10.1 miles, 2,828 feet, 2 hours 32 minutes: Red Screes via Roundhill farm both ways. Overcast, in cloud above 1,500 feet, visibility down to 60 paces, intermittent drizzle, cold wind. Very few about.
10.1 miles, 2,828 feet, 2 hours 32 minutes: Red Screes via Roundhill farm both ways. Overcast, in cloud above 1,500 feet, visibility down to 60 paces, intermittent drizzle, cold wind. Very few about.
13.39 miles, 3,609 feet, 3 hours 38 minutes: Fairfield clockwise. In cloud above 1,700 feet, visibility about 70 paces, strong cold wind, a bit of rain at times, but not much. All terrain slippery. Saw nobody between Rydal Hall and Nook Farm. Managed to find all 5 of the grassy shortcuts for the first time ever.
Are they the shortcuts off Dove Crag and High Pike?Originally Posted by Mike T
I found them coming off Dove Crag in the race last year (more by luck than judgement), but found myself isolated on High Pike and pretty much following the main path, and having to climb down the Bad Step.
The way I run it follows a trod around the left side of Great Rigg going up, takes a relatively grassy (for sure less rocky) line to the right off of Hart Crag, cuts the corner completely avoiding Dove Crag, scoots around the right hand side of High Pike, crossing a finger stile eventually to the left side of the wall line just before (looks at map) High Brock Crags and then, rather than heading on to Bad Step, the path splits with the hook to the left being the right path to take
There's a good and obvious grassy bypass on (checks map!) Heron Pike in the first half of the race, but there's a CP on Great Rigg.
Also a CP on Dove Crag.
Haha I haven't run the fairfield horseshoe fell race or the Rydal round for yonks so I'm not best for the actual race routes
There is the Fairfield Race - with check points on Nab Scar, Great Rigg, Fairfield top, Dove Crag, and Low Sweden Bridge; the Rydal Round, with checkpoints on Nab Scar and Fairfield top - and both of these require the wall after Dove Crag to be kept on the right. And then there is just getting to the top and back down from Rydal Park.
I bypass Heron Crag, its nameless north summit, and Great Rigg on individual grassy trods to the left, then Hart Crag and Dove Crag to the right, descending mostly on the righthand side of the wall until just above the Bad Step, which I used to avoid on the curving path to the left. I then started going down the Bad Step to avoid the rocky track - now, to avoid handling rock, I again go to the left, but then ascend to just below the Bad Step to join the lovely grassy trod it leads to.
The trods bypassing Heron Pike and Dove Crag are the two I had been having trouble finding.
I wonder if the Heron Pike bypass is an example of a trod made and used solely by fellracers? I can't imagine walkers doing the horseshoe would bypass Heron Pike.
The quite distinct one bypassing Harter Fell as you climb up from Nan Bield, surely a fellrunner only one too?
The one behind Black Crags on the Wasdale and Ennerdale routes is i imagine used mainly by fellrunners, but seems a little too well defined to have not been used by walkers at some point?
There are some fantastic grassy sections descending from Dove Crag towards High Pike, to the left of the wall and left of the path.
I used to go left, then I tried right for a change and have not reverted. Left has more scrambly rocky bits, and definitely more bog, though, as you say, there are some lovely long runnable sections.
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