This year’s Scottish 6 Day, the 25th incarnation, was held in Royal Deeside with events extending along the Dee valley from Braemar to Banchory. Around 2500 competitors from 30 different countries took part, including 23 BL members. According to the event’s website there were an amazing 700 volunteers involved in helping.
It was a great event with good areas, well planned courses and warm (but not too hot) dry weather. Often multi-day events can involve long walks to assembly areas and starts but on this occasion everything was reasonably compact.
Day 1 was at Glen Fearday near Balmoral. This was BL’s day for very late starts which gave plenty of time for collecting race numbers, buying last minute kit, checking out the catering options, catching up with old acquaintances and watching early finishers stumbling down the hill to the last control. Listening in on conversations between those who had already run suggested that deep heather was going to be a significant feature for most courses. So it proved, but it was interspersed with areas of lovely beech and pine forest
BL had an impressive four class winners – Keith (M65L), Stella (W70L), Christine G (W60L) and Nadine (W35S). Stella’s winwas particularly notable as she hadn’t been able to run since being hit by a car at an urban event 6 weeks earlier.
On Day 2 we returned to the same assembly area as Day 1 but with courses heading out to the west rather than the east. The terrain was similar but even more heathery but it included runnable mature coniferous plantation too. As with other days, there were lots of “elephant” tracks out there which helped if you were on the right one, but could lead you seriously astray if not. Today’s only BL winner was Nadine.
Day 3 was a Middle Distance event at Creag Choinnich described as “a diminutive but beautiful little hill just east of Braemar, clothed in pinewoods”. The woodland was lovely, but with most courses constrained to an area less to less than a square kilometre it felt very busy. BL members were in the earliest start block which meant that even those who had good runs were lower down the results than they’d hoped. An impressive feature of the organisation were the temporary traffic lights on the A93 that allowed competitors to cross on their way to and from the car park
The oxymoronic Rest Day Sprint was held in Ballater. Most of the town is laid out in a regular grid pattern which didn’t bode well for challenging courses, but good planning made for an interesting event. Top BL performers were Keith and Christine, 2nd and 4th respectively in their age categories. For anyone who wanted a real rest (from orienteering at least) there were plenty of nearby hills and mountains to choose from.
Day 4 was at Balfour near Aboyne. Unlike previous days it was all wooded. The mature coniferous plantation with widely spaced trees meant that visibility was good, but underfoot conditions – fallen branches and bilberries – soon sapped the energy. After a quiet week so far, today had a commentary system, probably because it was a World Ranking Event for W21E and M21E, It would be interesting to know how generally popular this is – does it add to the atmosphere, or create a lot of unnecessary noise?
Here are some photos from the Day 4 run-in with a bridge built over a fence.
And so to the last day at Glen Dye near Banchory. This was probably the most technically challenging day of the week, with complex moraines requiring full concentration (not always easy when there are lots of other competitors around going to different controls). The overall prize giving was held immediately after the event, with 4 BL members receiving prizes – Keith 3rd M65L, Nadine 1st W35S, Christine G 3rd W60L and Stella 2nd W70L – congratulations to all.
Results and Routegadget for all days can be see here
The next Scottish Six(ish) Day will be held in 2027 in Perthshire. It’s a reasonable guess that some of areas from next year’s JK, around Kinloch Rannoch, will be used, and of course next year’s big summer event is the Lakes 5 Day where we will at least have home advantage.
Border Liners Orienteering Club 