The Lakeland 5 Day 1998

James Head

Day 1 Witherslack
What a bright sunny day we had to begin the Lakes 5 day, somewhere, someone must have
been laughing. Nearly all of the events were characterised by lengthy walks to the start so
you had plenty of time to talk to fellow Orienteer’s along the way. Some people mentioned
running on this area several years ago as part of the JK but they weren’t letting out much
information. Getting off to a rocky start my first control on M21S involved a very steep
descent down the side of a quarry and whilst I was slowly making my way down Paul
Glanville seemed to bounce along behind me. “Why didn’t you use the path” he asked me
later.
The long courses followed a figure of eight guiding us through the woodland towards the very
technical north end of the map before coming back across the open heathland on top. The
fact that not all the crossing points were overprinted on the maps was commented on
afterwards by several competitors. The planners have since said that this was to prevent
people from straying in to the out of bounds areas, of which not all were overprinted on the
map. This did cause some confusion and I myself nearly ran straight through the start on the
way back. Although the course was rather long there were some very nice technical areas
which were well used by the planners.
In the evening, Brendon and Caedmon Gould, together with Troy Hargreaves managed to
amuse themselves by building a dam across the river running through the campsite. This
might seem like a trivial piece of information until you learn of what was to occur the next
morning….

The Flood
I was woken up at five-thirty by the sound of rain hitting my tent which continued unabated
for the rest of the morning. After having breakfast and hearing that the start times had been
put back for two hours I sat in my car and began to read a book, totally oblivious to the chaos
that was occurring around me. Several parts of the field were by now covered by standing
water but I wasn’t too concerned since I had pitched my tent on a small rise. At around ten-
fifteen it seems that the camp site organisers began to alert campers to the danger of the
rapidly rising river level and instructed people to leave the site and pass on the message by
word of mouth. This word of mouth never reached myself until eleven when I hurriedly
gathered up most of my stuff except for the flysheet - which was in danger of being swept
away - and drove out. The river, which had been a trickle the day before was now within a
foot of bursting it’s banks which it did minutes later. I joined the throng of sightseers that had
gathered to watch as the campsite disappeared leaving only the top of a single large brown
tent exposed above the waterline. During the afternoon, once the rain had stopped the water
began to drain away from the campsite revealing a few mangled tents and in one case, a large
metal tent pole that had been bent into a right angle, twice!

Day 2 Silver How

Amazingly we were allowed back onto the campsite where I was reunited with the flysheet of
my tent. Unfortunately however the poles were broken in three places so it looked a very
pitiful sight when erected to dry off. It was a long slog uphill to the start but the organisers
had thoughtfully placed a couple of portaloos on the route. This rather spoiled the view from
the kitchen window of the holiday cottage Rosemary was staying in though!
The Silver How map covered an entirely open area of fell with no trace of woodland so the
mapper had decided not to use the more normal pale orange colour for ‘rough open’ but had
instead left it as all white with exception of the juniper bushes. Some people seemed to think
that this made things easier for them but I myself didn’t notice any difference. The map did
however show the Dungeon Ghyll Hotel so if you felt a little thirsty out on the run……
After the previous days excitement the course seemed a little uneventful really.

Day 3 Lingmoor
Lingmoor included another lengthy uphill walk to the start, this time however on the other
side of the valley. Weatherwise it was an unusual type of day, for the most part sunny but
with several periods of intermittent rain and sometimes quite windy, particularly as the long
courses negotiated the steep sides of the valley. The rough open moorland was quite rocky in
places and the very high bracken also helped to make the courses more difficult by hiding
several controls, especially on the south facing slopes. Most of the courses however did seem
so suffer from one major flaw, in order to get people down from the moorland and into the
woods the planners had placed a crossing point at the north end of a long downhill wall which
meant competitors had to negotiate an 85 metre descent along the edge of the wall to get to
the next crossing point. Any route diagonally down the hillside was blocked by large crags.
Over the course of the event this route turned very dangerous as the trodden bracken became
slippery and the earth began to erode away. This resulted in a Sea King rescue helicopter
being scrambled to aid one injured female competitor. As Jill Green pointed out later, all the
planners had to do was move the first crossing point 85m downhill so that competitors would
use the path on the western side of the wall, or come down diagonally across the hill side.
The change from open to wood confused some but thankfully I managed to get through
quickly. I had still taken the longest amount of time I have ever done though - three hours -
and most of this had been on the previously mentioned descent.

Day 4 Blae Rigg

On arriving we found out that the starts had been put back two hours giving us plenty of time
to socialise with other Devon and Kerno members in the assembly area over mugs of Wilf’s
coffee. Those running from the red start had the furthest to go today, a walk of an hour and
fifteen minutes! I decided to cut out controls 2 to 5 so that the Greens would not be waiting
an age for my return so I was rather surprised to see that I am actually recorded in the results
as completing the course in 90 minutes and have not been put down as retired! Those doing
the long course had the added bonus of being able to see a spectacular rainbow over Easedale
Tarn, if you weren’t concentrating too much on your course that is. Much of the course
seemed to be straightforward until the last control where I somehow managed to aim off a
little too much to the right and ended up 400m from the control but quickly relocated.

Day 5 Grizedale Forest

I like forests, especially very big ones with lots of features that are very runnable so I thought
I’d like Grizedale Forest. Well the first half - along the eastern slopes - was okay and I was
going slightly faster then usual but after we had crossed an area of rough open in the centre of
the map the forest changed from being ‘nice’ to something resembling Fernworthy at last
years Gallopen only ten times worst. The forest got a little better before the end although the
planner decided to bring us back along what appeared to be the most rocky and treacherous
parts of the forest. The Lakeland 5 day had been more physically demanding then any other
multiday event I had been on and the organisation had appeared to be as ‘slick’ although the
all the finish’s had been very low key and seemed to run smoothly on very low manpower,
especially when you consider how far away some of them had been from the road.

One last thought, if any of you saw Geraldine Gould hanging around Tory Brook with a ruler
in hand at the Caddihoe Chase you now know why!