The Forest
of Bowland's one of those areas that you've probably
passed without even realising it, which is a shame because it's a
compact, beautiful moorland area that's been made significantly more
useable thanks to the Right to Roam legislation.
It's also the venue for the new Bowland Challenge event. OM
members Matt Carter and Peewiglet teamed up for 27
miles of point bagging. Matt takes up the story...
THE BOWLAND CHALLENGE - 2ND/3RD JUNE '06
A Challenge Event for Mere Mortals!
The first ever Bowland Challenge took place last weekend,
Friday/Saturday 2nd/3rd June. Organised by Bowland Pennine MRT as a
fundraiser, the intention is to grow it into an annual happening, and
judging by this year's event, which was very well organised and great
fun to take part in, they deserve every success.
Peewiglet and I entered as a team - teams of two to six people
were permitted. Neither of us has tried anything of this nature
before - not KIMM or LAMM, and certainly for me at least not running
or orienteering either - so it was an opportunity to try out an event and
see if it was enjoyable while just making sure we had a good hill
day in any case, it seemed ideal.
We met up at Waddecar campsite on Friday evening where, as well as
a warm welcome, a meal and a bar, we were greeted with a copy of an
OS map and a sheet with about 100 grid references to mark up. Next we
had to decide on our route for a 10 hour outing on Saturday - each
location visited would have a question to answer there, worth between
2 and 20 points.
With deductions for wrong answers or late arrival at either the
lunch stop or the finish we had to be as realistic as possible about
our capabilities. In the end we submitted an outline route estimated
at about 22 or 23 miles, taking in the higher Bowland fells in the
morning, returning via country tracks and lanes and finishing over
Beacon Fell. We drew the relatively civilised start time of 7:28am
(the unluckiest drew 7:00!) and nominated 1:00pm as our lunch
deadline.
Bright And Warm...
Saturday dawned bright and warm with every prospect of a beautiful
day. Rising at six had seemed to allow us plenty of preparation time,
but somehow after breakfast and a final kit check we still found
ourselves hurrying to Event Control to synchronise watches, be handed
our question sheet and set off on the dot of 7:28.
Things didn't start too auspiciously - some building works
forced a detour and threw us off our first location for a while, I
almost lost my map within minutes of the start but fortunately
noticed while it was still within view (and kept a firm hold from
then on!) and we navigated a little randomly out of a wood to reach
the wrong road, but at least we relocated ourselves quickly and
picked up a couple of unplanned question spots in the process.
After that we settled into a much more efficient routine. Walking
briskly we soon passed several other teams, engaging in a little
friendly but guarded banter as we did so, and by shortly after 9 we
were climbing up onto Holme House Fell in glorious sunshine. The next
two hours provided the sublime hill experience we'd hoped for
- and clearly several teams thought the same - traversing the
southern edge of the Bowland range via Fair Snape Fell and Saddle
Fell to Burnslack Fell before descending down Burnslack Brook.
Dry Bogs
Views extended over to Yorkshire's Three Peaks, the sun shone and
even Bowland's peat bogs were reasonably dry and reasonably pleasant
on the feet when we eventually ended up in them! Just down off the
high fells a non-existent question point puzzled us (and a few other
teams) until we realised that two digits of the grid reference we'd
been given must have been transposed, putting the true location
almost a kilometre away to the west.
We duly visited the correct point (although tactically that may
have been a mistake) before jogging a little, down to the lovely
village of Chipping and our rendezvous with the lunch checkpoint.
Reaching the village with five or six minutes in hand all seemed
under control, until we realised that neither of us knew the exact
location or even the name of the lunch venue! Frantic racing around
the village ensued until we hit upon St Mary's church hall just as
the clock struck one - so no penalty points by the skin of our
teeth.
Having taken only a couple of ten-minute stops through the
morning, we promised ourselves a minimum of 20 minutes for lunch, and
maybe even 30. In the end 30 minutes it was - sitting
blissfully in the sun. I'm sure we could have happily taken longer
still - but we limbered gently up again and headed out of
Chipping to start the second leg of our route, through the lanes and
footpaths between Longridge and Beacon Fell.
We'd planned about 10 miles for the final four hours, but in some
ways the navigation was harder in this terrain than on the open
fells, and Beacon Fell looked an awfully long way away, so we altered
our route on the fly to take a more direct line back, figuring that
any overshoot past our 5:28pm deadline would probably cost us far
more points than we'd gather by covering the extra ground.
Footsore And Finished
As the afternoon progressed my feet gradually became sore from the
road walking involved, but the legs held up pretty well. Some clues
were difficult to find but, despite encounters with locked gates,
collapsing stiles and a herd of over-ebullient cows (all on the same
walker-unfriendly farm it should be said) we steadily amassed the
points, and by about 4:40 we were atop Beacon Fell picking up our
last scheduled question.
Realising that we had a little time in hand we diverted to one
final location on the descent - only to fail to locate the
answer to the question anyway! (It was fiendishly concealed, we
discovered later, carved on a stone half-hidden in the undergrowth).
So with that we headed back to Waddecar, pleased with our effort in
any case, and clocked back in at 17:15 precisely. 13 minutes remained
unused, but the absence of nearby clues and the presence of nearby
beer and cider left us with no qualms about that!
In common, I think, with many other participants, we found it a
welcome relief to stop and yet difficult to sit still. Weary legs
would complain whether straightened or bent, standing up or sitting
down. But sunshine, beer, a shower, and chatting to other teams about
the day's experience gradually removed physical weariness from the
forefront of our thoughts.
And A Podium Finish
Convening for dinner that evening the results were announced. A
dozen teams had participated, so probably 45 or 50 people in total,
fairly equally split between men and women. PW and I felt we'd
performed about as well as we could - which had been our aim
all along - but were delighted to achieve a creditable 3rd
place with 180 points. A team of five walkers came second with 195
points, whilst a pair of super-fit, young, fell-running lads won top
prize with a staggering 216 points scored. Heaven knows how much
ground they covered - I traced our actual route in Memory-Map
on getting home and it came out at a total of 27.1 miles with 1050m
of ascent and descent, some way more than we'd planned.
The evening continued sociably and it was interesting to hear from
some of the others their reasons for taking part. Clearly some were
competitive, most saw a personal challenge, and all were out to have
fun. For example one woman said that her team of four ladies walked
regularly perhaps eight to 10 miles, but had used this event as a
spur to learn to navigate with a compass and use grid references, and
had gone out and completed 17 miles. So the message is it's an event
for all and you can participate on your own terms in whatever style
you like.
I'd Like To Thank...
Finally, a big thank you to Neil Conway and his team from Bowland
Pennine MRT for such a friendly welcome and for all the hard work and
months of planning that went into running such a good event.
See www.bowlandchallenge.co.uk
or www.bowlandpenninemrt.org.uk
They've already started work on next year's event, so get the
dates of 29th/ 30th June 2007 in your diaries now.
The Forest of Bowland AONB is undoubtedly a beautiful but often
overlooked area. I'd strongly recommend anyone to pay it a visit at
some point - it's an easily accessible alternative as you dash
up the M6 towards the Lakes. And if the idea of trying out some kind
of challenge event has sometimes appealed to you but you're not sure
about a full mountain marathon, an adventure race or the like, then
for mere mortals I'd say the Bowland Challenge is a great place to
start - go on, give it a try next year ...
Marcus Crompton
