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Thread: Bob Graham Route Choices

  1. #31

    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Me and a mate did leg 2 (c/w) on Friday with the clag down and plenty of snow on the ground. Were comfortably inside 23 hr schedule despite poor ground conditions. Coming off Dollywaggon was slow - you couldn;lt run down as it was so slippery.

    Main discovery was the good line up Clough Head, which shaved 10 mins off the schedule. At the stile in the fence after the wet section there are two gullies running down up the fell (you can see them from the road). If you take the right one up, seemingly into the screes above, there is a grassy line all the way up. It's a little steeper than the left hand approach but its good ground, hardly any rocks and you pop out 200m from the summit. It's more direct and the steep section is very short lived and thus represents a saving worth making as it will not turn your legs into toast.

  2. #32
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    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Yiannis always uses the gills to the West of Halls fell. If you're running well & the rock is slippy then down Doddick Fell & cutting across the field to the road is at least as quick as Halls fell

    On the 60 at 60 outing we went almost straight up Clough Head from the stile, just angling right almost at the top between the scree. I thought this was better than heading left.

    There used to be a write-up of Marks outing on the Macclesfield website

  3. #33
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    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Quote Originally Posted by Swiss Toni View Post
    Main discovery was the good line up Clough Head, which shaved 10 mins off the schedule. At the stile in the fence after the wet section there are two gullies running down up the fell (you can see them from the road). If you take the right one up, seemingly into the screes above, there is a grassy line all the way up. It's a little steeper than the left hand approach but its good ground, hardly any rocks and you pop out 200m from the summit. It's more direct and the steep section is very short lived and thus represents a saving worth making as it will not turn your legs into toast.
    that's the one!

  4. #34
    alwaysinjured
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    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Quote Originally Posted by Baggins View Post
    Last week coming off Skiddaw went to the left of hare crag rather than over it, horrendous, I was bashing through knee deep heather most of the time or following ditches, I take it the way to go is over hare crag that would mean joining the road skiddaw house near the south ridge.

    I then went up Great galva between dead beck and the south ridge which was not much better, dropped off galva via the ground to the right of the fence, this was not too bad compared to where I'd been but looking back from Mungrisdale common the south ridge looked a better line.

    So is it quicker to use the south ridge for both ascent and descent or is there a secret dry path hidden in the heather.


    Bill
    There is a path through that goes on the left side of hare crag, crosses a small bridge and then follows the beck line to calva - it is much better than over the heather although resembles a stream at times.

    What you do is go 400m along the path from Skiddaw, and the moment it flattens out at a col dead recon a bearing over the fence to hare crag. I havent missed it yet, even in thick clag: but at night it is worth spreading out so that someone spots the trod. although all the routes seem to converge unless you are way off .

    The south ridge is a misnomer, the ridge goes SW and it is much shorter heather than south which although good running 5 years ago is a nightmare now. Going SW is fast certainly half way down, and I think it may be worth sacrificing distance to come even further down that way.

    About 150m W of the sheepfold near the caldew ( see aerial photos) there is a place to cross the river without getting wet feet clinging to a fence, but I missed it last time out - havent seen it in 3-4 years injured , but presume is still there


    PS

    If you read Yiannis' 60@60 he talks of being shown a fast descent from seat sandal on a more direct route. I asked him about it, but he was a bit more non commital than the report suggests. Is there a better way off? I once tried going SW lovely running down , crossing the far end of dunmail and up the ridge of steel fell, but It is certainly longer than the normal route?

  5. #35
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    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Re Seat Sandal descent:
    On early attempts we used to go straight down to the lay-by next to the Achille Ratti hut (by the bus stop) and then go straight over the A591 and up a gully on Steel Fell immediately below the summit. Although this line is the shortest on the map and could be quicker than the usual way further to the north we found it too steep on the way down and I wouldn't recommend it, especially not in the dark.

  6. #36

    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Somwehere on this thread was a discussion about the way up SKiddaw for a c/w BGR, i.e. either up the main tourist track or up via Carl Side. The latter seems shorter and steeper with more road running and so has pluses and minuses.

    This Saturday, a mate and I who are very similarly paced on the fells (1 place and a few secs apart last time we raced in the fells against each other) are going to set off from the Moot Hall together before splitting up - with me doing the 'normal' route and him going the Carl Side way. We'll resist the urge to race (!) mainly because we are both aspirant BGR-ers and are keen to genuinely know which is the quicker route.

    We'll meet on the summit of Skiddaw and compare notes. I suspect if there is no more than a couple of mins in it, then the normal route is likely to take less out of you, but if the gap is significantly in my mate's favour (say, more than 10 mins), then it's certainly worth thinking about.

    I'll report back afterwards and hope people find it useful.

    ST

  7. #37

    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Quote Originally Posted by Swiss Toni View Post
    We'll resist the urge to race (!) mainly because we are both aspirant BGR-ers and are keen to genuinely know which is the quicker route.

    We'll meet on the summit of Skiddaw and compare notes. I suspect if there is no more than a couple of mins in it, then the normal route is likely to take less out of you, but if the gap is significantly in my mate's favour (say, more than 10 mins), then it's certainly worth thinking about.

    I'll report back afterwards and hope people find it useful.

    ST
    To be fair I think you should race then you'll know you're both putting the same effort in

    Are you taking bets!

    Bill

  8. #38
    Member discochesney's Avatar
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    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    On my garmin i clocked the carl side route as over half a mile less than the other route so would be interested to see the results.

    The carl side route is a lot more 'bitty', and i tackled it in daylight - still cant see how it doesnt take 3-5 mins off the other route.

  9. #39
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    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    Quote Originally Posted by alwaysinjured View Post

    If you read Yiannis' 60@60 he talks of being shown a fast descent from seat sandal on a more direct route. I asked him about it, but he was a bit more non commital than the report suggests. Is there a better way off? I once tried going SW lovely running down , crossing the far end of dunmail and up the ridge of steel fell, but It is certainly longer than the normal route?
    Yiannis was further to the South, closer to the lay-by. He was trying to avoid all the stones. But he then had to head North up to the stile & the normal parking/route up Steel Fell.

    IMHO the best route off Seat Sandal is to head for the small pinnacle on the NE of the slope above the road & go down through the bracken (hoping that other BGR people have trampled the route through for you)

  10. #40
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    Re: Bob Graham Route Choices

    My thoughts on Skiddaw -> Calva

    There are 2 paths which emerge coming down blake hill from the skiddaw fence, both begin life as twin tracks (quad bike?).

    The first follows the top of the 'ridge', this becomes a distinctive thin black peaty ride, quite boggy and heads straight into the slight depression before hare crag where it is rather nasty and you can get up to your knee in muck. It rides up slightly to the left of hare crag to a distinctive rocky outcrop, which we call 'rock corner' - its especially distinctive in the dark, compared to the normal bleak espanses of heather. Here the path goes slightly left and is pretty easy to follow to a small bridge NOT marked on the OS 25k map where you also cross the cumbria way n.b. this is NOT the FB on the maps further south!.

    The path to Calva is then quite distinct, apart from a bit near the bottom where you always seem to need to make a correction over lumpy heather further to the left looking out for the reflective posts (on all my 3 night traversals this happened).

    This route when plotted on a GPS is very direct, and I cant really see it being bettered.

    However, in the night when you go over the fence its probably all a bit chaotic, and on the first 2 night traversals (one recce, one BG attempt) we hit the second path, which seems very like the first but is slightly further north, this remains a quad track till it sweeps left towards candleseaves and a faint path goes ahead and slightly right. Now this path goes to rock corner, and if you get it right its faster than the main rather boggy path. Unfortunatly its quite hard to follow and if you stray (as our first recce) it can lead to all sorts of problems, such as hidden stream beds and very high heather.

    This second path dumps you at rock corner too.

    In good vis, on my 3rd run, I hit the main path easy (i could see the contour of blake hill and just followed the summit ridge to the main path).

    Calva -> Blencathra

    I would reccomend taking a bearing from the south of the summit ridge straight for foule crag and drift slighly right, this seems to lead to grassy interludes in the heather which are easy to run - and the river seems ok.
    There is marsh on the other side, so i cant see how you are going to keep your feet dry. Ive tried crossing in 4 locations, one via a rock near the fence which you can get onto and leap across. Other times ive brought carrier bags and shoved them on my feet before walking straight through (worked quite well) - trouble is every time my feet were soaked after the marshy start to the mungrisdale climb - so I would just blast straight through and s*d it.

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