Great Lakeland 3 Day
30th April/1st & 2nd May 2016

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Official Result

Course Day Distance Ascent
Richard Beard A 1 26.5m 2000mts 07:42:02
Richard Beard B 2 22.6m 2200mts 08:30:26
Richard Beard A 3 15.7m 800mts 04:20:24

 

The weather played a major part in this years Great Lakeland 3-Days , the forecast looking increasingly bleak in the run up to the weekend.  In the event Saturday turned out fine with early cloud and wintry showers clearing as we headed up from the north end of Bassenthwaite Lake, across the slopes of Skiddaw and on down to Threkeld where we turned south to climb up onto the Helvellyn ridge.  Progress was slowed in places by deep snow drifts and I was envious of skiers out enjoying some late season sport by the tow on Raise.  Views all around were stunning.  A diversion off the ridge to a control planned for Catstye Cam had been dropped because of the conditions.   The descent from Dollywaggon Pike through deep snow on the steep slope down to Grisedale Tarn was entertaining and then it was on to the campsite just north of Grasmere to laze around in the evening sun recovering for next day.

 

The forecast for Day 2 was grim with wind and rain forecast for the whole day.  Shane the race director announced the decision to go with the full courses anyway but the stats below tell a story.

 

 

Day1

Day 2

Day 3

Course

Started

Finished

Started

Finished

Started

Finished

Elite

31

29

19

7

9

9

A

43

42

22

5

24

21

B

79

77

54

17

32

29

C

62

55

101

77

108

101

Total

215

203

196

106

173

160

 

Waking at 5.30 it was still dry but hopes of getting off to a dry start were dashed when it soon started raining so the tent was packed away wet.  In consideration of the weather and courses I made the decision to move down from A to B and by the end of the day I was really glad I had.   Some challenging navigation and route choice in poor visibility and blustery gale force wind took us to the shore of Loweswater via Green Gable, Brandreth, Haystacks, Red Pike and Mellbreak.  I had a navigation problem from Red Pike as my map was folded with the next section hidden and there was no way I could refold the map in the gale even with help from another competitor.  Fortunately it was a fairly straightforward route down to calmer conditions.

The lakeside campsite would have been lovely in better weather but most of the night was spent awake worried that my 30 year old ultimate tramp tent might not last out.  With the weather if anything worsening it was no surprise when bad weather courses were announced for the return to Bassenthwaite next morning.  By the start time a further control had been abandoned so it was an easy ‘trip home’.  Then after a couple of hours the storm relented and by the time I reached the finish it had all calmed down and the sun was out! 

For photos of the event look out https://iancorless.org/2016/04/30/great-lakeland-3-day-2016-gl3d-day-1/ (and following pages)