Stolly's Running Adventures

[Stolly]

25th October 2008 - Gisburn Forest Trail Run - about 10 miles and getting on for 850 ft of climb

OS Explore Route

I'd never visited Gisburn Forest before but knew that there were some mountain bike trails there with the longest being about 10 miles. In fact with a forest, the 'biggest in Lancashire', not that far from my doorstep I almost felt guilty that I hadn't given it a go until now. My starting point was Cocklet Hill picnic area (nearest civilisation Tosside) and three cycle routes start from there - pink (5 miles-ish), green (say 7.5) and red, the one I was following. All the routes were clearly marked and easy to follow.

This route as I ran it sort of meanders up the easterly side of the forest to the highest point near Whelpstone Crag before dropping down into a valley beyond and then meandering back more to the west, eventually reaching Stocks Resevoir with Cocklet Hill and the finish a short hop from there.

For much of the first half of the run I was on broad forest trails that, were I actually mountain biking, I might have found a bit dull. Not 'gnarly, radical or extreme' in the slightest in fact and more suited to the Von Stolly family doing synchronised cycling routines whilst singing 'doe a deer, a female deer' and other Sound of Music favourites. All the same as a run it was really nice and enjoyable with a very gradual but consistant climb involved for most of the way to the half way point. The scenery was nice too





You can tell that who ever manages this forest that they are keen on mountain bikers though - although the main track was tame thus far, as it reached a disused quarry area there were loads of off road mtb-ing circuits and tracks off to the side including one scull and crossbones marked route through an especially dark part of the forest with all sorts of humps, jumps and obstacles to get over. The scull and crossbones warning was enough to make me want to go back with my bike and give it a go for sure.

After passing by Whelpstone Crag and its trig point (which I stupidly didn't visit not seeing a clear cut path to get up there) the trail becomes more interesting with some steep rocky descents and climbs and more going through of proper and, in places, quite spooky pine forest:



Then it was more of the same, nice easy running through the woods along trails and tracks all the way back - all told a really enjoyable run through some beautiful hilly pine woods. In fact I can't wait to chuff round again, preferably on the first proper snowy morning of the winter. Incidentally this run could easily be started from and finished at the Dog and Partridge in Tosside as the track from there quickly meets up with the cycle route.

Exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes start to finish.

[Stolly]

26th October 2008 – Ingleborough from Newby – just short of 7 miles and about 1,850 ft of climb

OS Explore Route

A straight forward up and downer following a completely runnable route. The path is also easy to follow although of course I went off track for a short while soon after hitting the open fell side before side tracking back on course. It was very soggy on the lower slopes and friggin windy up top but, other than that, it was perfect. All told a 51 minute chuff to the summit followed by a 32 minute whiz straight back down the way I came up; 1 hour 23 altogether. Fabulous.

Yet another Stolly self portrait on the summit :



The view just as I was dropping off the top with a wind blown Little Ingleborough before me:



Oh and Big Compass no Withins fell race for me - next 'proper' race is probably the Tour of Pendle

[Big Compass]

Hope to see you at Pendle Stolly, it's in our club h/cap, it may be 4 miles too long for me.

[Stolly]

Race #14

So its 7 of the clock this evening, the 29th October. Its frickin' freezing with little wafts of snow in the air and Stolly is parked in a lay-by just outside Ingleton - grid reference SD702731 . Slowly but surely other cars arrive and shut off their engines and lights. Darkened occupants can just be made out. Everyone is early but impatient. Stolly imagines that everyone is quietly drumming their fingers on their dash boards between glances at their watches.

Yet more cars still pull up. More drumming of fingers. Then at 7:15 everyone starts to 'light up' and mysterious beings emerge into the cold with glowing bulbs on their foreheads. There must be 40 odd runners in all, quietly milling around, freezing their nuts off (apart from the ladies of course who presumably are freezing their lady equivalents off). A cold wind is blowing. There are no stars and the hillside before us is black as pitch. The odd dog is also wandering about full of energy and keen to get going. But going where?

Then at 7:30 all head torches ignite and the mysterious band of hi-viz nutters start running hell for leather into the dark and gloom. And its all bleeding up hill. Stolly starts okay but soon begins to be over taken by pretty much all of the others as the party head up a track beyond which an ever steepening path awaits. The snow starts to get a bit heavier. Stolly can't see anything but the cone of light before him... and his breath is doing its best to obscure that.

Further up now and its getting ridiculously steep and the ground is all sharp sticky out bits, broken rock and rubble. Stolly is still running but you have to wonder why as another runner, walking for fcuks sake, overtakes him with ease. Stolly feels sick and can't get enough oxygen in to be able to breath properly. All his recent comfy solo runs come back to haunt him as he realises that racing is just not the same and bloody well hurts. More runners leave him in their wake and forge on ahead.

Now to add insult to injury some runners are coming down towards him, temporarily blinding him with their bleeding uber powered, search light like torches on their heads. Stolly is almost coughing up his lungs. Then, thank god, the summit plateau is finally reached and, at long last, running doesn't hurt so much. All the same the sad, lonely and frozen marshall pedantically forces Stolly to run around the trig before commencing the long wished for descent.

Unfortunately the descent is a nightmare; its all steep and rocky steps and the sticky out boulders are clawing at Stolly's feet and trying to trip him over. A couple of runners who presumably run with some kind of sonar choose to overtake Stolly just to rub salt into the wound. After a while though things get easier and/or Stolly gets more confident. Stolly is flying now and thankfully there's no more being over taken. There's still a way to go but its all down hill and its all fast and (compared to going up) easy.

Finally the finish line comes into view and Stolly zooms down the final grassy path and clocks in at 67 minutes and 42 seconds; two minutes or so faster than he had been predicting. Many of the other runners have already gone to the pub .

Stolly collects his breath and finally starts to feel okay and realises that he just really enjoyed that run up to the top of Ingleborough and back, in the dark, in the cold, in the wind and in the snow.

Stolly then quietly wanders off into the gloom, gets into his car and drives home exhausted but smiling.

5.6 miles and maybe 1900 feet of ascent.

Race Route and results

[Stolly]

1st November 2008 – Fountains Fell Loop – 9.25 miles and around 1,500 ft of ascent

OS Explore Route

Like a bobble-hatted train spotter, beardy bird watcher or spotty pokemon playing herbert, over the last couple of years I’ve been gradually trying to 'collect them all' by running all the hills, peaks, ridges, beauty spots and whatevers that appear on the southern and western Yorkshire Dales ordnance survey map. So far I’ve <takes deep breath> nabbed:

Beamsley Beacon, Carncliffe Crag, Simon’s Seat, pretty much every inch of the river Wharfe from Bolton Abbey to Grassington, High Bradley Moor, Skipton Moor, Carlton Moor, the disused railway line from Elswick to Skipton, Skipton Woods, Embsay Crag, Embsay Moor, Rylstone Cross, Rylstone Fell, Sharp Haw, Rough Haw and Flasby Fell, Calton Moor, the Dales Way from Grassington to Kettlewell, Hawswick Moor, High Cote Moor, the Monks Path out of Arncliffe, Mastiles Lane, Weets Top, every inch of ground between Malham, Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Cove, Kirkby Fell, Rye Loaf Hill, every blade of grass between Settle, Stainforth, Langcliffe and Malham, Attermire Scar, Warrendale Knotts, Langcliffe Scar, Giggleswick Scar and Smearsett Scar, Feizor Wood, Long Scar and Moughton overlooking Helwith Bridge (where I fcuked up my knee), Pen y Ghent left, right and sideways, Plover Hill, Hull Pot, Black Dubb Moss, Foxup Moor, Littondale, Eller Carr, Langstrothdale, Ingleborough from Horton, Ingleborough from Austwick, Ingleborough from Clapham, Ingle-bleeding-borough from Newby, Ingleborough from Ingleton, Ingleborough from Chapel le Dale, Ingleton Falls, the whole Whernside ridge top to bottom, the top half of Kingsdale and finally…. Great Coum and Dentdale.

Anyway that’s all a very longwinded way of saying that up until yesterday I’d never been up Fountains Fell (to the right of Pen y Ghent if you look down at the map) before and it was starting to get to me. I had planned to do a longer route but didn’t have time and instead drove up through Langcliffe to my starting point, a lay-by at Henside. Its was cold first thing too and especially so given that Henside is already at a height of 1400 ft – mind you that made for less hill to climb on my run.

I planned to run the Fountains Fell ridge south to north, where there is a wall line but no formal path to follow, before hitting the Pennine Way at the very top and circling back eastwards following that before taking another path at Great Hill Scar diagonally straight back to my starting point. Although there was no proper path marked on my map going up Fountains Fell there was a quad bike trail most of the time so it was fairly straight forward…… mind you this electric fence at the trig on the very first peak made for an interesting climb over:



Here and there the 'path' completely disappeared too to be replaced by what looked like pretty insurmountable obstacles:



Anyway without too much of a fuss I managed to follow all the right walls, didn't electrocute myself, didn't get swallowed by any icey bogs and made it to where the Pennine Way dissects almost the exact top of Fountains Fell, and then began to follow that down the other side. Well actually I thought I was following the Penine Way – there were these wooden marker posts and everything – but I eventually came to the conclusion that I’d actually ‘misplaced’ the Pennine Way and was in fact following the other side of the wall that I’d not long before been running up beside. How the hell do you lose the Pennine Way? Anyway no worries I knew the direction I needed to be going in and eventually crested the ridge, with the low cloud now clearing, and could see the Arncliffe road far below. Somewhere down there is my lost Pennine Way:



After a fair amount of trackless cotton grass wading and hacking I finally reappeared on the Pennine Way and followed that all the way down to the Arncliffe Road and Great Hill Scar. Up until this point the whole run had been disappointingly not very muddy - don't get me wrong the whole of Fountains Fell was a mudfest but it had all been unfortunately hardened by the frost. Down here though with the sun out the mud was perfect and the final couple of miles back to my car were both easy running and muddy as hell .

1 hour and 39 minutes.

[Derby Tup]

I love that 3rd photo - it's a belter Stolly and really captures the nature of the Dales

[wheezing donkey]

Stolly, old pudding, Whelpstone Crag is a regular run for the Bowland crew, both winter 'Bat runs' & summer evenings. On the main wagon road, Whelpstone Crag is square to your R.H.S. when you are in a dip. As you continue along the road, climbing out of the dip (just when you are thinking that you've left the crag on your right rear quarter) look for a muddy trod on your RHS that climbs through the plantation with a broken down wall on the left. Once out of the plantation, onto the rough open fell, this trod swings right along the top boundary of the planation to a gate in a wall. Once through the gate, swing left to climb directly up the steep grassy cone of the crag. The trig is one of 18 in Bowland that are over 1,000 feet.

[Stolly]

Stolly, old pudding, Whelpstone Crag is a regular run for the Bowland crew, both winter 'Bat runs' & summer evenings. On the main wagon road, Whelpstone Crag is square to your R.H.S. when you are in a dip. As you continue along the road, climbing out of the dip (just when you are thinking that you've left the crag on your right rear quarter) look for a muddy trod on your RHS that climbs through the plantation with a broken down wall on the left. Once out of the plantation, onto the rough open fell, this trod swings right along the top boundary of the planation to a gate in a wall. Once through the gate, swing left to climb directly up the steep grassy cone of the crag. The trig is one of 18 in Bowland that are over 1,000 feet.

Thanks for that WD. I think I saw the trod (there was a wooden pole marked in blue too almost hidden by grass). I will of course investigate next time.

[wheezing donkey]

Stolly, Trundler has the Whelpstone Crag Bat Run marked in for Thursday 12th February, on the Bowland Bat Planner. If you PM him, he will include you on the mailing list, with all the Bat Run reports and planner updates.

[millipede]

w.


For much of the first half of the run I was on broad forest trails that, were I actually mountain biking, I might have found a bit dull. Not 'gnarly, radical or extreme' in the slightest in fact and more suited to the Von Stolly family doing synchronised cycling routines whilst singing 'doe a deer, a female deer' and other Sound of Music favourites.
.

We went for a family bike ride on your recommendation that it was quite easy. Didn't quite have the Von Trappe moment but enjoyed it.