I felt a bit uncomfortable and my hands and feet were cold. I was worried, and kept pushing to get below about 600m where I expected the wind to drop a bit.

Except it didn't. At 550, 500, 450, 400, 300 it was still blowing just as hard. This was the start of the incoming storm.

I was getting disoriented and wobbly and knew I had to keep going or else. I kept striding along upright and seconds later finding myself crouched over and veering from side to side of the track. At one point near Hardraw I fell asleep leaning on a gate.

As I got onto the last section of track I phoned Claire and let her know I needed help. I initially thought if I could warm up I might be OK to get going in an hour or so. I stopped in the porch of the church for a few minutes, then as Claire arrived I got into the van and she wrapped me up in a sleeping bag. Claire said my skin was hot to the touch, so I can't have been hypothermic. So maybe it was hypoglycaemia. Again. I usually get horrendous cold sweats and shivers with hypoglycaemia though.

An hour's sleep, and the storm arrived properly. The van was being buffeted and rain was blattering on the sides and roof. No way was I going out in that even if I'd felt up to it. I was relieved, the decision was made for me. In truth I probably wouldn't have been able to go on anyway.

Lessons

I reached a point where I was struggling to stay on my feet. Maybe I was hypothermic, maybe hypoglycaemic, maybe I just needed caffeine. Whatever it was, I needed to be warmer.

This is partly because I was up high, on ground where I couldn't run, in a strong cold wind. Even if I was just hypoglycaemic, I was burning energy to stay warm. My pace was the kind of fast walk that I've now learned to do on long overnighters and mountain marathons where I'm carrying a lot. It's a new thing for me and I'm still learning about it.

I was wearing a base layer, a polartec alpha layer, and my stretch waterproof which, while comfortable, is not as hard a shell as some. I put a Montane Prism over the top when I got cold, but it still wasn't enough. I think for overnight on high ground I need something heavier. Paramo maybe.

This was pretty much the same situation as I've got into at Cray on the Fellsman (although I was much worse). I think it's a combination of the cold and the food.

That fast walk gait inspired by something Nicky Spinks said in an interview is working really well. On gravel or tarmac I can do sub 10min/km, and on rough ground I can keep going at a good pace instead of wasting energy trying to run.

I was still climbing OK right up to the top of Great Shunner, which is reassuring.

My feet were cold, and I was annoyed by them getting wet all the time. The Mudtalon Speed shoes are designed to be quite freely draining. Maybe I need to spray a pair with fabsil for the winter. The Mudtalons were OK for the first half, but I was very glad of the thinner soles for the section from High Seat to Great Shunner.

Variation in food was better, but I could have done with yet more. I missed the fig rolls that I'd been unable to buy. More pizza would probably have been a good idea. Cheese as well - I didn't take any lumps of cheese because I couldn't be arsed cutting & bagging them. That was a mistake.

Kit

• Awdis long sleeved base layer
• Awdis short sleeved base layer
• Montane windproof gilet
• Rab powerstretch gloves
• OMM full length flash tights
• Inov8 Mudtalon (first half)
• Inov8 Mudtalon speed
• UD Fastpack 20 bag
• Salomon water filter
• 2 water bottles
• Montane Element Stretch waterproof
• Kalenji waterproof trousers
• Bridgedale merino running socks
• Black Diamond talus gaiters
• Garmin eTrex 20x gps
• Suunto compass
• Harvey Yorkshire Dales map
• Montane Prism jacket
• Silva Trail headtorch & spare battery
• Zebralight H62fw spare torch
• First Aid Kit
• SOL survival bag
• Buffs
• Glasses

Food

• Jamaican patties (2)
• Malt loaves (2)
• Pizzas (2)
• assorted Nakd and Kind bars
• salted cashews
• 
  

Dales Top Ten - incomplete first attempt

 This was a bit of a new venture for me. I've done lots of ultra distance races, and a fair few solo rounds at the 12 to 15 hour mark. Something that pushes out more towards a hundred in time/effort/distance was uncharted territory.

I've been thinking about doing the Yorkshire Round for a while. A couple of weeks ago with a free weekend coming up I switched to the Dales Top Ten on the basis that although the distance isn't much less the terrain is a lot easier. In theory.

I'm not big on planning, so with a few days to spare I shopped for extra food, made some sketchy plans and took a punt. Step one was where and when to start: Claire doesn't sleep well in the van, and when you're sharing a small bed with someone who isn't sleeping well you don't sleep well yourself. To avoid starting already tired, I figured sleeping at home the night before would be better. 

I decided that I was likely to take 24 hours plus/minus 2. I'd identified Kettlewell as a good starting point, being relatively close to home and a bloody sight quieter on a summer's morn than Horton. So on Saturday morning we drove up relatively late. The idea was to set off around 11 - 12, to avoid finishing in the early hours and make pick up easier.

Claire was joining me for the first bit, and once we got ourselves sorted we set off up Great Whernside. I wasn't going berserk fast, but brisk. I think Claire found the first bit hard going after a year of ongoing minor injury. Once we got to the top of Great Whernside and started along the track to Black Dyke we settled into a steadier pace.

Down through the bogs of Black Dyke to Park Rash, and onto Starbotton road. I opted for the reverse Fellsman route rather than over Tor Mere, to avoid the worst of the swamp. It's not much further round and much nicer.

Top of Buckden Pike then down as far as where the wall cuts away from the path. That's the way I usually come up on the Fellsman, so I followed the same route down to the road. Crossed the road where ongoing track maintenance is happening, and up the steep hill on Stake Lane.

I made a mental note while climbing just how far it is from the road up to the site of the Fellsman Hell Gap CP. I really need to eat and layer up at that point next year to avoid another long stay at Cray CP.

I filled my filter bottle at a stream by the track and carried on up to the top. Along the flat section over Stake Moss I was passed by an off road racing buggy. Politely I might add, at a steady pace and without spraying gravel everywhere. 

Above the junction in the track where I was to take the Stalling Busk route there was a long traffic jam, maybe 8 off roaders. Looked like a guided excursion, who had unfortunately got stuck behind a sheep shearing station at the side of the path. They were all relaxed about it, enjoying the sunshine while they waited.

Down to Stalling Busk and I had a quick look around the church in case there was a tap. Nope.

On to Marsett, and up the lane signposted for Hawes & Burtersett. On the path up I found a little footbridge. The watercourse didn't look too sketchy, so I filled up a bottle.

Reaching the roman road I turned right for a short way then took the path round the bottom of Wether Fell to follow the path down to Gayle.

In setting up for this weekend, I'd downloaded the GPX from the LDWA website and edited it to start from Kettlewell instead of Hardraw. Thanks to the oddities of multi-track GPX on older Garmin units, my GPS was only showing the route from Hardraw onwards. Luckily I knew the paths well and was able to make my own way.

At Hawes I passed round the back of the church then popped into the church yard in search of a tap. Nope. I sat on the church steps to change my socks, then bought a 1.5l bottle of mineral water in a nearby shop. Guzzling the water bit by bit on the path then road over the river towards Hardraw, I stowed the scrunched up bottle in my pack.

At Hardraw the GPS finally figured out where I was, and I started to head up Great Shunner. I was still on very familiar ground and making good time.

It seemed to take a long time to reach the top, and when I got there there were a couple of tents pitched. I stopped to take a couple of pictures, send Claire a text, then headed onwards towards Gregory Chapel and Archie Styrigg. Now I was in new territory...

Following the south side of the fence there was a reasonable trod that climbed and fell over small grikes. As I got further downhill the grikes got bigger, until I turned sharply right towards a row of grouse butts and through some 1.5m deep grikes. That didn't last long and I was back on a keepers quad track up the hill.

Over a few minor summits and past a large cairn to Gregory Chapel, then across a col to Archie Styrigg. The view here was stunning, all the way up to Dufton. The sun was starting to go down and it was a beautiful evening.

Heading back across the col to Gregory Chapel I passed to the right to follow the GPX line towards Hell Gill. This is where it all fell apart.

The line curved slightly to the right and crossed Hell Gill high up, then seemed to follow the side of the gill all the way down. So that was 3km of bog and massive tussocks. There was a nice trod for about 100m at the top. Following the gill meant staying level with the fence and climbing in and out of steep sided gullies. As I got further down the GPS line dropped to the level of the gill. Tried it, it was chest deep undergrowth and boulders. Climbed back up to the fence line and continued to contour above the fence in tussocks. The Inov8 Mudtalons had seemed like a good choice for the distance, but my ankles were turning with every 2nd step and it was really slow, painful going.

I'd expected to take about 2 hours from Archie Styrigg to the meeting point with Claire in Garsdale. It took most of that to get to Hell Gill Force, leaving me another 6km to go.

That timing confused me and I briefly forgot about Swarth Fell. As I ran north along Mallerstang I was puzzled by what was clearly Wild Boar Fell in front of me, until I remembered I still had Swarth Fell to climb on my left and groaned.

The GPS line took me along the road then up a sheer quarry face. Clearly this was stupid, and I carried on to a gate slightly past. There was a clear trod up the side of the fence which I followed, ignoring the GPS line which was off to my left.

Eventually the trod petered out and the GPS line crossed to the right in front of me. I fought my way through more bog, tussock and boulders to reach the edge of a basin, then contoured through boulders, waist deep soft rushes and thistles to reach a path up Swarth Fell.

At this point I was fairly tired, but mainly just not having any fun. The idea was a nice run through the night, but I'd run out of motivation battling through terrible terrain. Following the trod down towards Garsdale from Swarth Fell I got a decent spell of trotting in, until I had to leave the trod to get down onto the main bridleway below. More ankle turning tussocks. More swearing. If this had been an isolated bit I'd have been OK, but coming after about 10km of it, I'd had enough.

I got onto the bridleway and headed down into Garsdale. Which meant about 7km of road, perfect for finally capping my mood. I'd been considering sacking it as I fought through the boulders on the far side of Swarth Fell. The road finally did it. I messaged Claire as I descended to let her know I was calling it, and ran/walked along the road as best I could to the van, passing a rather startled dog walker along the way.

Back at the van I took off my bag (which had chafed my back pretty badly) and had a cup of tea. Claire had put together lots of additional food apart from the pizza I'd pre-prepared, and had a cup of tea waiting for me. I was very happy to see her, and happy to stop.

After a break I didn't feel any more inclined to carry on, and wasn't really convinced another 12 hours was going to be safe.  I'd done a respectable 70km with 2300m of climb, including some barely passable terrain for about 15km. We ate some food, drank some beer and settled into bed at the side of the road.

Next day on Strava, Karen noted that she'd done the DTT as her birthday run last year. Looking at her route, she'd obviously recced and found better routes on both the grim sections by passing along a path (marked on OSM) to the north of Hell Gill, and going straight up Swarth Fell Pike from Outhgill (another path marked on OSM) although she still hated the road bit. 

I'm disappointed not to finish, but reasonably sure that it wasn't fitness that stopped me. Lack of planning perhaps, and that's something that catches me out a lot. But I almost consciously do that - I like to go into things without knowing too much and adapt as I go. This time it was a totally new venture - a long distance with only a single support stop. I didn't finish, but I learned new things about the geography, and about how to manage solo over longer distances than a race usually affords.

I'll go back and have another go, maybe in the autumn if opportunity arises.

Kit

• UD Fastpack 20l
• Raidlight T shirt
• OMM 0.5 tights
• Inov8 Mudtalons
• Black Diamond gaiters
• Salomon water filter
• Silva Trail head torch
• Zebralight HL600 backup light
• Montane Element Stretch waterproof jacket
• Evadict waterproof trousers
• Montane Ember insulating layer
• Sunglasses
• Prescription glasses
• Garmin eTrex 20x
• Gloves
• buffs
• compass
• first aid kit
• bothy bag

Food

• jamaican veg patties - 2
• cheese and onion rolls - 2
• malt loaf
• cheese
• Nut protein bars - 2

Lessons

When taking a punt at anything un-recced, look at the route in detail and compare it with both OSM and OS. There are physical paths on OSM that aren't recorded on OS.

Carry more water on this kind of excursion. Another litre would have been ideal. The extra weight in the bag is worthwhile to be able to drink freely.

Carry a little sweet food - fig rolls are ideal

Inov-8 Mudtalons are bloody useless on rough ground

Print the route onto a map and take the map, instead of/as well as the GPS. Not having the bigger picture visible when I left Gregory Chapel, I didn't see that I could have gone far to the right and avoided the worst of the crap as I was going to lose height soon anyway.

Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon 2024

 The weather hasn't been much cop for the last couple of years, and in the run up to the Saunders we were watching the weather forecast (light rain, heavy rain, risk of thunder) with some apprehension. In the end though it was mostly good and sometimes sunny.

We drove up to the event centre on Friday night, stopping for fish & chips at Gargrave on the way. 2 lanes closed over Shap for gully emptying was a pain, but we were at the event centre in the middle of nowhere somewhere near Bampton just after 9. We got the van parked up (deploying the rather knackered levelling ramps for the first time in a while) and popped down to registration to get it out of the way.

I'd entered us early enough that we had a mid-to-late start time saturday, so at 8:45 we walked up to the start for our 8:52 slot. There was a huge queue, but as usual no one waiting to start for Fairfield so we went straight through. Maps and control list in hand, we went to one side to plan the first few.

The event centre was in the north east of the map, mid camp in the centre west. There were controls remote from both the start and mid camp in the south east. We decided to head into the south of the map on day 1, and leave the north for day 2. We located a high scorer on our way southwards and planned in the first couple of controls to channel us towards that, and said we'd plan the next phase there.

Control 1 was simple - a cairn to the right of the path. The kite was low to the ground so it wasn't glaringly obvious, but straightforward. On to the next, a sheepfold apparently 2 contours above a path. The path turned out to be higher than the map showed and dropped us right onto the control. From there we followed a bearing over a couple of noses to another sheepfold. A bearing took us most of the way to the next control, a ruin by a path.

From there we hacked across country to a good path. Initially we crossed over and followed a direct line towards the path in the valley below, but soon realised that the path we'd crossed looped round, so we worked our way back to it and descended to the bridge at Fordingdale.

Marching back up the side of Long Grain we were boiling hot. It was sunny and the wind was screened by the hill ahead. We took a trod along the top of the boundary under the crag, then climbed slightly to access the control almost exactly where we expected.

We took a slightly looping route on towards Low Raise, which may have cost us a couple of minutes but I doubt any more. We should probably have done a quick out and back for a ten point control to the north, but somehow we just didn't think of it. The next control was on a small tarn just past the summit, after which we cut straight down to a control on a bend in the beck. There was an obvious linear feature in the form of a stream that we could follow, except that there was a second more obvious one higher up that distracted us. We reached the beck too high then dropped onto the control. It was fairly well hidden though, at one point I was looking around to find it and not seeing it ten metres away.

Down to the tourist paths at Mardale Head. We paused briefly to eat and replan the next stage, then took the wrong path up from the road. We only got about 100m before realising though, and got onto the correct path up to Small Water.

The control at Small Water was next to a stream, and I filled my filter bottle whilst there. Then we started to climb.

It was a very steep climb up out of Small Water and took us quite a while. Once we reached the top we set off along the contour towards the control. We could see people on the hill above us who may (or may not) have been on a path, but they didn't seem to be going noticeably quicker than us. We landed more or less on top of the control on the contour, and had a brief regroup to decide on the next thing. We had a choice between climbing up and following the ridge round then dropping down a very steep slope onto a control in the gully south of High Street, or skipping it and dropping down where we were, then contouring round and climbing back up north of Froswick to a control on a spur. We opted for the Froswick spur and headed downhill.

Contouring round a nose between us and our target gill, we encountered a lot of people. When we reached the river crossing in the valley bottom we realised why - this must have been a control on a linear course. The control description could easily have been "middle of a large crowd". We ignored this control as it wasn't on the score map and headed uphill towards the clearly visible spur in the middle of the gill. Once we reached it, the control was hidden in long grass. It was obvious from a few metres above and we dropped back to it, then set off up to the top. Some people were taking a north westerly course up the steep slope but we took a (very slightly) gentler line onto the col, then turned right.

The day was wearing on and there was a cold wind. We felt a few drops of rain and paused to put coats on.

Reaching the summit of what I quickly realised was Thorneythwaite Crag (no mistaking that cairn) we headed left down the gnarly scree path to the col above Threshthwaite Cove. Our plan at this point was to take anything up to 3 controls on the minor summit south of Hartsopp Dodd then run in over Hartsopp. By the time we picked our way down to the col we had 40 minutes remaining, which wasn't really enough time. We picked our way even further down Threshthwaite Cove to pick up an easy 15 point control on a boulder close to the path, then headed for the finish with 20 minutes to go.

A male team kindly let us through, they had a bit more time on their clock, and we pelted as best we could with full packs down the valley bottom to the finish. We dibbed 2 minutes and some seconds over, earning ourselves a 6 minute penalty which was more than offset by the 15 point control we'd managed to bag.

Mid Camp

Being on a 7 hour time limit for the score means you get to mid camp at a reasonable time (it was 7pm when we got in last year on Kirk Fell) and have plenty of pitch choice. A marshal kindly told us there was plenty of quiet space in the next field away from the marquee, and we found a nice flat spot to pitch. We pitched with the back of the tent to the wind as far as possible and got the kettle on for a brew.

Fetching water we bumped into Nick Harris who'd had a good day, then Ali Richards who'd also had a really good day.

Shortly afterwards a couple of guys from the midlands pitched alongside us. They were soon horrified to discover that their gas cylinder had leaked and was completely empty. Lucky they'd pitched next to us - Claire had bought a new 100g cylinder for the weekend and when she tested it on her stove it hadn't worked properly. I tried it on mine and it worked fine, so I brought it along as a spare, not realising that Claire had put a brand new 250g cylinder in her bag. Between us we had enough gas for 3.5 mountain marathons, plus some left over!

The rain held off and the smidge kept the little biters at bay (Claire hid in the tent, but I was lying on the grass and only got a couple of bites). We had a few cups of tea, drank our beer with dinner then by 10pm we were tired enough to sleep. Unfortunately some berk had other ideas and, while the entire campsite fell deathly silent at 10pm, this idiot kept droning on at normal conversational volume until 11.15. It even woke me, and I'm very hard to wake.

Day 2

6am and everyone was up and about. We had a cuppa, packed for the start and Claire went to queue for the loos. We got going for the start with ten minutes to spare only to discover it was more like 20-25 minutes walk. Dammit. 

A fast march got us to the start only 15 minutes after our allotted time, and we dibbed and got going. We'd planned a number of different options the night before, but Claire had devised a better starting plan for the first few controls.

From the start we dropped down slightly before climbing almost to Hayeswater for the first control. This meant a slight wade across the beck, but we were going to have wet feet sooner or later anyway. Then on and on and on up the slope to take the control on the 697m summit above. There were lots of parent and child teams here, this was obviously on the Beda Fell course.

A pleasant run down and along the track to Satura Crag, and a control in a reentrant above Angle Tarn. Very scenic. It was warm and humid but pleasant going.

We carried on along the Beda Fell ridge to take two more controls gaining us 50 more points, then dropped to the road to cross the OOB. We debated an out and back to Hallin Fell, but decided to go take some points closer to the finish instead. 

Rather than the slightly roundabout paths we opted to climb straight up the side of the summit north of Pikeawassa via a crag that stuck out from the bracken. The going wasn't too bad through the undergrowth, and we made decent time. We were slightly south of our bearing when we reached the summit, but found the control fairly quickly. Jackie Scarf arrived just as we did, and we said a quick hello then got moving.

On along the ridge of Pikeawassa, following the hard boundary through one gate, and back through another to the next control. I filled my bottle on the crossing of Fusedale beck, and we started to climb Loadpot hill. The going was really easy, there was a good trod almost all the way up crossing the large reentrant. A lot of people were opting for the marked path, but the trod was much more direct. It was still a long climb in the heat though.

Top of Loadpot, bagged the trig, then down the path to find the reentrant. The large circular reentrant was extremely visible in this wide open flat space, and we dibbed and moved on.

We'd considered going for a 40 at Whinny Crag if we had time, but we erred on the side of caution and followed a clear track round to a 25 point at Helton Fell. This was similar to the last control of last year's Kirk Fell class - it wasn't immediately clear which of a few different ring features it was, since there were more on the ground than on the map (and there were 4 on the map). Following a trod that should have gone to the south and clearly went north of the prominence, we were on the wrong trod so cut south to hit the control.

From here we had a little over an hour to go. We wanted a control little more than a kilometre away and slightly closer to the finish. The trouble was an area of OOB in the way. There were two possible routes - round it to the west, or through a gap to the east which would involve losing lots of height. We opted to keep the height and contoured through a particularly swampy bog to pass well above the OOB. I kept an eye on the height and kept us 10-15m above by my altimeter, which had been a bit out due to changeable weather. I could see a gate a couple of hundred metres down the valley which I was reasonably sure was the OOB, so we were well clear (and that's born out by the Routegadget after the fact).

The reentrant the control was in turned out to be very steep sided, so we crossed over high up, then dropped along the nose through a lot of bracken to reach it. That was our last of the day, and there was a clear trod being followed by lots of people in the direction of the finish.

It was a fairly easy 1.5km run in to the finish, and we made it with 8 minutes to spare. As last year, the organisers took us on a grand tour around the outer edge of the carpark to reach the finish.

No sooner had we finished than we bumped into Jackie (who was travelling back with us) waiting in the enormous queue for food. We chatted about route choice for a bit (she'd taken a couple of choices that we'd skipped through caution) then went to change, by which time the queue had subsided. The food was good as it usually is, and we sat chatting for half an hour or so before heading back.

The Saunders is always a fun event, made better by the (usually) benign weather at this time of year. In spite of some apprehension about weather, we were lucky and it held all weekend. It absolutely hammered down on the way home. We did far better than we did 2 years ago (2023 doesn't count, we did a linear course). Both of us have improved markedly in navigation and estimation which made the whole thing all the more enjoyable.

Kit List

• UD Fastpack 40
• Nordisk Halland 2 tent
• Rab Neutrino 200 down bag
• Alpkit air mat
• MSR Ti mug
• Long Ti spoon
• Montane Element Stretch waterproof
• Montane Prism primaloft (probably excessive)
• Raidlight Performer T shirt (on)
• OMM 3/4 tights (on)
• Inov8 Mudtalon speed (new, on)
• Black Diamond talus gaiters (on)
• Drymax thin socks (on, spares for day 2)
• OMM full length tights (worn at mid camp) - should have taken the loose patagonia ones
• Long sleeved t shirt (worn at mid camp) - should have taken a short sleeve
• Rab softshell (on, but probably unneeded)
• Altra hat (on)
• Evadict waterproof trousers
• Suunto A30 compass
• Couple of chinagraph pencils
• Boil bags for food (2 + spare)
• 2 250g blocks of cheese
• 3 malt loaves
• 4 Kind nut bars
• First aid kit & multitool
• Spare 200g gas cylinder (unneeded, but lent out to another team)
• Buffs * 2 (one round wrist to guard SI card)
• Emergency glasses
• Smidge
• Sunblock
• Buffalo mittens
• ZL HL600fw torch
• Hydrapak bottles * 2 plus Salomon filter
• Platypus for mid camp - getting a bit knackered, needs replacing soon
• bread bags * 4 (unneeded this year)
• midge net
• phone
• 2 jamaican pasties (day 1 snacks)
• SOL survival bag
• contact lenses
• 
  

Lessons learned

• I worked out a set of criteria for planning. Use them for next event
• Remember, 15m contours make some really steep things look easier!
• Something wore a hole in my 40l pack (or possibly chewed!)
• Earplugs
• I could do with packing things a bit more logically.
• Hard objects don't fit that well into drybags.
• More nut bars - (Kind brand, they were very successful)
• Make sure laces are really, properly tight before starting
• I had far more warm clothes than I really needed. A lighter primaloft, lighter full length leggings and a short sleeved t-shirt for mid camp would have been better. The softshell was entirely unnecessary, although I did wear it for a couple of hours at the start I could have managed without (or worn a much lighter windproof)
• DO NOT FORGET SKINSOSOFT
• Buff over the running cap is surprisingly warm
• Mark up the next couple of controls even if I'm confident I know which they are
• Cross off the controls already done
• Toothbrush

Speyside 100

 After Claire's fantastic run in the EBB last year she was keen to follow up with this year's LDWA 100. I didn't manage to do a hundred last year so I was keen too, so we got our entry in straight away. Like many others we were delighted with the idea of a route in the Scottish mountains.

Claire has, as I've noted elsewhere lately, been struggling with a seemingly endless series of minor injuries that are mostly attributable to menopause symptoms. Many women encountering the obstacles to running that the menopause brings simply give up, but Claire is a bit more stubborn than that. Nevertheless, we went into the Speyside with Claire on less than sparkling running form.

In the run up, there was a lot of worry about ticks and midges. The tick worries in particular hadn't really been talked about much before, and the recommendation to wear long trousers was a bit of a concern for us. We ended up tinkering with various different options, settling on very lightweight Patagonia jogging bottoms that I've worn for a couple of years as a nicer alternative to Ron Hills.

Driving up from Calderdale to Inverness on the friday took us about 7 hours, from a gentle 10am start. We got some fish and chips in the village chippy at Milton and took them back to our b&b,

Friday night we didn't sleep well. Claire barely slept at all. I got some, but rather restless. This wasn't an ideal start, but there wasn't much we could do about it.

We got up to Boat of Garten around 10.30, had a bit of trouble finding the HQ as there was no event signage but eventually located the car park and got parked up. Shifted food from the van fridge into our packs and breakfast bags, slathered ourselves in skinsosoft, smidge and P20 and went in to registration.

Registration only took a few minutes, the 12 o'clock start was extremely quiet, and we sat around drinking tea and chatting to Claire's friend Garth who was also on the 12 start. Just before we set off I spotted Matt Hutchinson. We didn't see Matt again until Recletich.

A few bits of event briefing, then the piper played and we headed out into the woods. Claire and I were near the back with Simon Pipe, who was talking to the photographer. Once people started to spread out we started running a bit and left Simon behind.

The first section through the ancient woodland to Nethy Bridge was absolutely delightful. It was pleasantly warm and there was birdsong all around us. We were deliberately holding the speed down to start gently and enjoying a comfortable pace.

At Nethy Bridge we grabbed a cup of tea and kept going, onto the start of the dismantled railway. At this point that didn't seem ominous. It was a rather pleasant path, which we were sharing with the runners, walkers and cyclists of the Cairngorm to Coast charity event. Lots of cheerful walkers and cyclists came past along this stretch, and we were soon at Grantown on Spey. It was a bit of a trek through the village to the CP, where we picked up more tea and some snacks.

Back out of Grantown on Spey and up to the Dava way, which was... disused railway. We followed this for a few km before dropping down through the woods to a girder bridge and a road section to Cromdale.

At Cromdale we bumped into Kieran and Dianne, who had been on the 10am start. We chatted for a while as we ate and drank tea, lurking around the trays to wait for sandwiches coming out of the kitchen.

We got going again shortly, and headed out along the road towards the hills of Cromdale. We were passing lots of 10am starters from here on, particularly once we left the road and started on the steep climb.

Looking back down from the Cromdale climb

Reaching the col we were directed through a gate and down through some bog to the other side of the col. The bog wasn't too bad, but my feet got fairly wet. We knew this was coming though, and it was warm so my feet dried out pretty quick.

The drop down the other side was a rocky path - always a bit hard on wet feet, then we were down at Ballacorach CP, which was an outdoor CP in a car park. No tea here - they were running short of water and asking people to only take what they needed. I think they were probably overwhelmed by numbers, you'd expect the crowd to have thinned out by this point, but if a lot had started on the 10am that should have been on the 12 that might have caused a big rush.

I munched my way through some falafels while Claire went to the loos, then we carried on up the road to the next climb through the woods. This was very pleasant, and led onto a flattish track which then became a forestry track down to the road. We rejoined the road at Glenconglas then left it again to drop down to a river crossing and back up a path into Tomintoul.

Approaching the summit of Dave

At Tomintoul we had kit check bingo. A ping pong ball marked "head torch" came out of the box and we dug in packs to locate them.

Tim Rollett was on clipper duty just inside the door and greeted us cheerfully. We sat for a little while here changing socks and eating pizza. I had some custard too, which was delicious. We took a 2nd (3rd?) cup of tea with us and set out again, cheering on the first 2pm starter (and eventually first home in roughly 21 hours).

Backtracking across the river and climbing back up to the road, we were passed by Phil Withnall & Claire Nance coming the other way. They'd set out on the 2pm start and were making strong progress.

Once we reached the road we backtracked to the turn off and started up onto Carn Daimh (pronounced "Carn Day-iv," although the dipthong just sounds like "Dave"). This was a lovely section, mostly dry, and the sun was setting as we reached the summit. We dropped down the other side on a rocky path that flattened out and I stopped to put on a warmer layer and eat a food bar.

After a little while on the flat we dropped onto a road and passed through the wonderful smells of the Glenlivet distillery, before reaching the CP by the river. Garth was here just ahead of us, and we chatted over some food and a cup of tea. I had some really rather nice soup (made up from powder I think, but still tasty) with no ill effects, then off we went with our cups of tea into the night.

This was the start of a long, long road section. Apart from a short stretch of forestry track it was road all the way to the next CP. While it was hard on the feet, it did give us chance to crack along and that we did, pulling our average pace down quite a bit.

At Recletich the CP was in a barn in the farm yard. Something had clearly gone wrong here. The volunteers were really subdued, there was little in the way of food, no hot drinks and a very strange smell. After the enthusiastic billing the "continental breakfast" had in the run up, there was clearly something awry. We had yoghurts and questionable croissants and chatted with Matt Hutchinson who was waiting for transport. He'd got badly cold and was pacing back and forth to warm up. It was his first ever DNF in the many events he's done, and I really wanted to say something helpful but wasn't sure what.

We didn't hang about too long and made tracks for Dufftown.

The road section here led up to a minor side road, that then became a forestry track. Lots of camper vans parked at the side of the road must have wondered what was going on as a stream of head torches passed them.

In the woods we climbed up the track, then took a wrong turn at an ambiguous point. I was keeping an eye on the GPS and spotted it immediately. We called back the people in front (I think it was Phil and Claire) and got back on the right track, where Phil and Claire passed us within a few minutes, moving strongly on the muddy path.

An interminable (but actually only a few km) brash and rock strewn track led us down into Dufftown. The sky was starting to lighten as we arrived and were directed to the back of the building. The constraints of this building made things rather difficult. We went into a room and picked up our breakfast bags. There was some space to sit, and a couple of first aiders helping with foot care, but not much room for other things that we needed to do at breakfast (like changing clothes). The changing room was tiny and had a sign saying "one person only", so I changed and brushed my teeth as quick as I could.

A castle. Near Dufftown. We may have mentioned Homer Simpson

We sat while one of the first aiders padded a blister that had come up on Claire's heel. There were footbaths going on, which sounded like they were going well but I'd been concentrating on keeping my feet dry, so this didn't really appeal. I did have a chuckle at the footbath containers though - cat litter trays. Very practical.

We handed in our breakfast bags and returned to the front of the building to get some food. This didn't go well.

I went to the kiosk and got teas for us, then we had some cornflakes (that was a mistake for me I think). People were being asked what they wanted and brought food but no one was asking us. It seemed like they were too short handed to be able to track what was going on, and we went quite a long time before we could get anyone to help us.

We finally managed to attract the attention of one of the volunteers who was dealing with food. Several groups had arrived, eaten and left while this was going on. I had a few bits of fried breakfast but, tired and hypoglycaemic, didn't really communicate what I wanted very well so didn't end up eating much. Meanwhile the cornflakes hit my system and my blood sugar flopped. I curled up on the floor for a few minutes until I felt capable of moving, then stubbornly got going. I just wanted out of there. 

Once we got clear of Dufftown I started to perk up, and at first the flat disused railway seemed like an opportunity. We ran quite a bit and made up quite a lot of time, but Claire's feet and knees were starting to be a problem. 

Our original plan had been to stick together for at least a couple of hours to keep me from rushing off like an idiot and burning out. Claire wasn't expecting to be as fast as me, and I had in my mind to at least get under 30 hours. As it turned out Claire moved faster than expected for the first half, I wouldn't have gone any quicker and by the time we were well into the night I'd decided I was enjoying myself too much to want to go off on my own. We work together well on long events - we always have something to talk about and silly jokes to share, and can go long periods just listening to the birds without saying anything much. Claire wasn't feeling so great by this point and I'd decided during the night that this was an event to share anyway, so we stuck together.

By the time we reached Charlestown of Abelour we were starting to really dislike the disused railway. This was a shame, because we had about another 50km of it. Charlestown CP was a welcome break, we had a cup of tea and some crisps and nibbles.

Back onto the infernal disused railway for another 10km. We were at that stage where people settle into a pace, and although we were still overtaking a few we were seeing the same people more often (and seeing Garth at almost every CP).

At Advie we left the disused railway and climbed up to the CP. A very quick kit check - reflectives for Claire (the UD FastPacks are VERY reflective) and "water container" for me, which was right next to my jaw.

This was a particularly lovely checkpoint - we were made very welcome, fed and congratulated and left feeling very much better.

Leaving Advie in the rain

The rain started just as we left, but we were into the woods so it didn't matter too much. The rocky forestry path was uncomfortable going though, and hard on Claire's blisters.

From Knockfrink to Milton was the notorious section with chain gates, narrow barbed wire paths and rocks underfoot. Everyone slowed down here and it got bottlenecked. It all seemed a bit unnecessary and left me wondering whether the landowner had just been a bit of an arse about the public footpath.

We were a bit confused at Cromdale as we'd got the location mixed up in our minds with Grantown. We found the CP OK though. Claire was really struggling mentally and physically. One of the volunteers gave her a very helpful pep talk, and I taped up her blisters.

And on we went to Grantown on Spey. Fish finger sandwiches are a real treat, and made me very happy. As we left the CP we encountered an elderly couple on the pavement:

"you go ahead, you'll be much quicker than us"

"I wouldn't be too sure of that"

"Oh, have you been on a long walk?"

"...........yes. Yes we have."

Once we got into the woods Claire really needed something done with the blisters on the balls of her feet, so out came the gaffa tape again. This done, we were able to crack on to Nethy Bridge fairly well on the last section of disused railway, where we were greeted by Merrian & Dave (but no Jack sadly). I munched on some malt loaf, we picked up a cup of tea, and off we went.

Jack Cooper's handiwork at Ne(ss)thy Bridge

10km to go, and arguably the nicest 10km of the route, albeit we'd already done it once.

We walked quickly through the woods listening to the birdsong (so quickly in fact that we were doing sub 8 min/km). Sleep deprivation and exhaustion was starting to do the inevitable and Claire was seeing beavers in the tree stumps. I wasn't quite so tired but did have the distorting effects of my sports glasses, and I was starting to catch the odd green sheep in the corner of my eye which turned into a mossy hummock when I looked at it straight on. At a glance the wings of the eagle on the campsite sign looked more like rabbit ears which started me rambling about fibreglass animals. We definitely needed to stop.

Soon we were passing the Boat hotel and the GPS was telling us there was only 600m to go. It was a very long 600m, but finally we were welcomed into the finish with the ringing of the bell.

Once through the door we encountered a problem. I surrendered my tracker and dug the timing chip out of my bag. The volunteer who collected them was asking Claire for her red timing chip, and she was completely flummoxed and upset because she had no idea what he was on about. It transpired there had been a problem at registration and not everyone had been issued a timing chip, but seemingly no one had told the guy who was pressing Claire to find hers. We had kit out on the floor trying to find it, every dry bag emptied, and no sign. Eventually someone conceded that perhaps she'd never been issued one and we were able to repack and take a breath.

At this point I needed to eat. I went into the food hall to be told that the haggis wasn't currently available, and all there was available was pasta and ratatouille. Obviously pasta makes me very ill, so that wasn't an option, and ratatouille with or without cheese really didn't sound appealing. Just then I started to feel faint and once again had to lie down. I found a corner and hit the deck, while someone went and found Claire to let her know where I was.

This passed within a few minutes as it always does, and we were feeling a bit jaded and overwhelmed by the noise of the finish, so just picked up our badges and certificates and headed for the hotel, via the camper to pick up a change of clothes (and a few midge bites - the car park field was the midgiest place on the entire event).

We had lots of savoury snacks in the van fridge, so we gathered them up and limped our way 600m to the hotel. Claire was really struggling so I went on ahead to check us in. By the time she arrived we were able to go straight up (2 flights of stairs!) to our room where we had a few nibbles and a cup of tea, a quick shower, then fell asleep for 9 hours.

Kit Hacking - The Ommtanelight Frankenblazer 8 mk2

I prefer a rucksack to a race vest, particularly when training. A rucksack has a little more structure, but occupies a bit less space on your body. They're easy to take on and off to grab things out of the main compartment out on the hill, and are more practical to leave half/fully packed in the kitchen ready to head out the door.

These are two of my favourites. I've had the one on the right a few years. It's a Montane Trailblazer 8l. I wasn't sure about it to start with, it's not as minimal as I'd expect for a tiny running bag. It's an incredibly stable fit though, it sits squarely on my back and doesn't slide around thanks to the very clever double shoulder straps.

There are a few things I like less about it. I love the huge stretchy pockets you get on the back of UD Fastpacks (like the one on the left) for shoving food, waterproofs and hill litter in. The thing that I really find a pain on the Montane bag is the lack of a water bottle pocket on the front.

I've always just squeezed a 500ml bottle into the right hand zip pocket and left it slightly open, which bugs me. The latest version of the Trailblazer has a bit of fabric sewn into the zip pocket to make it a bit better to put a bottle in, but it still doesn't look that practical.

Partly inspired by my recent kit repair successes, and by something on Joe Faulkners website about customising kit, I decided to do something about it. So I carefully snipped off one of the zip pockets (recycling the zip puller for another project), and stitched on an "Omm-e-gami" pocket I had kicking around in the kit box. These are supposedly universal pockets that velcro onto rucksack shoulder straps, but they're no use for water bottles - the velcro comes loose and they fall off.

The resulting hybrid (which already had an old raidlight pouch sewn onto the shoulder strap to hold my keys) looks like this. So far the OMM pocket has worked fine for a 500ml UD water bottle.

Next step is to do something about mesh pockets on the back. I plan to remove the bungee and webbing, stitch the back up then put a big mesh pocket over the top. Then I might start hacking around the UD Blazek 10 that is also "almost but not quite just right".

Harvey Howgill Tops

 I've had this on my list for a long while. I really like the Howgills, and the HHT is a practical sized round to complete without too much preparation (I'm really bad at preparation). With a gap between the Fellsman and the Speyside 100 of about 5 weeks there was some space available.

We drove up on the Friday night, getting to the Cross Keys about 10pm. The picnic area further down the road that I stayed at last time has been blocked off, so we ended up in a layby close to the Cross Keys itself. Late Friday night was the really vivid aurora display, so we were out until about 12.30 with cameras.

6.30 Saturday I got up, drove down to the Cross Keys and got us parked up. Made some tea while I got ready to head out. My bag was packed, I just needed to have some breakfast and get going. Claire hadn't made any firm plans, but was tentatively heading out the other side onto Baugh Fell (plus Wild Boar Fell, Swarth Fell & Bluecaster as it turned out).

A lot drier than last time!

I set off around 7:40, heading up towards Narthwaite. I wasn't sure what to do about the river crossing here but as it turned out it was almost dry (the last two times I've been here it was ankle deep all the way across). Passed through the farm and out along the track towards Mountain View, turning right just after the old farmhouse to head straight up the fell.

From Harter Fell towards the main range

I was on top of Wandale pretty quickly. It was already starting to get warm and very clear. I paused to sort out shoe laces before heading down the other side to Adamthwaite.

Taking my cues from Tony's simple route diagram on the gofar website I went up the road from Adamthwaite instead of doubling back as I did last time, then got onto the fell at the bridleway. Straight up the gill to the top, and then down to the road crossing below Knott, filling my bottle at the stream.

Green Bell

Knott is straightforward enough, cross the stream near the road then head straight up, then onto the trod towards Green Bell, veering off briefly to reach the summit of Knoutberry Haw. Green Bell was the first trig point of the day, and I still hadn't seen any other people.

A little out and back to Grere Fell, then back up onto the rather featureless summit of Stockless. From Stockless it's another short out and back to Hooksey before Randygill. I encountered a dog walker on the out and back, and warned her that I'd be coming back that way shortly in case she

Brunch on Yarlside

was alarmed by my apparently weird behaviour. After Randygill the route then leads over a slightly boggy col and the smaller prominence of Kensgriff onto the steep climb up Yarlside.

I don't like the scree up this side of Yarlside, so I veered right off the obvious trod at the bottom and climbed up a steep but pleasant grassy strip between two minor reentrants onto the summit. Perching on the cairn I dug in my bag for the Jamaican pattie I'd put in my bag. I texted Claire, who was on her way up Wild Boar Fell, then dropped fairly sharply left down the side of Yarlside in the direction of Rams Gill. I aimed for the confluence of the two streams to fill my bottle from the smaller, steeper stream. I had a good drink while I was there, then climbed up onto the ridge to follow the clear track to Hazelgill Knott. 

Rubbly scree on Langdale Knott

From Hazelgill Knott the route continues on the track to West Fell. There was a group of people ahead of me as I faffed around trying to find the exact spot height location of West Fell, but I never got close to them. Then I dropped off on the tongue towards Langdale Knott. From Langdale Knott it's quite a steep drop, and most of the slope is covered in rubbly scree. It was this that put me off on my recce in October 22 (as well as the weather). Contouring north a bit, I found a stretch without much scree (although the grass was a bit deep and tussocky) and came down into the valley, noticing what looked like hut circles in the valley as I descended.

The river here was too wide to jump, and as I stood on a rock my foot slipped into the water. It was a very hot day though, so the cold wasn't a bother. I refilled my bottle from a side stream and headed up the next slope.

It's a steady climb up Middleton to the 2nd trig of the day, and I paused a minute to eat some malt loaf and cheese, then continued up Simonseat.

Docker Knott is a funny summit. When you approach on the trod from the Fell Head plateau there's a sudden very steep kick of about 10m. From this side that slope was clearly visible against the sky behind.

From Docker Knott the route calls for a visit to an 'unnamed spot height'. The OS map calls it "Hand Lake", and it's a not-very-distinguishable grassy summit. On then towards Rispa Pike and the little wind shelter, pausing again to fill my bottle. The minor stream I was aiming for wasn't running, so I filled up from the main stream which was flowing OK.

Rather melty cheese and malt loaf in the wind shelter, then something new. I'd never been to Archer Hill before. It's quite a nice little prominence over a small tarn. The next section was tussocky and boggy to Hare Shaw, and features something unusual in the Howgills - a fence. I hopped over the fence on each side of the enclosure and wandered around until my altimeter read something like the highest point, then headed on towards Blease Fell. From Blease Fell there's a clear trod that goes off slightly east to avoid the top of the gill, then zigzags a little to avoid bog but ultimately leads to the top of Uldale. More cheese and malt loaf on the top, then on towards Black Force.

Last time we were here we opted to drop all the way to the valley bottom and back up onto Ling Haw. That's a lot of height loss, although it's very direct, and the climb up the other side is pretty tough. Quicker to drop to the stream above Black Force and contour round on the path beyond. My planned bearing would have led to a section of stream that was in a deep gully, so I contoured round to the left to make the crossing. I drank lots of water at the stream crossing, then got onto the path.

Approaching Black Force

Here I met some more people. First of all a young woman who seemed quite nervous of the
drop (it is quite an exposed path above a big drop). Then a couple more young women 50m or so behind (I assume they were a group) who were much more relaxed.

At Ling Haw I cut across the col to the summit, then returned to the main path which drops quite sharply around the edge of Fell Head to Brown Moor.

From Brown Moor it's a long hard climb up to Fell Head. From a distance it looked like there was a slightly zigzag trod, but it turned out to be a series of interconnected sheep trods. Some of these were actually useful, but it was still a tough climb. At the top the double summit foxed me once again, and I had to recheck the map to work out what was going on.

Looking back at the Tebay Fells from Brown Moor

There were a couple of people ahead of me at this point (looked like young people), who I eventually passed between Bush Howe and White Fell Head. I could see people on the Calf ahead of me as I searched around for the spot height on White Fell. There was a little cairn by the trod, which I took to be the summit, and passed on towards the Calf. I expected the people there to have gone, but there were a couple of young lads sat on the base of the trig and a chap in a vivid orange jacket taking a selfie (he arrived back at the Cross Keys a little after me as it happened). One of the young guys asked which way I'd come - I gestured vaguely in a loop and said "sort of that way", then wished them a good day and headed off along the main track towards Bram Rigg. After Bram Rigg I veered off fairly early across rough ground to the top of Great Dummocks - another new one for me, then back to the cairn on Calders and down the horrible gravelly track. Near the bottom I met a mountain biker who asked where I was heading and where I'd been, and was a bit startled when he realised I'd done the whole range.

I got a bit confused before Arant Haw until I looked at the altimeter and realised the spur to my right was much too early and I needed to keep going to reach the substantial cairn. I'd last been up here in thick fog in 22 and struggled to find the summit. This time it was clearly visible, and covered in flags for the Junior Champs fell race the next day (or the adult friendly associated with it).

Down onto the Nab then the long slog back up. Contouring round towards Winder Fell I found myself approaching a very still young lamb. There were a few flies around, and I thought for a second the poor little thing had died - I've seen so many dead lambs and ewes this year. When I was almost upon it, it suddenly looked up and ran away bleating, so while I was sorry to startle it, I was glad it was OK.

Winder Fell

Winder Fell was also covered in flags. More people - dog walkers this time. Claire had texted worried about where I was. We were trialling a cheap Sinotrack GPS tracker, and it was showing me some distance back. I reassured her that I was OK and nearing the last couple of summits. More malt loaf and cheese, and a really nice protein bar. Back down the track to Crook, a gnarly looking little hill with a huge cairn overlooking Sedbergh, which was also flagged for the fell race route.

Obvious path is obvious

From here I contoured round to the weir further up the gill, only to find there was a clear track I could have followed if I'd descended a bit more. A lesson for me there.

Up Sickers Fell, then down onto Knott. The light was starting to fade just a little, and it was becoming a rather nice evening. Unfortunately the route from Knott onto the fell side path for the run in is a pain in the arse.

Final summit - Knott, looking back to Sickers

Instead of the direct descent and climb I tried going further up the gill roughly where the streams meet (and the path shows a footbridge that was nowhere to be seen). Still not great, rocky and with the bracken starting to grow, but much nicer than last time. I think just a tiny bit further up the gill, then climb another 20m higher up the opposite slope before contouring round will avoid the gorse.

Green Bell on a fresh warm morning

Speaking of gorse, once I was happy that I'd gone far enough on the clear trod round the corner, I dropped straight down a clear ride through the gorse onto the main path. After that it was a pleasant steady run in to the very end. I was now out of water and starting to get thirsty but not dehydrated, and still running OK. Claire met me near the footbridge at the bottom of Cautley beck and we ran in together.

Final time was around 12:20 - I'd thought 12 hours was about right, and I'd stopped quite a bit to enjoy the view, eat, and around ten minutes chatting with the biker on Calders. It was a fantastic day out and one I'd cheerfully repeat. One to share with Claire perhaps when her various niggles have eased - the constant climbing is great fun and excellent training. 

A cup of tea in the van, then home by about 10pm.

Kit List

• UD Blazek pack
• Raidlight T shirt
• Decathlon shorts (butchered to remove the horrible built in liner shorts)
• Columbia outdry ultralite waterproof
• Decathlon waterproof trousers
• Printed map with route shown
• Harvey Howgill Fells map (out of print, got a couple from ebay)
• Suunto A30 compass
• Salomon water filter & 2 Hydrapak bottles
• Inov8 X talon ultra 260 shoes
• Black Diamond Talus gaiters
• Montane windproof gilet
• Sinotrack GPS/GSM tracker
• Drymax ultra light crew length socks

Food

• Large malt loaf
• 5 slices of edam cheese
• Nice salted caramel nut bar
• a LOT of water, mostly stream water through the filter.