Rogaine/MM 6:31:19 [3] 27.9 km (14:02 / km) +2300m 9:56 / km
shoes: X-talons
OMM Howgills Day 2
Good night and nice tent. Got a good amount of sleep. We mucked round for ages, decided to go to the toilet, long queue. When I got back to the tent we had 5 mins to our start. It was a very efficent pack-up, but we did miss our start by 1-> 2 mins. Amateur! anyway nice warmup.
Decided to go along road part way to 1, to settle in and the hope there would be a track up the side of the wall (which there wasn't). 2 was tricky we had a plan to bear left, into line of features, but got dragged right by a nice sheeptrack. then missed it overshot to right and beyond and had to come back (2 mins), annoying.
Today seemed to have some nice route choice on the smooth howgills which was pleasing. Pretty happy with route choice to 6. We had had quite a lot of chat about 7 on the way to 6. There seemed to be 3 obvious macro-routes north, round the edge, straight over the hills or south out to the track. We went for south, as we knew the track was good, north was unknowen, I've never been there and guessed it might be soft. At that point neither of us could really contemplate going straight. In retrospect probably a poor decision, we probably lost 5-10 mins going south rather than straight. Though this wasn't decisive.
In the valley just north of 10, a couple of blokes, asked us if we were on the A, when we said yes, they asked us where #6 was. I took great delight in pointing out it was around 2.5 k and 200 m climb away, in a parrallel valley. I'd be quite impressed if they didn't sack it in at that point!
Tim had been suffering a bit from leaving #6 and even admitting to the fact that he wanted to jack it in at his lowest point, even though he was still going fine, but for the first time all weekend had not been faster than me!!
The ridge was bitterly windy and sleety. Saw Aaron on the ridge, in a stress, only to see duncan and shane emerge form the clouds 10s later, which explained that!
When we got too breaks head, i was cold and tired, whilst tim had perked up a bit by now,
Cue minor dispute (mentioning this for you craney), about when to turn off bitterly cold ridge, with sleet, down to #7. I procceded to point out that due to the orientation of the track we should've already turned off by now. Tim was banging on about some knoll that should determine our postion. Tim then declared he didn't have his compass out. I declared that I was disregarding what he was saying and descending off the ridge into the cloud to find #7. This seemed to work, and it was in the 3rd gully we looked at, the first 2 probably wern't mapped. Led in some people at this point. (4->5min mistake)
Quick stop in the warmth of the valley on way to 8, to put on more clothes and refuel. Strong up to #8, we had a train of three groups on us now, but with big spacing. Went hard up the hill to #9 to. Where the tent was bigger than the hill. I had my first low patch of the day pushing up the hill on the way to #10, trying to stay infornt of a couple of blokes, ate all my lollies, tim's magic cake and a gel seemed to fix that. Stomach much more robust than yesterday. #10 showed the end was near, and we went up a goat track path up besides a waterfall. Then along the ridge. A little wobble trying to avoid a non-existent cliff, then fast down into it. Really going for it now, with a good result in sight. i did a nice mud slide from 12 to finish, and we passed a lot of teams on other courses on the run in.
Felt great to actually finish an OMM for the first time, and get 10th on the A course. Top 10, was a bit of an aspirational target, so very pleased with that.