Old County Tops

Looking back over my photographs there seems to be a lot more cloud than I remember as my overwhelming impression of the Old County Tops is of heat and sun. The day seemed to be a constant battle to keep fed, watered and cool enough to keep going.

Starting in Langdale the 37 mile route traces a path over Helvellyn before a thigh bursting descent down Thirlmere. A long section then heads over to Scafell Pike, followed by another drop to Cockley Beck. Lastly a final climb up to the Old Man and then downhill all the way back to the start in Langdale.

Myself and Jonathan had a pretty simple plan - take it steady and try and hit the cut-offs. That was all. The route was initially over tracks and road to Grasmere, and by the first burn crossing about 5km into the run the heat was already making itself felt. Climbing up to Helvellyn via Tongue Gill and Grisedale Tarm was just a matter of keeping it steady and once the angle of the slopes increased we began to pick up places, receiving a healthy number of compliments on the Highland race strip along the way. The Whelp Side descent from the summit cairn was steep, grassy and a real thigh burner. A short crash through the forest to the car park where there was a food and drink stop about 50 minutes up on the schedule.

The following long jog through Wythburn, over Greenup Edge along to Angle Tarn was scenic and hot following indistinct trods along the south slopes of Langstrath. Angle Tarn was reached about 50 minutes before the cut-off, but we didn't linger. I knew most of the next section up to Scafell Pike from my Bob Graham a few years back. It didn't feel nearly as bad this time and there was a welcome breeze.

After Jonathan tagged the true summit, adding his second Lakes marilyn to his tally, we dropped back down to Little Narrowcove - a steep scree footpath leading to Great Moss. It was definitely a case of 'out of the frying pan and into the fire'. Not even the hint of a breeze and it wasn't until Moasdale that we were able to get a proper rhythm going.

After a quick pit stop at Cockley Beck we set off up to the col between Grey Friar and Great Carrs. I wasn't feeling too bad, but Jonathan was struggling in the heat and with a lack of energy. After a while I took his bag and as soon as topped the slope the welcoming breeze encouraged a faster walk/jog, and I thankfully gave Jonathan his bag back. Soon after I misread the map and swapped the Old Man with Dow Crag and if it hadn't been for Jonathan we would have ended up with a extremely embarrassing and demoralising detour. Thankfully the summit of the Old Man was reached without further mishap and now it really was downhill all the way. Jogging back along Swirl How we met lots of runners coming up the hill. Somehow, despite feeling that we were running slowly, we had managed to overtake and pull out time a whole heap of other teams.

The rest of the run was steady and we ran pretty much all of it finishing in 10 hours 16 minutes, which I think equates to 30th place. I think we were both happy with that. It was a hard run in a fantastic location and the place or time didn't matter. The challenging conditions made achieving the cut-off time and the tee shirt even more worthwhile.

Highlander Mountain Marathon

The highlander mountain marathon took place earlier in the month over towards Gairloch. This is a fantastic event which is much more chilled out than either the LAMM or the OMM. Unfortunately the only year I have competed in it coincided with the worst weather they had experienced. It took months for my feet to thaw out so I have never been back to race. Rather than taking part I had the task of marshalling at one of the checkpoints on the first day at Poca Buidhe bothy.

I biked in using the track from the Gairloch road, with only a couple of irritatingly locked gates, and in about an hour I reached the the start of the loch, where I ditched the bike to bag the easternmost Corbett on the way to the bothy checkpoint. The bothy has one open end and despite the amount of mice droppings looked in pretty good nick. I was glad to be sunning myself and enjoyed fantastic views to the back of Liatach and Beinn Alligin. The checkpoint was busier than expected and everyone was having a great time, including those who seemed to be massively late.

As the last team went through I headed west to grab in the other Corbett, involving a rather scary traverse line as I tried to avoid some height gain, before biking back to the car. The track back was tough on my fully rigid rather retro Cannondale, but I cleaned it all despite having a touch of double vision and knackered arms by the end of it.

The same day we headed down to Wales for a week long marilyn bagging trip and a couple of days in North Wales checking out some more sections of Paddy Buckley. I had one long day running the leg from Capel Curig to Aberglaslyn in unseasonably hot weather. Despite the heat I was running it well within schedule and enjoyed it for the most part. I was shattered at the end of the run though, but still had energy to check out the start of the next leg - sorting out a route finding issue I had had last time I was there.

After a chilly night in the car I did part of the Snowdon leg, through Llanberis and then up through the quarries to Eildir Fawr. I ballsed up the slate mines badly and spent a good bit of time wandering around the inclines. The end result was I missed the schedule time by a good 10 minutes and lost motivation to go on to the Glyders. Probably a good thing in hindsight as my legs were burnt enough as it was. All in all another successful reccy and I just need to get a few more long runs under my belt and get down to Wales again to check out the Glyders and Carneddau sections. Paddy Buckley's Round seems to be a hybrid of Ramsay's and Bob Graham's Round - a superb mixture of rough ground like Ramsay's but also with long sections of really fun undulating ridges like the Bob. I am really looking forward to giving it a go.

Tower Ridge

Tower Ridge is meant to be one of the the classic mountaineering days out in the British Isles, and the photographs say it all really. Even on Monday it was busy and despite a fairly early start at 8.00am from the car park we were pretty much last on the ridge. Everything would have been fine apart from a rather inexperienced party in front who struggled on anything remotely technical and seemed to want to pitch it in 20m rope lengths. As to the grade, under the conditions we climbed it in it was a straight forward grade III with the technical crux being the avoidable chimney at Douglas Gap

I had never done the ridge before so it was fantastic to do it on such a good day. After the first chimney it was quite a distance of grade I/II ground to the base of the little tower.

After about an hour and half wait in the sun we climbed the Little Tower in two long pitches with a 60m rope - all on ice. Another short flat section followed before another long wait for the Eastern Traverse to clear of other climbers.

The drop was awesome - very similar to No 3 Gully Buttress and the rest of the climbing to the Great Tower was pretty much banked out and everything was coated in a nice thick layer of ice. Mark dropped into Tower Gap and skirted round it on the left from where it we moved together for the last hundred-odd meters.

Just as we were finishing the route the clouds started to gather and we walked down in a light snow shower past halfway lochan and back to Allt A'Mhuillin. The sunset was spectacular as behind us the Ben gathered the clouds into the corries.

Carn Sleamhuin

My foot is still a bit tender after the Hobble so myself and Becky went for a walk with Owen over Carn Sleamhuin and Carn na Guaille from Dalnahaltnach. There were pretty deep remants of snow in the tracks and it was very blowy, with some vicious showers, once we got on to the more exposed sections. A lovely place for a walk/run when the higher tops would just be grim. Carrbridge has a good cafe too with a good selection of cakes.

Haworth Hobble the recovery

Haworth makes even Drumnadrochit seem understated when it comes to cashing in on the tourists. I mean there must be at least one B and B in the Highland town which hasn't got a name linked to Nessie, but I think you would be pushed to find an establishment in Haworth that isn't in some way linked to the bl@@dy Bronte sisters. Even our room, in the otherwise excellent B and B, had a copy of Wuthering Heights - it probably replaces the Gideon in these parts.

After one of the most chilled out race registrations and a lovely breakfast, the race started outside The Fleece at 8am. We walked the first hill then settled into a long distance shuffle at the back of the pack. The weather was chilly, but sunny and it was only misty for a few miles.


Even the race route couldn't avoid the influence of that evil triad of scribblers as we had to cross Br@@te Bridge, shortly after which we ploughed into the back of the pack which was held up at one of the stile crossings. Everyone was very polite and no-one dared jump the fence.

On the first moorland section the headwind was bitter and really made it's presence known near Widdop. After that the route seemed to be much less exposed, but I still wore gloves for most of the day. The ground was frozen in parts, paved in others and very pleasant to run along. For the most part we ran in small, friendly groups leaving the nav to people who had done it before. Pleasingly we both managed a constant pace throughout and so gradually made our way through the field and Lisa kept smiling.

Aside from a very sore right foot, probably due to the hard ground and a lack of runs of over 7 miles in length, I managed to survive the Hobble in remarkably good shape. My running partner Lisa, a friend from Uni days, was hoping just to get round and we had a target time of 10 hours. Suitably fortified with the previous evening's traditional Yorkshire Biryani and an awesome fry up that morning, we did considerably better finishing in 7 hours 24 minutes. Tired, but not unduly so.


In fact I enjoyed myself, which is sometimes a pretty difficult for me to do, probably partly as I was able to leave my 'race face' at home. The course was varied moorland tracks with just the right amount of tedious tarmac for me to be grumpy about. Although there weren't any big hills I can't remember any flat bits either - just nicely undulating. My greatest ambition for the race was to get to the hot dog stand at mile 15. Lisa's face was a picture as she watched me washing down the frankfurter with a steaming mug of tea, whilst she struggled to digest some Jelly babies.


The event reminded me of a kind of Fellsman-lite and was much more enjoyable and interesting than the likes of the Three Peaks. Perhaps not great specific training for the Paddy Buckley, but I got some miles in the legs, a superb motivation boost and perhaps a good kick start to some distance run training. All I have to hope is that all the snow and ice melts as at the moment temptation is too great and I always end up climbing instead.

My next trip to Wales is in late April and I can't wait...

You win some you lose some.

A tale of two days really. Only 24 hours apart, but miles from each other with regards to conditions and enjoyment factor!

On Thursday I teamed up with Wendy who had not done much Scottish climbing. I had heard that the North West had less snow so less avalanche danger. When we rounded the bend on the Bealach na Ba I wasn't expecting that much less snow! Most of the lines were broken and our first choice of route looked way out. Cue panic. I was meant to be the experienced 'local' and here we were in front of the practically bare cliff of Meall Gorm. A quick look in the guidebook revealed The 6 track Mono Blues - apparently a soft touch grade II further up the cliff. Thankfully, it looked much better. Once in the gully the ice was superb and the snow was much, much better than expected. The only thing lacking were belays and I gratefully smacked in pegs into the sidewalls. In the lean conditions it was a definite II. We came down via the descent gully which was festooned with a rather random plastic pipe attached to rusting metal stanchions. What is was or why it is there I still didn't know. The weather was good, aside from a brief snow shower, so loath to go home we went ice bouldering. Where the 'Master' displayed rather less finesse than his 'Apprentice'.


Friday came along with the flush of success from yesterday instilling a certain sense of confidence. Despite the forecast we decided on Glen Shiel. As always the weather was fantastic until the Cluanie where it decided to hack it down. Rain, interspersed with wet snow, was driven along by a keen wind and the warm temperatures had softened the snow horribly. Following the guide book instructions we headed up over the shoulder of Maoile an t-Searraich. The Allt of the afore-mentioned hill provided some great sport with a couple of 2-3m vertical steps, allowing the driving rain to be forgotten about for a time. Reaching the shoulder we then saw we had come too high for our objective - Enchanted Falls a grade III ice route. A tenuous very steep descent on wet snow and grass dropped us, finally, at the bottom of the route. The first two pitches looked very thin and wet. However, above the falls opened out into a wide cascade of ice bulges. To get to them we had to somehow traverse in. After a pitch of enjoyable grade II ice. I set off on a traverse above some slabs to get to the cascade. All that was required was a few steps down. A combination of cold, wet, a lack of protection and a dawning sense that climbing melting ice in a rainstorm wasn't a wise idea saw me back off. Disappointed with not having done the route, we trudged down hill, calf-deep in slush at some points.

In retrospect all still good fun, but some major learning points for the day - it is much, much hard to jump across streams with a bag stuffed full of wet climbing rope... and don't forget your waterproof trousers.

Haworth Hobble preparations

I can't believe I last posted way back in December! Time flies when you are training and then trying to recover and dealing with the daily 5.30am to 6am wakeup calls from Owen. There seems to be hardly anytime to do anything else. Training seems to be going well with nay a session missed so far this year - I have just jinxed myself there. The mileage is still pretty low, but I am up to 6 runs a week and some decent long days in the hills. Actually some of the runs have been exchanged for some cross country ski-ing because it seems we have had constant snow and ice for the past few months. All good though and I do feel strong - especially so after about 45minutes of hard exercise. The winter Olympics has been a great motivation and watching the cross country and biathlon has been awe-inspiring.

It is now only a couple of weeks to go until my first race of the year; The Haworth Hobble which is a 32 mile jaunt near Hebden Bridge. Bronte country apparently although I doubt I have ever read any of their work. My longest run has been about 7 miles, but I am hoping the long climbing days, including a fantastic traverse of the Aonach Eagach will keep me right. I am running it with a friend who is planning the Bob Graham Round so I am just aiming to have fun and get some mileage in the legs.

When I look back to 2008 (my Ramsay year) it all seems to be heading in a similar direction and if anything my training seems to be more consistent. I really do rate mountaineering days out as superb preparation for the 24 hour challenge-type runs so hopefully the snow will consolidate and let me out in the crampons. I wont top 2008 for the number of winter routes done (20), but a decent number should set me up well for the summer. A trip to Armenia planned for June will push back my Paddy attempt into early July. The reccy trip to Snowdonia is still on for April. So here's hoping I survive the Hobble...