Several years ago I was browsing in an Outdoor shop and picked up a map describing this challenge. Named after the late founder of South Ribble Orienteering Club, it is a clover leaf shaped route between three Lake Distict Youth Hostels. With 26 checkpoints, roughly 60km distance and around 4000m climb it makes for a great 3 day route, but there are those who have done it in a day. No such heroics from me, but noting that one of the checkpoints was Gerry’s memorial cairn decided to add a bit extra and visit that cairn every day. So I packed my fell running shoes and headed north.
Day 1 - Langdale to Eskdale. I woke up to murky but dry weather. Hoping for an improvement I delayed my start until after 10am, but it didn’t get any better. My route took me along the south side of Langdale over Crinkle Crags and Bowfell to Gerry’s cairn before dropping down to the River Esk. Seemed straightforward enough but as I headed up into the low cloud I realised I had forgotten my compass. Although I was following a ridge route, visibility was down to 50m, and I found navigation difficult. Also the cloud made the rock wet and slippery so mostly had to walk the ridge. Then trying to find the cairn was hard without a compass and it took several minutes of searching before a great rock outcrop loomed out of the mist. I then came off the hill in the wrong direction so it was twilight when I finally made it to my destination.
Day 2 - Eskdale to Borrowdale. Still foggy but navigation was much easier. From the hostel I followed a clear path up Scafell, then made the tricky scramble across to Scafell Pile then on to Esk Hause. Now equipped with a compass I got the cairn without difficulty and descended into the long Langstrath valley. Reaching the bottom I panicked thinking I’d dropped into the wrong valley and briefly started back uphill again. But after stopping to think properly I was in the right place after all, probably just having a low-sugar moment. After that I had a nice jog out of the valley and an earlier finish.
Day 3 - Borrowdale to Langdale. As I started my climb I heard and saw skeins of geese high up and heading for Scafell. I wondered why they were going over when it would surely be easier just to go round the hills, but then realised the same could be same for me! In the same mist as before I struggled to follow the path and nearly missed Glaramara summit. I followed the ridge on to Esk Hause and the cairn again before briefly dropping below the cloud and enjoyed some good running on the escarpment edge heading to Stake Pass. Then over the Langdale Pikes to the last section which turned out to be my favourite bit - a lumpy series of runnable bracken covered hills trending gently downwards leading straight back to the hostel.
Great challenge if anyone fancies it, but probably much better without the mist!
At the cairn