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.
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.
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
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