Buttermere show

[Andrew B]

Buttermere Shepherds' Meet Fell races 2024

Sunday the 27th of October 2024.

We have added another Junior race to complete the set.

Full details on the Cumberland Fell Runners' website https://c-f-r.org.uk/pages/race_butt...erds_meet.html

[mr brightside]

Buttermere Shepherds' Meet Fell races 2024

Sunday the 27th of October 2024.

We have added another Junior race to complete the set.

Full details on the Cumberland Fell Runners' website https://c-f-r.org.uk/pages/race_butt...erds_meet.html

Thankyou for supporting the forum, Andrew. I've been meaning to get to this one, I've a feeling it's a good descent with options on lines.

[Andrew B]

It is indeed a decent descent......worth coming this year as the forecast suggests that we might actually be able to see.

[mr brightside]

I'm heading over for this one in the morning, weather looks clear and bright. I've been looking at the hillside on goggle earth trying to locate a possible descent line that cuts off the corner at the top of the sheep trod. It looks like cutting the corner lower down isn't on due to crags and heather, the only route that appears vaguely trouble free is the fully committed, do or die, all eggs in one basket southerly line taken shortly after the gradient flattens and you're clear of the scree banks below the summit plateau. So you either follow the herd or go for an adventure. I'm not sure how easy it will be to pick the course back up again further down near 'lambing knots', it could be lumpy with poor visibility to the east, but there are two becks that meet in a fork to guide you. I'll probably come last covered in gorse scratches like the time I screwed up at bofra kirk fell.

[Mike T]

I'm heading over for this one in the morning, weather looks clear and bright. I've been looking at the hillside on goggle earth trying to locate a possible descent line that cuts off the corner at the top of the sheep trod. It looks like cutting the corner lower down isn't on due to crags and heather, the only route that appears vaguely trouble free is the fully committed, do or die, all eggs in one basket southerly line taken shortly after the gradient flattens and you're clear of the scree banks below the summit plateau. So you either follow the herd or go for an adventure. I'm not sure how easy it will be to pick the course back up again further down near 'lambing knots', it could be lumpy with poor visibility to the east, but there are two becks that meet in a fork to guide you. I'll probably come last covered in gorse scratches like the time I screwed up at bofra kirk fell.

Goggle earth - like it! I have used it in the past but have not found it any more helpful than a decent map. Have you had a look at the Strava heat map for the area? Good luck with whatever descent route you take.

[mr brightside]

Strava? I don't have that.

Anyway, I've seen most of the gorse patches on Robinson now, I should have taken a peris-pooter with me and collected some bug specimens for the children to examine, I was moving so slowly I'd have had the time. At the stile there were a wide variety of lines being taken, some very westerly, so I was confident of finding a route. I stayed close to the fence for a bit and decided to try the path alongside it, but it was awful. Loose and rocky with sharp blade like sections of bedding plane sticking up, your studs would just slip down the grooves and you'd go flying. I left the path onto some spongy stuff and identified some people in front who were staying right, I went left having spotted a nice grassy chute which I hoped was one of the gullies. It just led me into a thicket of crags and gorse; there were old gorse branches everywhere and a trip would have resulted in severe pain. I just had to negotiate it at walk and try and find a way out. I got through it only to find d myself in tall heather, but found a sheep trod over to the right which led me back to the race route. I went round to the right of the junior turn, which was a straighter line, only to find more gorse and crags. There was a guy on my tail by this point, having gone the right way he'd caught me up and the two I'd seen further up were having cake in the shed. I decided not to charge through the dead bracken as my pursuer chose to do, and stuck to a route I'd chosen earlier. This was my only good line of the race and after I'd knocked a notch on over the pasture to the finish the other guy was miles away. My calves died on the way up and my quads on the way down, so not a very strong race. The course is great though, a real gem of a race, good terrain and route choices are wide open, I'll have to come back to do it properly.

[MattPo]

You remind me of this poem Mr B.

The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[Mike T]

Strava? I don't have that.

Anyway, I've seen most of the gorse patches on Robinson now, I should have taken a peris-pooter with me and collected some bug specimens for the children to examine, I was moving so slowly I'd have had the time. At the stile there were a wide variety of lines being taken, some very westerly, so I was confident of finding a route. I stayed close to the fence for a bit and decided to try the path alongside it, but it was awful. Loose and rocky with sharp blade like sections of bedding plane sticking up, your studs would just slip down the grooves and you'd go flying. I left the path onto some spongy stuff and identified some people in front who were staying right, I went left having spotted a nice grassy chute which I hoped was one of the gullies. It just led me into a thicket of crags and gorse; there were old gorse branches everywhere and a trip would have resulted in severe pain. I just had to negotiate it at walk and try and find a way out. I got through it only to find d myself in tall heather, but found a sheep trod over to the right which led me back to the race route. I went round to the right of the junior turn, which was a straighter line, only to find more gorse and crags. There was a guy on my tail by this point, having gone the right way he'd caught me up and the two I'd seen further up were having cake in the shed. I decided not to charge through the dead bracken as my pursuer chose to do, and stuck to a route I'd chosen earlier. This was my only good line of the race and after I'd knocked a notch on over the pasture to the finish the other guy was miles away. My calves died on the way up and my quads on the way down, so not a very strong race. The course is great though, a real gem of a race, good terrain and route choices are wide open, I'll have to come back to do it properly.

On the race website route map, under the yellow, there is a path going off left (on the descent) roughly halfway down from Checkpoint 1/stile to Kirk Close - there is a very similar "hot" line on Strava global heat map - is this way down not viable? It would seem many people use it, though not necessarily in the race.

[mr brightside]

On the race website route map, under the yellow, there is a path going off left (on the descent) roughly halfway down from Checkpoint 1/stile to Kirk Close - there is a very similar "hot" line on Strava global heat map - is this way down not viable? It would seem many people use it, though not necessarily in the race.

It's viable, but really you want to be cutting off that corner. The problem is crags on a narrow cut, and as i found out, crags/gorse/heather/peril on a wide cut. The narrow cut will work for you if you find the right gully, which is what i'll be doing next year, gorse can't grow in running water.

[Mike T]

It's viable, but really you want to be cutting off that corner. The problem is crags on a narrow cut, and as i found out, crags/gorse/heather/peril on a wide cut. The narrow cut will work for you if you find the right gully, which is what i'll be doing next year, gorse can't grow in running water.

I had a look at the Strava trace of one of the Ambleside lads - he went to the halfway point I mentioned and then basically headed south - so no attempt to cut that corner. Interesting.