The eighth event in this year’s Cumbrian Galoppen series took place on Sunday (7th September) at Pike o’ Blisco in Great Langdale, organised by LOC. The pre-race chat in the car park was all about two things: firstly the need to start as early as possible to avoid the rain and wind that was forecast to arrive by late morning and secondly the mountainous walk to the start; at 2km with 400m of ascent it was going to take some people longer than their course (a reason to do either a longer or shorter course than usual depending on how you look at it).
Once you made it to the start the orienteering itself was superb. Pike O’ Blisco is a seldom used and very challenging area with almost no line features, just lots of crags, contours and marshes. In addition the terrain is generally very runnable; at an altitude of 500m+ there isn’t much in the way of bracken or tussocks. A lot of people commented on how relieved they were that it wan’t misty (and not just because they would have missed out on the views)
The Orange and Yellow competitors weren’t required to make massive walk to the start. Instead they used a separate area around the campsite close to the parking field.
Twenty one BL members took part. There were no course winners but 4 people made the top ten:
Owain 3rd on Green
Stella 5th on Green
Christine K 8th on Green
Jeff 8th on Brown
Full results and Routegadet are available here and the current league tables can be seen here.
There are (probably) two more Cumbrian Galoppen events this year:
5th October: Leaps Beck (near Ennerdale)
2nd November: Wansfell and Skelghyll Woods (Ambleside) – still to be confirmed
The Compass Sport Trophy Final next weekend offers a complete contrast – sand dunes, lot of paths, very little ascent, warm sunshine and lots of BL winners (well, I may have made up the last two but there’s no harm in being optimistic). Good luck to all those taking part.
Border Liners Orienteering Club 