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Let me think about it - I'll need to check my work diary as well. Hopefully it won't be so icey by Friday either way; it was seriously bad today and like running on a frigging glacier in places!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ady In Accy
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4. Three Peaks Fell Race Recce
Date: 15/01/09
Distance: 23 and a bit miles
Ascent/descent: 5,200 ft
Route map
Time: 4 hours 33
After my aborted attempt at the weekend to run the 3 Peaks, Ady kindly offered to go round today. The weather was crappish - cold, misty, windy and wet - so it was nire on perfect conditions for the 3 peaks :D. Fortunately Ady had raced in a Wharfedale Harriers inspired nutter (sorry bat) head torch race up to Rylstone Cross last night so, with a bit of luck, I thought I'd be able to hang in there with him....... so long as he didn't find a second wind from somewhere.
To begin with we didn't exactly follow the race route, choosing to go up the 'fun' side of Pen y Ghent rather than the Pennine Way way and coming down we followed the Miners Path line to Long Mires rather than the race route (which again sticks to the Pennine Way more to presumably avoid soil erosion etc). After that though it was the race route all the way, including the never ending ridge after bleeding ridge followed by an on all fours crawl up the final 200 metres (seems like a 1000) to the top of Whernside.
It was music to my ears when, having reached the trig on top of Pen y Ghent (what 3 miles in), Ady actually complained about his stiff calves. I promptly showed no mercy and flew down the side of the mountain leaving (for the first time ever) Ady eating mud in my wake. He was wearing trail shoes too which might have given him a few grip issues on the slick muddy ground....... tough titty!
Before we knew it (well after about an hour and forty minutes) we were at Ribblehead and decided to follow the race route up Whernside rather than the much easier but much longer walkers route. This was easier said than done, relying heavily on my memory with low cloud and mist completely obscuring the top. As it was we actually crested the ridge about 150 yards to the left (south west) of the trig so had to back track a little but not bad navigation for me. Incredibly no cramp either!
Up here its was bitterly cold with a howling wind so we didn't hang about and were soon hacking off of Whernside for Chapel le Dale in the valley between Whernside and Ingleborough. The wind had picked up at lower levels now and I now suffered a bit on the slow chug up Ingleborough, running into a headwind which made me have to put twice the effort in to seemingly run at half the pace. Ady was now forging on and had solved his calf problems more or less completely so all I could do was grit my teeth and get on with it.
The trig on Ingleborough was also a wind blown freezing moon scape so, again, we didn't hang about but proceeded to eat up the final 5 miles left getting back to Horton. I had a few little twinges of cramp on top of Ingleborough but these went pretty quickly and I actually enjoyed the final run in and surprisingly felt in pretty good nick all the way down.
It was a good recce time for me too at 4:33, only 11 minutes slower than my race time last year. Ady of course needs to make sure he knocks at least an hour off that in the actual race in April!
It wasn't a classic day for photography but we took a couple of pictures:
Ady moaning about his calves on top of Pen y Ghent:
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Looking down the valley from the still only severely steep side of Whernside (just before the very, very steep side which itself precedes the fcuking stupidly steep side) :
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Stolly just about visible in the gloom at the Whernside Trig:
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A fantastic bash and thanks Ady for the company.
awww, i'm missing the fells, great pics and descriptions mate, you only need refer to these when you're writing your memoirs
great photos, routes and writing
will have to keep on eye on this:)
5. Hanlith, Kirkby Fell, Malham Cove and Gordale Scar Circuit
Date: 17/01/09
Distance: 10 miles
Ascent/descent: 1,725 ft
Route map
Time: 1 hour 52
Okay this run was a bit of a slow chug following on from the 3 peaks on Thursday but it was all in all absolutely stunning. Starting from Hanlith Bridge (Hanlith being a small hamlet just east of Kirkby Malham) I ran up the west bank of the river to Malham before branching off up the farm track in the direction of Kirkby Fell.
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Eventually I dragged my 'leggy' legs to the top and had a fine view looking back the other way with Hanlith probably on the far right on this picture:
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Then it was a case of running the ridgeline down towards Malham Tarn before dropping into the gulley that leads to the top of Malham Cove.
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Malham Cove as viewed from a virtigo inducing cliff edge on the east side:
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End of part 1.........
Part 2…
From Malham Cove I ran over to Gordale but when I got there, instead of running up the valley bottom, I ran up the obvious trod to the top of the west ridge over looking Gordale Scar in all its weird and wonderfulness:
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Then it was just a case a going down into the pit of the Gordale waterfalls and clambering down the spray slick rocks to the valley floor.
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From here I ran down past Janet’s Foss, another beautiful waterfall (surrounded by tourists), through the woods and down the footpath following Gordale Beck before branching left and following the Pennine Way back to my car at Hanlith. An absolutely brilliant run and route and giving me a total of 49 miles for the week (which I’m rounding up to 50).
Apologies for going into picture overload by the way!
6. Ingleborough from Newby
Date: 18/01/09
Distance: Almost 7 miles
Ascent/descent: 1,850 ft
Route map
Time: 1 hour 18
I love this run and today I was lucky enough to time my run to coincide with a sunny break in the weather. Up the lane out of Newby, straight across the Ingleton Clapham top road and through the fell gate and it was all open moor all the way up. It actually looked from a distance that there had been a dusting of snow on the tops but up close it was actually more like a dusting of hail pellets.
The mountain on the horizon would like to kid you that its Ingleborough but its actually Little Ingleborough with Ingleborough itself out of sight behind:
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Looking back in the direction of Clapham I guess from the flank of Little Ingleborough:
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And the view towards Pen y Ghent some 7 or 8 miles away and partially hidden under cloud:
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Finally Ingleborough itself shows its face:
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After getting to the trig point after 47 minutes, the wind and weather and what felt like a minus 15 wind chill kicked in and all the views were lost in a mixture of hail and cloud. Nothing left to do other than whiz down a fantastic 3.5 mile descent all the way back to Newby. A cracker.
Oh and I know I'm asking for some bright spark to post a foot high reply to wind me up but can everyone with immediate effect stop calling Ingleborough Inglebugger!!! I love this hill and have a great respect for it and affinity with it and it pains me when others insult such a lovely mountain (hehe).
7. A recce of stage 2 of the High Peak Marathon - Cutthroat Bridge to Snake Pass....... via a shit load of peat!
Date: 25/01/09
Distance: At a guess 18.5 miles plus an unknown amount of meandering
Ascent/descent: 2,500 ft
Route map
Time: 5 hours and 2 minutes
Well I'm down to run the HPM as part of the Rabid Dogs team (yes a barking name I know!) and felt that a recce the nightmare on elm street middle section was absolutely necessary. Only one of my team, Dave, was able to help today and so, after dumping my car at Snake Pass, we drove over the Cutthroat Bridge to start the long loop round. I'm crap at all the names of the key bits of this run but broadly we follow a ridge line for quite a way up and beyond Lads Leep and, soon after a trig at Margery Hill, its then pretty much bogs all the way for just sodding miles and miles.
Along the top of Outer Edge and Howden Edge all the way to Bleaklow and a mile beyond was just a morass that later turned into a maze like and even boggier series of... well what I'd best describe as 'bog dunes'. I'm a mud person at heart, a mudmeister, an expert in all things mud, but jesus I have never been anywhere like this before. The bog was relentless. I thought that when runners referred to the 'bogmonster' up here it was maybe a very very big boggy patch; that it actually covered maybe 7 or 8 miles was something of a surprise to me! Having finally waded through that lot it was a great relief to finally hit the Pennine Way and whiz down the last 3 miles to the car again at Snake Pass. Phew. Bogzilla or what?
The run actually started easy enough though with great views of the surrounding ridges with a snowy Bleaklow, our penultimate goal, in sight on the far horizon:
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But when the bogs started it became a humungus trawl through water and mud. I went thigh deep in the bogs several times too and once falling through ice into a freezing thigh deep deep pool. Here's me having landed in one of the slightly shallower bogs:
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The wind then picked up on the long haul to Bleaklow and, although it was fairly cold, I think we got away with the weather all in all. All the same I couldn't help but wonder what the hell it will be like doing much of this in the dark in potentially crap weather on the day of the HPM. Tough going would be an understatement I imagine.
Some of the tamer bog dunes just beyond Bleaklow:
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All I can say is that it was awsomely tough terrain and I was very pleased to get round it in 5 hours. Oh and thanks to Marvin and his mate - I can't tell you how comforting it was to see your fell shoes prints every now and then, see you in the distance occasionally and be reassured that we were on course.... or at least no more lost than you.
you look far too happy in that boggy bit:D
If you think the bogs look boggy in daylight, just wait until you're up there at night. It feels like the whole area is one never-ending bog.
Thanks for the credit, and yes, we did know where we were.