Half(ish) the Harvey Howgill Tops

With Claire away doing the OMM, I had a weekend with no plans. Original plan was to do the Dales Top Ten, but it's a long arse way and something that long in late October with no backup probably wasn't going to be wise. Especially the OMM weekend, notoriously a weekend for piss poor weather.

In the end, I settled for a recce around as much of the HHT as I got done. I haven't been in the Howgills for over ten years, and don't know the area that well. I didn't want to be navigating on a completely unfamiliar route in the dark, so I set out with a fairly vague plan.

I'd printed the area out on 5 sheets of A4 and marked all the tops on (in order).

Leaving the Cross Keys at about 8.30am (After a poor night's sleep in the van I struggled to get moving) I headed in the general direction of Wandale. Obstacle number one is the river crossing before climbing to Narthwaite. It was only just over ankle deep and not that cold. Then up to Narthwaite, and the first wrong turn of the day. Instead of climbing up to the path above the wall I took the farm track that leads to Mountain View. I didn't realise this until Mountain View was coming into sight, and I realised Bern Spence and I had come that way off the hill 14 years ago in some particularly evil weather.

I passed through some gates and followed a bearing to the top of Wandale, finding a clear trod from the south as I neared the summit, which would probably have brought me up from Narthwaite if I'd gone the right way.

I came down Wandale to the east, to pick up the path to Adamthwaite. Reaching the farm it took me a few minutes to find the path - it's just beyond the first barn and not waymarked, although the gates across the field are. Then climbing through some slop and handrailing a series of walls out onto the fell.

Crossing onto access land I headed NE directly up Harter Fell. At this stage the weather was still fairly friendly and I was quite warm with 2 base layers and a light waterproof. From Harter I headed down the clear trod towards the road crossing and Knott. Crossing the road by a layby I cut across to reach a stream crossing, then followed a trod 50m to the right before cutting straight for the top. It was a short, fairly easy climb and I headed off towards Knoutberry. Climbing Knoutberry I encountered a group in their 20s who had been dropped off and were heading for Sedbergh. I bumped into them several times as they walked through the worsening weather and I scuttled off on strange errands to side summits.

On Green Bell I branched off to Grere Fell, joining the walkers again on the walk over Stockless. It was absolutely pissing down by this point and blowing a cold wind, so I stopped to eat and put on waterproof trousers. The walking group continued to the summit of Randy Gill while I branched off to Hooksey. I passed them again between Randy Gill and Kensgriff, then lost track of them. Yarlside was a steep climb with little in the way of visible path. Once I reached the top I was in thick clag. Thankfully the Howgills are easy nav, at least if you're looking for summits. If you've run out of climb, you're on the summit, no false summits here. As I started to climb I apologised to a passing walker for spoiling his photo with my nasty garish coat...

From Yarlside I dropped down into Bowderdale. Getting below the cloud I had a lovely view of the valley, much like Wainwrights pencil drawing in "Walks on the Howgill Fells". I crossed the river near a tent pitched at the join with Hazel Gill, refilled my water bottle from Hazel Gill itself then started up Hazel Gill Knott.

The top of Hazel Gill was windy, very wet and very very cold. I made sure I reached the summit then started down the ridge to West Fell. That took a while, and took it's toll on my sense of humour. My feet were cold and I was very wet.

At West Fell I struggled to see anywhere sensible to descend on very steep grass in the pouring rain. I'd taken advantage of a break in the rain to swap my maps and been startled by the extent of the north western leg. In this weather and on my own, I decided cowardice was the better part of valour and headed south again.

The weather eased a bit on the Calf, although it was still very cold. I rearranged maps again, and identified a candidate route: Bram Rigg; Calders; Arant Haw; Sickers; Knott; then back to the van. On this side of the range it was almost nice, although thick cloud and still quite cold it wasn't actually pissing down or unpleasantly windy. I didn't know what the run in from Knott would be like though, so stuck to the plan.

Bram Rigg is pretty non-descript. Calders is a cairn and a sharp turn in the path. Arant Haw was well away from the main path, and I just kept climbing in the clag. Eventually I found the cairn, took a bearing for Sickers Fell and headed downhill. As I reached about 500m I dropped out of the cloud, and followed a gill down for an easy climb up Sickers.

Sickers to Knott was a fairly clear trod, then the trod went off to the south. I wanted to head north to the Cross Keys, so I took a bearing to join the wall at the bottom of access land.

The descent to the wall was through thick bracken, and fairly tough going. Followed by another ascent in thick bracken**. After that I found a trod along the wall, which took me to the Pennine Journey LDP and all the way back to the Cross Keys.

If I'd known I was going to have 90 minutes plus of daylight left I might have picked up a few more of the southern tops. As it was I did 19? - about 35km and 2300m of ascent, and still felt like I could have comfortably continued. An excellent day out with some slightly grim weather periods, and a good reintroduction to the Howgills after a long time away.

**Claire says there are a couple of clear paths here for the Sedbergh fell race, so I need to recce a better route.

Langdale Horseshoe - Toddy Carnage in the Lakes

 Claire had the Langdale on her list this year because it was an English Champs race. Tod vet ladies usually do well in the FRA teams so champs races are often on the list. As for me, as an MV50 I'm up against some of fell running's best and fastest, so any race is just a day out. But I'm always up for a day out on the mountains, so we both signed up.

We drove up on the day - Langdale is easy to get to from the south although temporary lights near Ambleside were a potential issue. We set off extra early and as a result were..extra early. We had flasks of tea so just settled in to enjoy the light rain on the windscreen.

As the start time approached we walked across to the farm for the race briefing. ONE PIE EACH. Then we were off.

With 425 people all jostling for position down the narrow track it was a bit chaotic. Claire quickly disappeared ahead, bouncing in and out of the crowd. I lumbered along in the mid pack like a moose, all legs, arms and feet. Bob Halstead crashed to the ground in front of me and narrowly avoided getting trampled. A woman dropped her map and in trying to return it I almost caused a pile up.

Finally we got to the turning and headed uphill. It was a little less chaotic here but I was still hemmed in on all sides and unable to maintain a steady pace. I'd already figured out that the rocks were badly slippy.

Passing to the right of Stickle Tarn I dodged some slippy looking stepping stones by running into the mud to one side... except that it turned out to be a metre deep. I came down hard on my ribs and left ankle (which are still painful 3 weeks later), but just kept going. On up to Thunacar Knott, where I passed Rebecca & Mel.

All was going reasonably well at Esk Hause. I turned onto the return below Esk Pike which turned into a kilometre of complete frustration. One guy kept overtaking me then stopping dead right in front. The path was rammed with people and really hard work (described on the Harvey map as 'horrid' I believe).

Once past and onto Bowfell I climbed hard and made reasonable time. Coming back off Bowfell I was very slow and tentative. I didn't feel safe in the Inov8 x-talons and was starting to wish I'd worn Freet Feldoms after all.

At 3 Tarns (I think) there was a group of Tod Harriers including Phil & Jane L who were just along to cheer us on which gave me a boost.

Then on towards Crinkle Crags. At no time was the navigation a concern - there were people around all the time and clear visibility. The wind was cold and the odd rain squall made it colder, but generally it was pretty good.

Down off Crinkle Crags and I just took the obvious path. To the Bad Step. Arse. This must have lost me 5 minutes as the woman in front bailed out and backtracked onto the other path. Eventually I managed to get down and crack on.

Pike of Blisco came and went, and I still hadn't caught Claire. The further I got without catching her the more pleased I was - she was having a good run. On a good day she's quite a bit quicker than me on this sort of terrain so the fact that she'd never even been in sight was promising.

Finally I lolloped down past the cattle grid, passing Bob (again - he must have had a few good lines to get that far ahead of me without me noticing) and a few others in the last few hundred metres.

I arrived at the finish to find Mandy Goth just in front of me. She'd been timed out by just a couple of minutes. That was a real shame - Mandy isn't particularly quick but she's extremely consistent, she'd have finished way in front of some of the final finishers. But as a very frequent marshal I know the timeout rules are there for all of us - as a marshall I've been out on the hill before now searching for missing runners who were on track, just very slow.

On the finish line we stood and waited for Mel and Rebecca to come in. Claire had finished ten minutes ahead of me, then Dave Collins turned up heavily bandaged, having dropped out after headbutting Bowfell. It looked worse than it was, but it did look pretty grim. Mel and Rebecca showed up a bit later, having lost a bit of time when Dave fell.

So Tod Harriers managed to pick up quite a few bumps and scrapes. A lot of others did too - there was a lot of blood on the finish line, some of it coming from heads. It was a good race though, although I don't think I'd do it as a champs race again, the 400 person start was just too much.

Top pies. Really, really good pies.

Mourne 2 Day Mountain Marathon - NI and Eire trip 22

Moire O'Sullivan's book "Mud Sweat and Tears" was lent to me by a fell running friend about ten years ago. It's an excellent read, and it put the Mourne 2 Day on my wish list (along with the Rogaine 24 - maybe next year).

We decided a while ago during the worst of the post Brexit passport mayhem not to bother leaving the British Isles this year. Both of us have been wanting to go back to France or Germany for a while but this year has been a political car crash so we took the easier option and planned our summer (!) holiday to coincide with the Mourne.

We were on the mid afternoon Stena crossing from Holyhead to Dublin, to allow us to spend some time in Eire during the holiday and have a fairly easy journey back. That meant a couple of hours drive from Dublin up to Newcastle on the friday, which should have been easy. Leaving the ferry port there were big signs saying "M50 TOLL", which I hadn't anticipated. With no cash in euros in the van I veered off at the last minute following the signs "non-toll traffic". DO NOT DO THIS! It takes you into Dublin proper, then abandons you. Dublin is one of the worst sign-posted cities I've ever driven in. Add to that the hundreds of people in stetsons wandering around the streets on their way to a Garth Brooks concert, and we found ourselves stuck for about an hour.

Once the traffic started to move, we started trying to find our way out of the city. The lack of signage meant we had to work on the basis of heading north west (by the direction of the setting sun since all four of the compasses we were carrying were in the MM kit in the back of the van) until we hit the motorway. As it turns out, you can pay the toll online within 24 hours, which would have saved us about 45 minutes.

Once we got onto the motorway the journey up to Newcastle was a doddle. Irish motorways are quiet and smooth. Arriving at the event centre I popped into the registration building to get some advice on where to park, and we settled down with some dinner and wine.

Vital kit prep

A fairly civilised start in the morning with coffee and breakfast. Mick and Jack Cooper were parked on site as well, and we had a quick chat while we were sorting kit. We got registered, got on the bus and got out to our starting point at the car park near Spelga Dam.

We got going bang on our start time. Later starters weren't so lucky and ended up with a bit of a wait, which must have been cold - there was a chilly breeze up there. We grabbed a list of controls and settled down to mark up our maps. Claire and I marked up independently then compared, which helps us catch any mistakes. We were starting with a cluster of 5 in a rough circle around Pigeon Rock Mountain and Slievemoughanmore, and after deciding whether to go clockwise or anti, we set off up the slope to our first control. It was a nice simple one on a wall bend and we dibbed and took a bearing off towards our next in a stream junction about a km away between Cock Mountain and Wee Slievemoughan. That too was an easy find, and we took a line around the contour before dropping to the valley bottom and climbing up to the south summit of Tornamrock for our next control. Excellent visibility made things fairly simple, and we were moving at a reasonable pace. The terrain in the Mourne is tussocky and hard going though, so we weren't really able to run at any speed.

That control was marshalled. Only one team member has an SI card on the Mourne, but random controls are marshalled to ensure both team members are together and carrying their packs.

On up a stream to Windy Gap, where walkers and other competitors were criss crossing the hill. From here we pretty much followed a direct bearing across the valley and up to a crag, then down the other side onto the next control under a boulder at the bottom of Pigeon Rock Crags. It wasn't as easy to find as the previous ones, but a large reentrant confirmed we were on the right bearing and as we dropped down we could see other competitors dibbing and moving on. Another runner made a comment at this point about needing an altimeter, which reminded me to set mine up on my watch at mid camp that evening.

The next control was further along Pigeon Rock Crag towards the start point, drawing us back to a control at the car park before the start of the linear section at a pond on the plateau south of the summit of Slieve Muck. We climbed rather higher than we needed, with hindsight it would have been better to contour round once we reached 600m, but I didn't make as much use of my altimeter as I should have throughout the weekend.

Back north from Slieve Muck, our next control was a long long leg at the south corner of Ben Crom res. First job was to get through the Mourne Wall which stood between us and progress. We dropped sharply alongside the wall until we found a stile, then took a combination of bearing and contour round to the top of Silent Valley res. Had we known about the good path from Ben Crom river to the south west corner of the res that would have changed our route, but it's not marked on the current Harvey.

The nose at the north end of Silent Valley res is awful. Deep heather, enormous tussocks and hidden rocks. At one point I stepped in a hole and dropped up to my groin in gorse, which elicited a lot of swearing. Claire was faring even worse - at 12" shorter than me, she was having to climb up and over tussocks that I could just straddle. Finally we made it to the road and ran fairly briskly up the hill to the control.

A marshal was arriving at the control as we dibbed. He offered us the option of the gully direct to the top of Slieve Binnian north tor but we opted for the clear path to the col below Buzzards Roost. From there we followed a trod towards Binnian Loch, then on towards the Mourne Wall. We hit the wall rather lower than we intended and, after a few minutes of puzzling over the map and the configuration of walls, we climbed up to the stile just under the summit tor. The next control was visible almost from the top - the ruins of a quarry hut some way below, although we didn't identify it for sure until we were about 200m away. Once we'd dibbed that we planned our leg to the next control. This was to be the worst mistake of the weekend.

Contouring round the south slope of Binnian, then through the quarry remnants at the base we reached the stile at the base of Wee Binnian. Both of us had made the same mistake - marking the grid ref given instead of the feature we were looking for. The datum point of the grid ref was on the east side of the wall. The control list quite clearly stated that the control was on the west side of the wall. Nevertheless, we didn't look at the control list, contoured round the east side of Wee Binnian and ended up on the wrong side of the Mourne Wall after a much longer than needed diversion. Finding a good solid spot we hopped over the wall and climbed back up to dib the control, then ran down into mid camp.

Mid camp was at the base of Silent Valley reservoir dam. Facilities were more generous than we expected, Jack disappeared soon after we arrived and returned with a scone from a vending van. Apparently there were also showers somewhere around. We didn't bother and just pitched camp, then sat around chatting.

A substantial meal of Tentmeals Italian couscous, along with cheese, chocolate and a bottle of cab sav decanted into a titanium flask, and we slept pretty well (well, I did at least). The start in the morning was 'first come, first served', and we picked up our control list at about 8.30, when most competitors were already well away.

We had a difficult time marking up the maps. A couple of nearby teams were marking up theirs by one member reading out the gridrefs in a loud voice, while the other plotted them. This is extremely distracting and resulted in a couple of screwed up plottings on our maps. In future for linears we'll do something different, or at least get well out of the camp before plotting.

The first control was flagged from the camp, then the next was a simple on at a stile in the Mourne Wall. The next two were 'any order' - two ponds lost in reeds on the river bed. We found them both fairly easily, then set off up the side of Slieve Muck for the next, tucked up under the base of the crag. Below us we could see another team struggling to find the pond controls, and seeming to give up and walk off.

From the crag under the plateau we once again needed to cross the wall, this time slipping through a gap left by a crag near the summit of Muck. The next control was a boulder under a gulley, straightforward to access. The next, at the base of the summit of Doan, was a straightforward traverse to the path up Carn Mountain, then round the north of Loch Shannagh and up Doan. The (marshalled) control was straightforward, and we worked out our next leg.

If we'd thought carefully, we might have realised from seeing runners coming down to Ben Crom dam from the west the previous day, that we could access the path east of the res that way. We didn't make that connection though, and took a rough ground traverse to the west of Ben Crom. We made pretty good time nonetheless, maybe 5 minutes more than another team who took the smoother route. A steep climb to the col south of Slieve Beg, and we were nearing the end of the control list.

The next control was where the Brandy Pad crosses the wall at Bog of Donard. The route was obvious - up over Slieve Beg, under the Castles on the Brandy Pad and up to the stile. We passed others coming back towards us, and at the stile we realised (courtesy of Claire having done a few fell races here) that the ground through Bog of Donard to the forest was going to be much harder and slower than passing over the col between Donard and Commadargh. So back along the Brandy Pad we went.

Over the stile at the col, down the rocky tourist path to Newcastle forest, then some undulating paths through the forest to get the last 3 controls and back into the college grounds for the finish.

The Mourne 2 Day is a fantastic event, probably the toughest mountain marathon I've done just because of the difficult terrain. Really well organised though, very friendly and some beautiful scenery. We ended up returning to the Mourne for another couple of days later in our holiday.

Lessons learned

• If there is a fragmented path shown on the Harvey, it probably pretty much goes where it looks like. If not, at least a section of path speeds things up a bit compared with tussock
• That said, we can do 25km on tussock in a day quite comfortably, if slowly.
• My UD Fastpack 20 is not really big enough for a 2 day MM
• We should come back and do the Seven Sevens race
• Always look for faster terrain as well as direct routes and contour routes
• READ THE CONTROL DESCRIPTIONS!

Kit

On

• OMM Flash tights 1.0 (too warm, should have taken shorts or 3/4)
• Montane wind proof
• Awdis long sleeved base layer
• Drymax thin socks
• Freet Felden shoes
• Montane Coda cap

Carried (incl some shared/carried by Claire)

• UD Fastpack 20
• Terra Nova Laser Competition 2
• Alpkit ti stove
• 200gm gas cylinder
• 750ml ti pan
• 330ml ti mug
• Alpkit Numo mat
• Rab Neutrino down sleeping bag
• OMM Flash tights 1.0
• Isobaa merino long sleeved top
• Montane Primaloft Alpha top
• Primaloft buff
• Montane Prism hat 
• Buffalo mittens
• Ron Hill gloves
• Drymax thin socks
• 500ml soft bottle
• 500ml soft bottle with Salomon filter
• 2l platypus (rolled) with short tube and tap (for mid camp)
• Mourne map
• compass
• 2 * retractible chinagraph pencils
• Coros Apex Pro watch
• spare contact lenses
• phone
• OMM waterproof
• Evadict waterproof trousers
• 
  

Food

• 4 pitta pizzas
• Tentmeals
• malt loaf
• 100g cheese
• chocolate
• wine
• nuts