A Pennine Bob Graham Adventure

I had only been running with Pennine a few weeks when one Thursday night there was great excitement about some run in the lakes the previous weekend. I was not quite understanding what it was about but it sounded like a long race. Eventually one of the Lads explained to me that it was not a race but a personal challenge. I was still none the wiser about what the excitement was. Sometime later I got orders from my brother in Dublin to buy a book about fell running for him as it's suppose to be be good. You guessed it "Feet in the Clouds".  I suppose I better read it to make sure it is good - ah! Bob Graham that is what the lads were on about!

Over the next couple of years there were another couple of Pennine Bob Graham weekends with a mixture of successes and failures. I was a bit jealous since I could not get up as they seemed to be a great social occasion. Last summer I got up on a successful BG attempt with AndyG. He was not in Pennine long so it was not a typical Penning BG attempt as there were just the 3 Pennine members involved. He was very lucky with the weather and had a storming round to get back to the Moot hall in just under 21 hours. I ran legs 1,4 and 5 that day and loved it. So this year when the prospect of another Pennine BG attempt got raised, I booked my pass at home as I wanted to be involved.

PaulB is a very good runner having completed the UTMB last year in very difficult conditions, I had spoken to him a number of times in recent weeks and he was very confident. He had a very difficult time with his reccies as the snow was very late this year so while he had great weather conditions, it made for very difficult conditions under foot. Amazingly a couple of weeks before his attempt the average temperature shot up by about ten degrees with some rain that cleared away a lot of the snow. The weather forecast in the week before was pointing to almost perfect conditions for his Friday night/Saturday morning start. I was keen to do the two legs (two, three) that I had not done last year. Leg two (12.87 miles (20.71 km) 1,835m) would be similar difficulty to leg one. There are a lot more summits but, like leg one just the three long climbs. Leg three is the beast of the round at 15.20 miles (24.46 km), 2,024m.

Arrived at "the smithy" at 6pm ish  to find Margaret on her own. Over the next few hours the rest of the crew started to arrive. With my 04:00 start I stupidly tried to go to bed at about 8pm to spend 5 hrs looking at the ceiling and getting very little sleep. It was with some relief when the alarm went off just after 3am, so that we could get started. It was a short drive to the Cricket club at Threlkeld  during which we could see the head torches descending off Blencathra. The leg one crew arrived pretty much on time having had an enjoyable leg in perfect (but cold) conditions. After a slowish change over at 04:20  Paul and a group of six pacers were off  past the sewage works and up the road to begin the Clough Head climb.

Dawn on Great Dodd

We could just see the dawn break at the top of the climb and I spend a lot of the next few summits dropping off the back of the group due to talking frequent photography stops and talking it easy on the descents to protect my suspect left ankle.

Leg 2 Support Crew

In the perfect conditions it was a beautiful run over the three "Dodds" before starting the more significant climb up Raise. From Helvellyn we had the pleasure of an amazing temperature inversion over the Dunmail pass. From here is was more easy running to Dollywaggon where a moment of indecision delayed us before striking down to the fence post leading to the descent to Grizedale Tarn.

Temperature Inversions over Dunmail

Grizedale Tarn appears out of the mist.

After dumping the bags I got a blast of speed from somewhere and was first to Fairfield summit.  My worst fears then struck and the dickey left ankle once again gave out on me. I struggled on the descent back to Grizedale Tarn as the main group got away from me before the assent of Seat Sandal. On my own at what I through was  Seat Sandal summit, a good trod went off to the right so I followed it. But after 50m I was thinking why are there no mudclaw tracks? About turn and back to "the summit" - compass out to confirm I was heading north instead of west. Off in the correct westerly direction to get to Dunmail about 10 minutes after the contender at 08:40  (4:20 for the leg) 

Leg 3 Support Crew and doggies

A very quick bite to eat and water bottle refill then at 08:45 a quick chase after the three Penniners on the Steel Fell accent. I have been up the Langdales and Sca Fells many times but this crossing from Steel Fell was going to be completely new. Granted the conditions were perfect but GeoffB is just so experienced and he led us across to Calf Cragg and then onto Sergeant Man without a hitch, except Paul mentioned he had given his knee a wrench on a little jump. None of us took much notice of it as we just assumed he would be able to run it off. Geoff and IanW set a hot pace across the leg and I was petty much last the entire time as I had to work to keep up. Paul was loosing time on the leaders on the descents but was still generally moving well. We knocked off the  Langdales, OK then I found Rossett Pike hard and Bowfell is an absolute beast. It was funny crossing between the two as there were loads of walkers on the foot path to see these four lunatics descending the steep grassy slope from Rossett Pike, cross the foot path to head towards the crags leading up to Bowfell.

That assent to Bowfell

Eventually we reached the summit then loads of boulder hopping to get to Esk Pike from which I identified a sequence of snow fields that allowed for a lovely decent down to the coll below Great End.

The snowfields off Est Pike

 It was about the only time all day I was in the lead. I expected a harder climb to Great End but it was easy and then the  annoying diversions to claim Ill Crag and Broad Crag before summiting the highest point Scafell Pike (978 m). I find this sort of terrain very difficult in MudClaws as they give very little protection if your foot slips on the rock. Descended down to Mickledore from which Geoff had a rough idea of the climbers traverse route. This worked pretty well and saved on a considerable amount of descent and re-assent that would have resulted from the traditional Fox's Tarn route. Bagged the final summit of the leg and then the long descent to Wasdale Head. I had forgotten to print off the timing sheet so I had know idea how we were going. It was on this descent that IanW mentioned to me that it will be "touch and go" to succeed. This was the first time I had appreciated our situation. Following a slow decent to Wasdale as Paul was really starting to find the descents difficult we arrived at the changeover at 15:00, a bit under an hour down (6:15 for the leg). This was me done for the time being having been on the go for about ten hours and forty minutes. Paul headed up the hardest climb of the day, which is Yewbarrow, with his new support team of three.

Dave's Rolling support

A wash in the stream and the long drive around to Buttermere. The long night caught up to me as I kept nodding off on Geoffs shoulder and when they stopped at the pub I stayed in the camper van  to get a couple of hours sleep (while they had three pints and I missed it!) before heading up to Honister. We got there shortly after eight and I got changed into my running gear and proceed up to Grey knotts to meet Paul and crew in the semi darkness. Paul was really struggling and Hano had to give him a hand on the more difficult bits of the descent. I lead them back down to Honister and Helen shot ahead to tell them Paul, will not be stopping (not given a choice!). We departed Honister at 21:10. 70 minutes down but for a fit runner it was still very much on.

Paul,(in the middle) approaching Robinson Summit

He shot up to Dale Head so he could still move up hill quite well and we got to Hindscart after 45 minutes. The knee was getting worse but we arrived at Robinson at 10:40. 1:20 was doable but the descent off Robinson proved too much. Geoff waiting by the van was telling me he could see the torches all the way from the top of Robinson and could not believe how slow they were moving. We eventually arrived at the beginning of the 10km road section in  Littletown at 11:50 where we called it quits.

Back to the smithy where Paul fell asleep straight away and the rest of us reflected on the day with mixed emotions. It had been perfected conditions so we could have done nothing but enjoy the adventure, while gutted for Paul's misfortune that spoilt his attempt. At 0200 on my second bottle of beer I was falling asleep so called it quits for the night. The next morning awake at 0800 tried to get back to sleep again but gave up and was up before 9. Paul was very positive in the morning as three daft buggers prepared to do  the Langdale Horseshoe. It was horrible conditions for it with driving wind and rain. The assent was not too bad with the wind on our backs. We had a quite moment when we got to Daz's cairn then the difficult run out with the rain in our face and a pair of quads that did not want to go downhill.

In the second half of leg three (around about Bow Fell, I think) I remember thinking to myself I must be mad to even think about having a go at this. Time has a nice way of dulling pain as here I am a couple of weeks later thinking......

There are a few photos here.
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