Stolly's Running Adventures

[Stolly]

How do you find the solo, headtorch experience?

I really enjoy running at night on my own - I'm not worried about the dark, or missing a turn and getting lost (obviously I tend to go on runs I know like the back of my hand anyway) but there is one thing I'm very wary of......

frigging cows.

At night cows seem to be annoyingly (scaryly) inquisitive and seeing 20 green eyed cows trotting after to you as you run through 'their' field is a bit disconcerting. I think night runners in the Lakes have it easy to be honest; if they start their run at the fell gate then they can be almost certainly sure that their run will be cowless - not the case in these here parts though

[Stick]

An absolute Dales' classic route. There's free car parking by the cricket club by Bolton Bridge and you then get to approach the priory ruins by running along the river. I love the Strid Woods - great for hilly interval running

Yep - quite agree; a classic run! There's also free parking just on the other side of Barden tower/bridge (...though in Summer and nice day's you need to get there early - mind has added advantage there's an ice cream van there during summer weekends!)

My variant on your route starts from Barden, follows your same route up to Simon's, down through Valley of Des but when you get to gate just above Bolton abbey/Cavendish, turn right, don't cross river, stay on rhs; there's a undulating (!...some Undulates are quite steep!) path this side of the river too; follow all way back to Barden Bridge.

Great route description Stolly - pictures are excellent!

[Ady In Accy]

Just used your pic of Simon' Seat as by desktop background - great shot!
Next run for me up the Dales will be Fri 8th Feb - give us a shout if you are out for a trot.

[Stolly]

Just used your pic of Simon' Seat as by desktop background - great shot!
Next run for me up the Dales will be Fri 8th Feb - give us a shout if you are out for a trot.

Its not my shot - instead I spend ages scouring the internet for supporting pictures. Running with a camera will make the whole thing far too professional and would in any event cock up my runs. And of course I'd sooner or later bust the camera.

I'm pretty sure I can't make that day Ady as I'm Edale Skyline recceing on the following Friday and am up to my neck in muck and bullets at work.

[Stolly]

30th January 2008 – Attermire Scar Cave ‘Bat’ Run – 4 miles and maybe 650 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

After using my guaranteed, never let me down yet, frozen bag of peas cure all on my left knee for the past two evenings while slumped watching TV, I woke up this morning and felt like I and my knee were up for a run. So at twenty past six, I donned my head lamp, went out the front door, into Settle market square and straight up the main hillside towards Attermire Scar. The weather was coldish, clear and completely perfect.

Once up on the ridge I followed the path towards what we (me and my daughter) call the ‘cave of doom’, just before Attermire Scar I guess. The rock formations up here are really weird and wonderous but that said it was completely dark and I couldn’t make out anything other than dark, ominous shadows looming over me. It sure is lonely up there in the dark at this time of morning and, after a while, my ears started playing tricks on me. My footfalls seemed to have an echo at times and, although the ground was quite grassy, I seemed to be hearing mud squelching noises too such that once or twice I actually stopped and panned my light around me….. just in case . Running past the cave (of doooooom), my turn point, didn’t make me feel much better either nor the scuffling hoof thumping sounds coming from the other side of a dry stone wall (a sheep maybe?).

You have to laugh though; I guess having restricted vision enhances all the sounds around you and then your imagination just takes over. I did feel very brave though as I trotted back into town, totally uneaten by monsters. About 35 minutes there and back and a great kick start to the day.

[Stolly]

2nd February 2008 – Pen y Ghent, Plover Hill, Hull Pot and Long Mires – 12 miles and maybe 1850 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route (well if things had gone to plan)

Saturday morning at 8:30, looking out the back window at home and it was just like a scene from a Christmas card; the back garden had a good dusting of snow, as did all the hills, and a fair waft of snow was slowly spiralling down. Bish, bosh and I was out of the door and on my way to Horton to do a new route over Pen y Ghent.

I planned to run up the right hand side of PyG and then (a bit I’d never done before) continue north to Plover Hill, down the other side, back round south westerly eventually to Hull Pot before scooting off at a tangent on the Miner’s path in the direction of Ribblehead and then, when I reached the Pennine way at Long Mires, turn sharp left and follow that back to Horton. It should have been a sinch……. but of course didn't turn out that way!

To give the run an edge, I had ‘memorised’ my map for the Plover Hill ‘new bit’ rather than take it along with me – this might sound daft in the cold light of day but all I had to do was follow a wall – I mean how hard can it be….. in the snow…..in what turned out to be blizzard conditions?

Anyway off I trotted from Horton car park with the scene so beautiful on the lane to Brackenbottom that I just had to stop, get out my paint, brushes and easel and rattle off a picture:



It was still snowing strongly for much of the climb to the final style up PyG but did finally stop, with the sun even popping out, just before I got to the stile. This is just below the two shoulders of PyG and, on going over the stile the wind, which had been nothing much at all until this point, suddenly turned into a jetstream with the powdered snow blowing about to almost whiteout proportions. I don’t think it was actually snowing but it was hard to tell..... with all the snow blowing about!

Where the snow had only been 3 or 4 inches deep before, it was suddenly double that here and even deeper in drifts. Near the top of the second shoulder the boulders were totally frosted with ice, 'well hung' with icicles and under the snowy track there was a lot of covered ice too, spookily cracking and creaking as I pounded over. Anyway I chugged up to the PyG trig point after 40 minutes (in normal conditions I can get there in 33.5) and disappeared into the gloom in the direction of Plover Hill. Never to be seen again?

Plover Hill is about a mile and three-quarters north east of the Pen y Ghent summit and, from my yellow (crusty old) OS Outdoor Leisure 2 map, the path I needed followed the wall on my left. Unfortunately I couldn’t see any path beside the wall, where the ground was totally covered in 3 feet deep snow drifts, but I could vaguely make out a farmer’s quad bike track sort of going in the right direction, albeit away from the wall. I followed this for a while until it led me to a gate in another wall crossing my path – there was a gate but this was strangely bolted which didn’t seem right. My quad bike trail now went further to my right, further away from my guiding wall and which soon fell completely out of sight in the clag and wind blown snow. And then my quad bike track chose to come to an abrupt end too – presumably at the point that the farmer was beamed up by aliens!

I couldn't see far enough to get any bearings but the ground was gradually rising so I guessed that I was going up a hill…… and the only hill it could be was Plover Hill, so I bashed on through increasingly deep snow. The ground was tussocky grass and heather although really only the tips were visible above the snow. It became bloody difficult to run on and in places all I could do was wade through the snow which came up to my knees. Eventually I gave up wading through snow in the open fell and turned to my left, found my wall after 300 yards or so, and waded through even deeper snow beside that . After much longer than I was expecting, I finally hit a wall I was hoping to find, putting a T on the top of the flipping wall I’d been following. But oddly here there was no gap in the wall where there was supposed to be. Huh? On the other side though there was a stile for a path heading to my left.

This path, assuming of course it was the right one, I remembered had appeared on my OS map and was my ‘opt out’ if things got tricky but why the heck was it the other side of the wall and why did my (non-existent) path not go through the wall to get to it? Anyway, after recceing further to my right for a bit, I returned and decided to hop over the wall and take my opt out route down the side of the hill (feeling slightly hopeful that I was actually where I thought I was). Immediately I crossed the wall I was open to the jetstream wind again, it was suddenly snowing very heavily and straight into me head on, like being blasted with ice pellets. I wasn’t cold or anything (in fact I was hot from my exertions) but running into this blizzard completely covered the front of me in sticky snow, really hurt my face and eyes and made seeing anything much at all quite difficult.

All the same after a while, and after dropping down out of the worst of the conditions, I realised I was on the right path and eventually hit the track I wanted coming from the right at the bottom of this steepish descent. It didn’t come from the exact direction I'd expected so I recce’d to my right to make certain before cutting back and following this path, which I now knew would take me to Hull Pot. An old wooden sign saying “CAUTION DEEP BOGS” reassured me that I was going in the right direction .

I soon hit Hull Pot and, although I’d earlier been contemplating taking the direct route from here back to Horton, providing I managed to survive, I was feeling on top of my game again and stuck to my original plan and headed off towards Long Mires. There was alot of snow and ice, and ice covered bog, but the path was now easy to follow and I reached the Pennine Way at Long Mires before long and started following that back. It was here that I met the only other souls out and about, a couple running with their black Labrador, and I followed their tracks all the way back to Horton to finish after 2 hours and 14 minutes. The sun now came out and it felt almost alpine on this last run down into Horton, with a fabulous view of the patchwork of white undulating fields in Ribblesdale spread out before me - mind you Pen y Ghent was still only just visible with what looked like a snow cloud crawling up and over its right hand shoulder. A great run then wth a dodgy moment or two to add some spice to it. I was also incredibly slow when you compare it to my 68 minute 10 miler road run on Thursday night! Just shows what a few hills, a bit of snow and wind added to over confident navigation 'skills' can do.

Oh and when I got home I found out where I went wrong on Plover Hill – the path I needed was actually on the left of the wall not the right. Doh! That said this was not at all obvious on my 1:25,000 scale map but was on another, an Altos 7 Explorer ‘The Three Peaks’ 1:50,000 map, which of course I hadn’t looked at prior to the off!

[AllanT]

I cannot believe I've waded through 5 pages of Stolly's thread, but still no shots of his daughters!!.. :-P

[Ady In Accy]

Good one Stolly, the oils did well not to run given the conditions
I have a route planned over Plover hill I am hoping to get in within the next few weeks, takes you over to Halton Gill in Littondale, Beckermonds in Langsrothdale, then follows the track/path through Greenfield and down past Sell gill and down to Horton in Ribblesdale. Around 17 miles ish.

[Derby Tup]

I cannot believe I've waded through 5 pages of Stolly's thread, but still no shots of his daughters!!.. :-P

Don't think I've ever used the term LOL on the forum but today it's appropriate! Allan T you made me laugh out loud

[the great vacuum]

...This is more like it as I found it an interesting and amusing read. I will use a little more time to take it all in...