Howgills 5 April 2014

It was good to be out with a big crowd again and including Steve Pearson ( not sure if he has an EtU handle yet) and on one of my favourite areas.  Not feeling well all week I was hoping for a kill-or-cure romp in the hills, the latter being the more preferable and the former maybe being a bit of an inconvenience to the others.

Looking at the proposed route, it looked achievable under normal circumstances starting off on decent ascent of the 639m Yarlside before skirting over the northern crags to drop onto the col between Yarlside and Kensgriff.  The low cloud had caught the navigators out and we had gone too far to the northwest but the keen eye of SP brought us back to the col.  The wet Winter had taken its toll on the mountain side revealing a very impressive washout gully that was best crossed at its highest point.

Off we went from the col, over Kensgriff rather than the original plan of contouring, sensible when looking at the angle of the hillside and the slippery scree to be crossed.  By now the expected rain was coming in much heavier and the wind was giving us a bit of a buffeting.  Next, was the climb to Randygill Top and by now the realisation that I was not really fit enough to continue  was dawning on me.  I put the initial tiredness down to the time it takes me to warm up and get into my stride.  So at the bottom of the descent into Bowderdale I decided to let the other troopers know I was retiring,  albeit ungracefully, from the excursion and head back via the Calf. Surprisingly, there was general support considering the time it had taken to get to where we were.

At the foot of Ram's Gill a further decision was made to head back to the cars and miss the Calf out completely.  In hindsight a good decision as by then I was extremely cold, I had lost all feeling in my hands and not making a lot of sense of my surroundings, obviously not good signs especially in the weather conditions.  By the time we came to the descent at Bowderdale head I felt totally drained.  On the upside it did give me some comfort to know that others had recognised that I was not firing on all cylinders and was probably entering into the early stages of hypothermia.  This latter issue should not be under valued or underestimated.  It is good to know that we are a bunch of dare I say sensible runners who know when to make the right decisions and how to take care of those who are not doing well.

The large majority of the group were clearly in fine fettle taking the climbing and descending along with the weather in their stride and bounding along the paths.  However, I would also suggest that some of us had a rude awakening regarding our physical ability on that type of terrain, I know I did.  Regardless of whether we did  or did not achieve our aim and the miserable weather conditions, you still cannot beat an outing with like minded people with the can-do attitude.  The day was far from disappointing and I am looking forward to getting out there again in the not too distant future.

On the teccy side, my GPS coughed up the following data in metric units: distance 10.79km, 850m of ascent and an average speed of 3.4km/hour.

Thanks everybody.