Aye, I still keep pressing the F5 to try and up date it.
Come on Andy.
Willing you on.
Aye, I still keep pressing the F5 to try and up date it.
Come on Andy.
Willing you on.
Afternoon all - I can answer some of the technical queries about the tracker. The LIVE tracking is limited by mobile service, the SIM in this device is on Vodafone. If it can't send the GPS location (recorded every 90 seconds) it will buffer the data and send it when it can. On the admin panel I can see what is buffered data and its not that much, at worse 5% is buffered. Around Great Calva, North of Yewbarrow (1km) and between Pillar and Kirk Fell although there is the odd update getting through.
Sadly it looks like Andy won't do it under 24hrs. Wish the fella well, no doubt has considerably more knowledge to give it a crack another day. There is a bit of me that really hope he still does the round, guess the crunch is at Honister.
James
www.howfast.org
Perhaps I need to add Honister to that list of locations with poor coverage.
Ya, the signal gets lost just below Grey Knotts. I had to climb up that far from Honister on Paul's attempt to get a signal.Originally Posted by howfast
This is a great effort by 'abp'!! To continue in an effort to complete in the conditions and being so far down is outstanding!! Nice one 'abp'!!
I M Povey New Marske Harriers
http://manwithoutashed.blogspot.com
fantastic andy just the road section to do a completion is still what it says
Yes echo what has been said great effort to continue on, in what appeared to be challanging conditions, well done.
Well done on reaching the finish, I followed you with your tracker and was willing you on on such a hard day. How did you manage to climb Lords Rake? Two weeks ago it looked impossible.
Hi all
Thank you all ever so much for your support and encouragement; it is quite moving and big time humbling to look on hear and read all your comments. It seems that the tracker has provided lots of home-based interest, so thanks James (howfast) & Open Adventure for making that available for all of us (Stu and I did have a few jokes about trackers and mobile phones as we were about to depart Dunmail!).
Well, as you've probably gathered, the conditions on Legs 2 & 3 were horrific!
As Ian and I were driving over on the A66 all the tops were shielded in clag, but come 7pm it had all blown through. So Dave, Craig, Ian & I were treated to beautiful views. Top of Skiddaw was extremely windy so much so that my trekking poles kept tripping me up. Got there 10 mins ahead, having taken it really nice & steady. Gentle trot down towards Calva. The ascent flew by as Dave & I chatted away, so much so that I was really shocked to see the first cairn - it had happened so quickly and effortlessly and had still gained another 5 mins on schedule! Gentle run down the fence with Ian nattering away reminding me that I'd wanted them to keep me on schedule and not let me get ahead. So we agreed we'd take it really nice and steady up Mungrisdale onto Blencathra. We lost some of our gains on this climb (7m/15) and started off down Halls fell ridge as we donned head torches. The top section was horribly greasy and slippy which Dave guided us through brilliantly then Craig and I took the lower section nice and steadily and arrived at the industrial estate with 15 mins back in hand. A quick stop put another 5 mins in the bank and we set off under a clear starry night with pleadings from Stu (who’d swung by to give us a wave) to keep it steady.
Leg 2 - started off fine and a friendly wave from some strangers at the top of the track who’d just had dinner with Stu – its quite humbling when complete strangers call out your name and give encouragement; brilliant, thank you. Slight nav error as we went too far round beyond the fence line, but had a nice dry line up, hit the coach road slightly to the West of where intended and made our way along the track a little bit before striking up. Arrived at the summit spot on with no more time gained / lost as per plan (and Stu’s instructions!). Skirted Calfhow Pike fine although the visibility was quickly deteriorating. Great Dodd climbed with no problems though by this time the visibility was virtually non-existent. Then we hit problems: I knew we were light on experience on this leg and had reminded the team that we all need to keep our wits about us, unfortunately I didn't head my own advice! The chap who was nav'ing, said "right this way", I double checked it and agreed, however after about 1k the lie of the land didn't feel right as we got to a cairn. I had a look around, then checked altitude, got a bearing off the waypoint for Watson's Dodd on my watch, though I struggled to make sense of what it was telling me: 2.5k in the direction from which we'd run! So I got a position off my GPS watch and realised that we were at the cairn at Randerside. Not sure how we managed to be in this position - however we just needed to press on and I was now very aware of not letting the errors compound, so very carefully checked map and compass and worked out how to avoid unnecessary height gain. Watson's Dodd was located - felt familiar! Onto Stybarrow, a little slower than schedule - simply finding the cairns in the clag was proving very challenging. Raise & Whiteside ticked off in allotted time, but still 30 mins behind schedule and 50 mins considering the 20mins I'd had in hand leaving Threlkeld. Lower Man was awkward: the visibility was so bad that simply locating the paths was proving a challenge, my best guess (I've not yet had a chance to check the GPS track log) is that we were coming down slightly to the West of the path and lost more height than we should / needed and then had an awful scree slope to climb - another 10 mins lost. Next up Helvellyn, no problem & on schedule, then Nethermost Pike which unfortunately was a problem. Again not checked the GPS log, but seem to recall us going round and round in circles trying to find the cairn - further 8 mins lost. Dollywagon was also a nightmare with torrential rain and a gale – a further 12 minutes lost. It was around this time that the weather (which was already appalling) took a further turn for the worse as the wind increased and the rain turned to big hail stones; not much of a problem with the wind behind, however the line from the summit of Dollywagon to the top of the fence posts took us directly into the wind and the hail stones were hitting us like bullets. We really couldn't descend that way, so I took us down the zig zag path - which was a bitch! It was so wet that the rocks in the path were all greasy making it nigh impossible to run down. All the times I've been down here before, I've cut off the corners to the path which has been faster and nicer running, but the visibility was so poor that this simply wasn't an option. I've never done the Cofa Pike ascent of Fairfield so didn't fancy going up that way especially the way it looks on the map, so decided to come round the East of the tarn, picked an attack point where the path starts to deviate from the edge of the water and cut the corner up to the main path underneath where the crags and boulders start - that worked well, nice grassy climb albeit reasonably steep. The rest of L2 passed uneventfully. Arrived into Dunmail at 0436, 1h30 behind schedule and 1h50 slower once the starting surplus is taken into account - bugger!
At the transition I was well looked after by Stu and he explained that it was still achievable if we stuck to 22h pace from now onwards. He then struck up Steel Fell at a strong pace with KnightRunner at my side. I found it tough to get going again after the stop at the road crossing both here and at Wasdale and whilst I appreciated Stu's consideration for my round timing, I found the pace from here to Sergeant Man tough going, so wasn't liking him very much over this stretch. The weather was quite clear at this point, although the wind was considerable. Calf Crag, Sergeant Man, High Raise, Thunacar Knott all dispatched without drama. As we approached the Langdale Pikes the rain returned. It was welcome & a good morale boost to go through Harrison Stickle - peak 21 & halfway in terms of number of peaks! The climb up Black Crags was brutal (I know we go up this way in the Langdale Horseshoe, but is this the norm in most people's BG's?) and was pleased to summit Rossett Pike. The rain was very heavy as we climbed up Bowfell with the rock under foot incredibly slippy making it very challenging to maintain a decent pace; the good news was that I was feeling quite sprightly, in good spirits and started to gather pace. The weather was deteriorating with rain turning to sleet (enjoying my ME Gortex mitts with light liner gloves inside which were keeping my hands warm and dry) - the summit of Great End seemed to come quickly (obviously via Esk Pike). By the time we got to Ill Crag the summit plateau was carpeted in a layer of white slushy snow. I was going well at this time and our pace was picking up as we ticked off Broad Crag and Scafell Pike. I've now been up Scafell some 15 times and never had a view - this was to be no exception! Had difficulty locating the path down to Mickledore but soon found our selves at the rescue post after a roughish scramble over broken ground. Traversed round to Broad Stand to find Maria and Mike finishing off the dismantling of their hand rail. They'd waited for 2 hours after the predicted time and quite justifiably concluded that we'd abandoned the attempt given the atrocious conditions. They'd left York at 1am to get up and onto Scafell, bivvied out waiting for us having rigged a top rope and hand rail. Its this sort of selfless commitment to helping others achieve their dreams that is quite exceptional about mountain folk & fell running generally and the BG in particular. Maria texted me this morning to say:
No need for any apologies Maria – you and Mike are both legends; thank you.Massive apologies for derigging - I feel awful, as if we'd waited 10 mins longer it would still have been up. We had no phone reception and thought that if you were 2 hours late you'd probably descended due to the awful conditions. Respect for finishing Led 3 in that weather? If its any consolation, the scramble was an icy waterfall and due to the conditions, even the easier bits above the 50m we'd rigged were horrendously scary.
So plan B: Lords Rake. We dropped down and then traversed round the tops of the scree slopes. We could see that the gully was full of snow and even traversing round we had to squeeze between a 5 foot high accumulation of snow and the cliff face. It was a bit disconcerting seeing all the rock debris, some of which was quite substantial, sitting on top of the snow. No helmets with us, so better move quickly! We had to kick steps (not easy with fell shoes) and I was grateful for the extra security provided by the trekking poles - up, down, up, up and we were on the summit of Scafell. The route change delayed us a bit, but added to the insanity of what I was doing and the sense of adventure. As we looked across and saw it full of snow I didn't think we'd be able to get up and thought the whole thing might have to be called off. I must say Stu's confidence through this period was massively reassuring. Chatting to him today he told me he'd never been up Foxes Tarn (the only other way up & which I was familiar with) and it had been 5 years since he'd last gone up LR - Thanks Stu!
Quick dash down to Wasdale - the grass was saturated resulting in the 3 of us sliding all over the place. Knightrunner had one slip that saw him slide probably 50' before he managed to get his feet. OMM waterproof trousers are great, but not much friction.
Into John's van about 1130 (compared with a schedule of 0909). It was apparent that the atrocious conditions and nav errors on L2 had scuppered my chances of a sub 24 hour round, but not of me completing a round - I was determined to finish what I had set out to do: a Bob Graham Round, not become a member of the BG Club. So whilst in the van I recalled the Groucho Marx quote:
Apologies to all those BG Club members out there - no offence intended.I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member!
and re-set our objective: to get to Keswick.
We took a bit of time to ensure we were warm, dry, fed and watered and set off about 1150 with John and Knightrunner. My legs were starting to feel a bit battered, not so much from the running more the bangs and knocks from slipping over on all that broken ground on the Scafell Massif - felt a bit like a piece of tenderised beef! Today I've already got a huge bruise from the outside of my R knee, down my shin to my ankle.
Again I felt rubbish on the climb, but we did it in 36 mins. On the way up Knightrider pointed out how noisy Mosedale Beck was and from this point on we noticed that the streams and rivers were really rather full - wonder where that all came from.... oh, yes its all that rain thats been dumped on us over the previous 12 hours!
John got the trod spot on to cross the scree to Dore Head & miss out that horrible scramble down Stirrup Crag. Red Pike has been a bit of a nemesis for me: I've always done L4 as part of a double leg recce and struggled up it. Fortunately not this time; we took it steady and made good time. Wind was from the West but gradually strengthening and the cloud had cleared (we even got some sun as we were climbing Yewbarrow!). On to Steeple where we were looking forward to having the wind behind us on the way over to Pillar. Other forumites might be interested to note that on the trod that traverses round under Black Crag there's recently been a rock fall down one of the gullies and there's a boulder the size of a minibus lying on the trod - you can get round the top part, but its a bit confusing at first. Knightrunner said it wasn't there 3 weeks ago.
Ticked Pillar off and good running down. Here the wind started to really pick up, so we took the gully ascent up Kirk Fell to give ourselves a bit of shelter. Down past Beckhead tarn and we managed to climb Gable in 20 mins. A brief rest requested by one of the group was followed by a slight nav error that was quickly spotted to prevent us descending to Styhead - a little contour rectified that. Windy Gap definitely lived up to its name! Green Gable presented no trouble and we began the usually run-able descent down to Honistor. My legs were starting to grumble from all the knocks and my knees ached: quite early on I'd picked up a knock to the outside of my left foot towards the back of the arch and this was really hurting as was most of my R leg! I was starting to worry how I might manage on the road section. So I put all the pain to the back of my mind and did my best to stay in the present. Brandreth tick.
Grey Knotts caused confusion - as an aside: which is the summit? The OS 1:25k has it on a knoll ~100m WSW of the fence corner, the Harveys 1:40k has it 20m NE of the fence corner and one of my companions said that on a recent BG they'd touched the cairn (tbh the only one around) on the knoll 35m ESE of the fence corner - surely they can't all be right.
A slow and steady run down to Honister. I had to find some sort of run in me as all the family were waiting at the slate mine for me - they'd been there for the best part of 5 hours! Some hot food and fresh shoes & socks saw us ready to leave - Knightrunner had finished his double leg stint (thanks mate for your companionship & assistance – it was good getting to know you and good luck for your round in a few weeks – let me know if I can help in any way), John was carrying on for the second part of his, and we were joined by Renee an adventure racing team mate and Harry, my eldest son who'd had his 17th birthday on Thursday.
Summit of Dale Head was reached in 36 minutes despite the wind doing its utmost to ensure that all remaining traces of cobwebs were removed - it was going to be a little challenging turning left towards Hindscarth as we'd be straight into it. I used the team as a wind break and felt good - we ran to Hindscarth really quite quickly, then round and up Robinson. When we'd chatted a couple of weeks ago, John showed me the descent line he intended leading us down off Robinson. It looked fair enough and he assured me it was runnable - it wasn't, well not for me yesterday; my knees were aching too much. With hindsight I think we'd have been better off sticking to one of the paths. A couple of weeks ago Harry & I recce'd L5 & took the path that sticks close to the top of the cliffs, through the crags and then we had a short sharp descent at the col before Blea crags down to the reservoir and that seemed ok. Any way, once we'd hit the path and then the track I was able to run steadily, looking for the puddles to get some chill and swelling reduction into my sore left foot.
Once we got to the road I had a gel and something clicked inside me; I've always been able to tap into an inner source of strength when the end is near as some of my race partners will attest to and this time was no different. I even stopped walking the hills! I was quite comfortably managing sub 5min kilometre pace and once we crossed the bridge at Portinscale was even faster. It wasn't that I wanted it over with - I wanted to finish it off as well as I was able. Sprinted from the roundabout to get in at 2142 a total of 26h42 minutes.
I know thats not fast, but in my mind completing it was never in any doubt. From doing long (5 days and nights) adventure races I knew I could carry on going for a day (in fact its quite short), I knew I could cope with the lack of sleep, I knew how to manage my nutrition and hydration, I knew how to manage my feet, my morale, I knew I would go through bad patches and that they wouldn't last.
I knew I couldn't control the weather.
The BG is a brilliant challenge: I love its history, its simplicity, its integrity and the community that it draws together and I'm very proud of completing my round in some truly atrocious conditions and I don't give a stuff about the time.
Stopping would have been too easy.
I want to say a BIG
THANK YOU
for everyone that supported me out on the hill and for those of you who supported me on the forum and by phone, email and facebook. I'm pleased you've found the tracker coverage interesting & engaging.
I'm now off to nurse my battered body!
Andy
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote