Marmot Dark Mountain Adventure

Marmot Dark Mountain Saturday 25^th Jan 2014

A brief(ish)report on our night adventure.

When Steve Mellor (Green Box Co. Organic vegetable man) suggested a few weeks ago that we enter the Marmot Dark Mountain marathon because it was in the High Peak this year I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. After a few thoughts I decided  why not, it’s on our doorstep and a new challenge. 

Me and Steve

(Here’s the official description).

Marmot Dark Mountains™ takes the classic two-day mountain marathon format and gives it a new… darker twist. Rather than two days of running with an overnight camp in between, Marmot Dark Mountains™ packs everything into one winter’s night!

Marmot Dark Mountains™ is based on the usual mountain marathon format with Elite, A, B, C, Long and Short Score classes for competitors to choose from. Usually at a mountain marathon the nature of the terrain dictates the distance of each course with the planners designing a course with a certain winning time. We are sticking with this principle but allowing for the added difficulty of navigating and running at night. Therefore although the winning time for your chosen class will be similar to a normal mountain marathon, the overall distance will be significantly less. Note the date has been chosen carefully - no moon if the skies are clear!.

The event centre was in the Glossop Leisure Centre in the main hall. We registered much earlier than our start time so we could nip home for a final big meal and rest. Registration involved all the usual things in a mountain marathon, kit check etc, but also the organiser insisted on photo ID for each runner to be certain there were no ringers or late substitutes.

Leaving out all the preparations and muttering about the kit requirements (tent, 2 man bothy bag, sleeping mat  and survival bag) we arrived at the start line at the turning circle on the end of Shepley Street at 10 to 10 Saturday night. Poor weather earlier in the day had passed over to leave a clearing sky and relatively mild temperature, for January. I should add for information I took my GPS phone using Viewranger tracking software sealed in a bag by the organiser – this was so that we could analyse our real route after the event, and the phone could be used if an emergency arose.

We were called into the starter tent where they had tea and coffee on the go which was good to warm your hands around, and then given the 1 minute warning to get ready. Time ticks by, 30s warning and then we’re clear to go, dib our dibber and collect the maps. Relief, we recognize the checkpoints immediately from all our homework and set off for Cock Hill trig. It’s always a good feeling to knock off the first CP, and feeling smug we set off from the trig for Bleaklow Head. Up to the ruined cabin and head east across the moor, planning on using the path to the Pennine Way (PW). Then we make our first nav error, after ¼ mile on this path it looks different, some heavy vehicle tracks and a 12 foot wide wooden bridge where the path should have been so we concluded we’d gone too far south and corrected to the north. Turns out we were on the path and had now wandered into the wilderness, lots of “the path is off to our left Steve – ah no wait a minute I think it over there where those people are, oh shit we’re in a hole etc” so we zigzagged on a general easterly bearing until Torside Castle loomed up ahead of us and slightly to our right – it looks quite large closeup in the dark. It was during this stage we saw several pairs of head torches bobbing about in the dark, mainly ahead and to our right.  Anyway, back on track towards John Track Well  (a good omen?) we pass two other teams (they could be on another route so can’t assume we’re beating our rivals) cross the stream and head up the PW to swing round to Bleaklow Head. Passed another team on this section so feel we’re doing OK.                     

Here I’ll add a detail – part of the feature of the course is that the checkpoints have a reflector on them so that sometimes you can see them from a long way away, like 500m if there's line of sight and you have a good torch. Sometimes this made life easier than daylight navigation.

At Bleaklow Head Steve breaks out the jelly babies because we’ve been running for about 1½ hours. The top is in the cloud, so our torches are reflecting back on us and I can’t see more than 20 metres so I take it off and move with it in my hand which improves visibility greatly. We carefully check the bearings here and get the right path to head off towards Shelf Moor Trig, our third CP. After 200m I’m so happy we reccied this section three times for the Trigger as we get the right turning for Hern Stones and carry on mostly at walking pace. We carried on steadily, re-checking our bearing every few minutes, soon had no visual references thanks to low viz but came straight up to the trig point first time, very chuffed about that. Funny thing, never saw Hern Stones, on the Viewranger track we passed about 100m to the west of them.  

Again at the trig we used the compasses to double check the next bearing to CP4 in Upper North Grain  and both of us were amazed to find that we felt the way to go was one way but it turned out we would have ran off northwest if we had ignored the compass.  Off we headed and of course soon found the path that led down to the top of Crooked Clough. Here we were a bit casual and used the same bearing of 140 when proper navigating would have been to take a new bearing to the CP. it led us too far south so we arrived at the target valley too far down where the sides are deep and steep.  We made a basic error on this leg, didn’t read the control description until we had spent 10 minutes or more hunting upstream. When I checked and found it was a building; I knew there wasn’t one this far down so we plodded back up until it materialized out of the clag – bugger, lost at least 15m on this one.

The next checkpoints were down at Birchin Clough, CP5 was at the top of the path through the woods and CP 6 was at the bottom. Since the A57 wasn’t out of bounds we simply ran down the road and picked off the two within minutes of each other. CP 6 was the main support centre for the event where a tent had been pitched in the car park.

 Steve and I just after leaving the Birchin Clough support centre.

The next CP was easy, at the footbridge where Lady Clough meets the River Ashop. As it was sheltered and we’d made it to this point in three hours we stopped to have a proper feed and drink for at least five minutes. It's worth taking the time to do this on a long event.

The next CP was the longest leg of the course, a stream junction at the top of Grindsbrook Clough. We had thought of going up to Seal Stones and cutting straight across to the CP but the area was out of bounds (the RO made almost all of the plateau OB which was probably sensible since newcomers to the area could get into real trouble in the bogs). So we climbed to Seal Stones and then used the 7 minute crossing to reach the southern edge path – I had worried about this route in the clag but it went perfectly, I've done worse in the daylight!.  Once on the edge it was simple to run on the path to the CP, passed another team or two on the way.  Pushed on to CP9 on the spur to the south of Crowden Tower, stopped for another snack at the top of Crowden Brook. I also had to stop to change my headtorch batteries,  strange cos they lasted 12 hours on pre-race tests but the low temperature and occasional use of high beam took their toll. By now we were swapping places with a mixed team who were also in the C class, Steve wanted to chase them every time they caught us but I used my cunning and slowness to keep him in check. We had to keep some energy in reserve for a tough section coming up.

CP9 to CP10 looked easy on the map. From the spur to Kinder Low trig point, but the climb back up to the path was marred by our rotten choice of trying to cut the corner. We should have kept our height back along the spur; instead we took a straighter line and ended up traversing for ages until eventually reaching the path just before Noe Stool. It looks OK on the Viewranger  track but it was at least half an hour of trudging and traversing through tussocks when we should have regained the path and had an easier trot. Still, from Noe Stool we cut dead straight to the trig point no problem, and met up with the mixed team again.

The next CP was stream junction lower down Red Brook, just above the woods. I suggested running along the edge then following Red Brook to the CP. Great plan, until we got to the descent when I remembered that it was bloody steep and hard going, in fact it was twice as bad as I remembered. Far below us we saw two lights reach the CP and then move off and thought sod it, the mixed team found a much better way and have a 10m lead at least. We stumbled on and battled the worst ground on the whole course that night and eventually got to the CP. Must reccy Red Brook one day and see if there is any path worth trying ever again.  Hey ho, must push on. The next CP is Mill Hill cairn, big decision whether to contour round or climb back up to kinder edge path. We were partially affected by the sight of two other teams choosing the up and over route so braced our man girdles and started the climb. Up and past Mermaids Pool, on and on and up and up. We were slowly catching another team and much to our surprise it was the mixed team, turns out the other lights we saw were not they.  We chugged on together chatting in gasps and finally made the path, ran round Sandy Heys and west towards the end of Kinder for the night. Steve and I paused to gulp down another gel and then on the descent left the mixed ones well behind. Mill Hill cairn no problem except the flagstones seemed a bit slimy. Steve also had to change headtorch batteries at this point.

Next CP13 was at Old Woman just the other side of the Snake road crossing, so yet another passage along the pesky flags, and the slight slippiness turned out to be the onset of ice, joy. I swear I will NOT run along this section of the PW again until the end of Winter. We danced and cursed our way along, even managed to pass another ladies team who were walking by this time. During this section Steve was obsessed with our chances of finishing in under 8 hours, and by now we’d been out for 7½  hours. I said not to worry just over 8 hours was OK and he revealed he thought we were on a time limit for the course and would be DQ’d if we were late!. Cheered him up a great deal to learn we were not in danger and in fact still doing well. His sore knee and huge blister issues faded into the background too. He was so pleased he even remembered to smile for the camera at the Snake road crossing – lord knows how the cameraman had stayed warm all night there. I will look as usual, a surprised donkey at death’s door. We found CP13 easily and bashed off down Doctor’s Gate to pick up the last CP.

The sting in the tail, we had thought the last CP14 was on Doctor’s Gate but when we reached the area in question it wasn't there at all. We studied the map with tired eyes (it was about 6am by now) struggled to see the details on 1:40000 map and eventually saw that it was described as a stream junction about 200m north of the path. (Again, should have read the control description when plotting the route).  So, the CP was below us, across horrible tussocky bog somewhere, still couldn't actually see the thing but it had to be on the stream so we went hunting. Eventually when we got closer we found it, hidden by a lump on the edge of the stream so that it was undetectable from the line we took into it from the path. Sneaky. For anyone interested I think the grid ref would be 080 942.  What a wheeze we made getting back to the path but finally the last bit straight down to the finish at the turning circle and final relax. We ran from 10pm till 6:33am to record a time of 8 hours 33 minutes.

 We nipped back to the leisure centre to complete the dibber download and grab a very welcome hot cuppa. Unfortunately at the time we found that we were the fourth placed out of four teams that had finished thus far so slightly downhearted we decided not to hang around the 90 minutes till prize giving. Went home to start trying to sort out the sleeping pattern. Later on Sunday we checked the Marmot website and found we had placed 4^th in C class and 1^st male vets. (Our prizes are in the post). The C Class winning time was 6:37, I bet our top fell runners would have swept the board in this event. We did very well to finish in a reasonable time as the promised rain started at 7am. Many teams were out for much longer, one team spent 17 hours somewhere. Only two teams out of seven that started the B class completed the course.

The strange thing about the whole event – I’m one of the club runners who has shied away from night fell running in the winter evenings. J I think I might do another one if the weather could be as good, and it was in the Peak District again. Then again it would be another step up to try one in an unknown area.