15th February 2008 - Edale Skyline Recce - 19.5 miles and 3700 ft of Climb
OS Explore Route
So at 9:30 yesterday morning the recce crew of me, Colin, Paul, Linda, Helen and Hilary meet at Mam Nick car park just below the summit of Mam Tor for our Edale Skyline circuit. I'd arrived early and had already driven over the ridge and into the Edale valley, which is really stunning even on an overcast chilly morning.
Although the actual Skyline race starts with an ascent of Ringing Roger out of Edale itself, we were starting at the race half way point at Mam Nick; this provided a nice advantage of starting from pretty high up the ridge. It also meant that we could recce what turned out to be the least navigation friendly part of the course first. I didn't want to damage my pristine Edale lakesrunner map so I just totally depended on the others to get me round; Colin (Swoop) and Hilary in particular seemed to know each rock, track, trod and foible of the route extremely well with the others more than familiar too so I was in safe hands.
I've knocked up a Stolly Map (patent pending) of the route to help me describe where we went:
PM me if you want to buy a copy; I'm sure it will satisfy the race organisers on the day.
Sector A - Bog Corner
We started off at Mam Nick running clockwise almost on the ridge line from the off and, to begin with, the path was easy going and straightforward. Beyond Lord's Seat though there is supposedly a short cut and Linda and I set off following a trod which we thought might be it, whilst the others set off in what seemed a huge tangent to our left. They soon disappeared from our view..... as did inevitably the trod we were following. After persevering over tussocky grass and heather in what we guessed was the right direction, our small 'short cut' party decided to cut our losses and find the others which thankfully we managed to do by hacking off to our left.
From here on the ground became incredibly boggy in places; fantastically so in fact. I imagine that in the race itself the field will be quite spread out by this point and, if the bogs are still in fine fettle, all sorts of carnage will ensue. It was here that Helen got stuck in a bog with just Swoop hanging onto to her, a bit like (well not at all like actually) Sylvester Stallone gripping onto the doomed girl at the start of Cliffhanger! Fortunately Swoop's grip held fast and we didn't lose Helen. When we got to the trig at Brown Knoll, the trig point itself was surrounded by a sucking bog although I did make it across to touch it, as you have to with all trig points and cairns.... for it to count
Sector B
It was still boggy here too but the terrain became more rocky with the paths sometimes easy to follow and at other times not. We looped round, turning into a now biting wind, to the summit of Grindslow Knoll and then cut back on ourselves north to continue following the ridge line. Swoop sniffed out a little short cut here just beyond crossing a small gulley which was well worth knowing and we headed on towards Ringing Roger.
Sector C
After Ringing Roger summit, Helen, Linda and Hilary buggered off down to Edale to eat cake (having only been with us for the lightweights tour) leaving us three men to forge on. The ground here is very broken and slightly down hill making for one or two dodgy moments but nothing to worry about on the bog front. Paul took a nose dive (literally) along here but luckily landed on his head! Actually he cut his top gum pretty badly with some real blood pouring from his mouth but it all added to the fun and occasion. We eventually dropped down from the moorland into pleasant fields, fast running beside a wooded hillside and what had been to this point a tricky route to follow all opened up with some stunning views over the Edale Valley to our right:
Sector D
A nice run into the wind to the top of Win Hill before dropping down a great descent all the way to the valley floor into Hope with now the biggest climb of the route before us up cleverly named Lose Hill. Once on the top, all that was left to do was a fabulous finish, running the ridge line or just below it all the way to Mam Tor - from the other side of the valley this ridge had looked challenging but in actual fact it was really good going, apart from the face freezing head on wind going up the last half mile onto Mam Tor. Then down to the car park for the finish. 19.5 miles and 4 hours 52. I'm none the wiser as to how fast I will run the race itself - I'm guessing 4 hours 20 as a target - but I'm damn glad I came on the recce as there are just so many places to go wrong, all in the part of the race where you're most likely to be spread out or alone too.
Thanks very much for the company too fellow recce-ers, with speacial thanks to Colin and his incredibly detailed insights to the route.
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