In stark contrast to the LAMM's snow showers (was it really only 4 weeks ago?), the Saunders this year was treated to the tail end of a heatwave. Luckily it was several degrees cooler than earlier in the week, but it was still hot and humid all weekend.
Rob had pulled out injured, so YAC was represented by 3 teams: Carmen and me on the Bowfell course; Alan and Simeon on Carrock fell; and Simon and Debra on Harter Fell. The event centre was in Coniston, and the courses headed through upper Eskdale and the Duddon valley, to a mid-camp at Turner Hall Farm.
Saturday started and finished very wet, but in between was mostly dry, with just the occasional light shower to provide welcome cooling. Our course was long and interesting and took us through some seldom-visited areas. A long traverse around Wetherlam to Wrynose Pass wasd followed by a long leg towards Scafell via Great Moss, and finally a loop round the lower slopes of Harter Fell to the finish. Other than a slight miscalculation on the first control, traversing a bracken-covered boulder field instead of using the well trodden path below, we didn't make any mistakes, and finished in 6 hours 15 minutes for an unexpected 13th place.
Overnight rain soon cleared, and Sunday stayed hot and dry all day, without the cooling showers of the day before. The course took us over similar ground to the day before. We started with a control high on Harter Fell, before a descent to Hard Knott Pass and a couple of controls on the other side. Then a descent to the road below Wrynose, a never-ending 500m slog up the hill towards Swirl How, and finally a descent via Levers Water, past some of the old mine workings, and eventually back to Coniston. We didn't feel like we'd done so well today. A loss of concentration in the mist and we ended up fighting through bracken 200m below Hard Knott, instead of following a grassy path to the pass. And then the ascent of Swirl How was such hard work felt like it must have been the wrong choice – our other option being a contour to Wrynose Pass and another contour over the col to the east of Swirl How. Though checking the results for that leg, our route was actually quite good and we picked up some time here.
22nd on the day, for an overall 14th place out of 49 starters, much better than expected.
Simon & Debra finished 78th out of 124, and Alan and Simeon, er, also finished 😉