Great
Lakeland 3 Day
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Official Result
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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
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.
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Day1 |
Day 2 |
Day 3 |
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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
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)