Marmot Dark Mountain Saturday 25th
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
4th in C class and 1st 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.
