Kinlochewe 2012
Controllers Report - Alec Keith
Some ways this was an easy year, some ways the hardest year. Easy because the mountains and the scenery meant we were automatically onto a winner so long as the weather played ball, and so long as we did nothing to stuff it up too spectacularly. Hard because things happen, and because some of the logistics were challenging to say the least. We’d eyed the area before but had not previously worked out how to make it work for us. Last year’s RIB experience emboldened us, coupled with the fact that Alasdair did not seem scared by the expense when we told him in exchange he would not be getting a bill for a fleet of busses. All was good until the chosen RIB fell victim to an unfortunate coming together of a fuel leak and a hot engine...this all sorted itself out however, and the weather was kind although a little breezy on the water so the crossing itself was never in doubt. We did have a suite of “loop” courses for Day 1 in case the RIB had not been able to run, but these were by their nature not particularly satisfactory, and it was great to be able to bin them. Our preferred overnight camp turned out not to be available which caused some hiccups for the Day 2 courses, but Bridge of Grudie turned out to be a cosy spot, and perfectly suitable for a MM. The ground was perhaps a little extreme for a ceilidh, even with some industrial pre-strimming, but the dancers coped well. Day 1 was particularly wonderful – the wildness may be largely man-made, but the remoteness and beauty of the mountains was stunning. The courses worked well, and it was tremendous to get most of you into the heart of what is still “the Great Wilderness”. There seemed to be few course blips – one team found a stake instead of a kite in place of BC, which was a minor confusion we accidentally created. There was a blooper on the A of which we shall say no more. The re-entrant at AP seemed to challenge a few teams. But there were some big route choices for most of you. Pleasingly, all bar 2 teams made it to Furnace before the stated 5.30pm cut-off, and we were glad to have even these arrive shortly after so they could be shipped over and not “deemed to have camped” with all the uncertainty that implies. Day 2 was difficult for the planner – great hills, but much rough stuff, and potentially absurd amounts of height gain. Plus a very tough river which was quick to rise (the Grudie) if there was even a moderate rainfall. Ian did well to provide coherent courses from what he had to work with in terms of terrain. The controls CR and CS were potentially very confusing, both small lochans very close to the end and close to one another, but there do not seem to have been any disasters here. We did remove one control before the resourceful leading Score team got to it – we hadn’t reckoned on their cunningly doubling back on themselves – but this was sorted out appropriately. It wouldn’t be the Highlander if we didn’t accidentally pull this stunt on some unsuspecting competitors. The A teams who went along the ridge of Beinn Eighe surprised us – more because we had made assumptions based on our own knowledge of the ground, meaning we overlooked the possibilities presented here to those who only had the map to go on. A lesson for us, and character building stuff for the teams in question! Benign weather meant the courses were at their easiest, particularly compared to some of the conditions earlier in the year. (I had trouble finding the stake for BC late one January afternoon, lost a vital 30 minutes here, got benighted then had an exciting but disorientating canoe trip in the dark across Loch Maree with no clear idea as to where my vehicle might be.) Still, it made for memorable days for all of us. We hope everyone had as much fun participating at the weekend as we did in thinking it up. If we are able to offer you more of the same next year, somewhere in the Highlands, please come back, and please bring your friends with you!
Alec Keith
Planners Report Day 1
All the courses were harder this year mainly due to the big climbs and my desire to get all the courses into the best of the stunning scenery the area has to offer. On the A course the first big dilemma was how to get round Slioch. There are two possible best options with the direct route being 1km shorter but with 150m more climb, probably having the edge over the northerly route via Lochan Fada. Take your pick. AC to AA you needed to find the ramp through the cliffs just to the east of AA. AA to AP was again a bit of a toss up between the direct option with more climb or a path run and an easier approach to the re entrant from the north. The B had a similar problem to the A in getting round Slioch although a different closing control of AY proved to be the downfall of the leading A team. The C had a pretty brutal start especially if you took a direct assault at the climb. I think the path option was the best choice even if not the quickest. AA to AH would depend on whether you fancied a long path run, or more climbing over a direct cross country route. The D competitors had, I hope, a fairly straightforward course and a good day out in some stunning scenery. On the Score only 9 teams opted to take the fast path start, with the rest obviously tempted with the 70 points at BF on Beinn a’ Mhuinidh. It was good to see many of the Scores getting into the hills to the north of Beinn Lair, which I feel was an area not to be missed. It would be very difficult to find an area with such stunning scenery on both days and I am sure this will be a MM that is well remembered in years to come. I know my days out on the hill doing the planning will live long in my memory. Hope to see you all back next year plus a lot of your mates.
Ray Wilby
Maps with route choices
Planners Report Day 2
This year was the icing on the cake. We chose the area first because of --- (well – you experienced it) The WOW factor! Area first – Logistics later. A very hard year for planning within the guidelines. Difficult to configure, as the area didn’t exactly lend itself to the courses. Three totally separate pockets of high ground with a large potentially uncrossable river running through the middle. Despite extra groundwork due to a last minute change of campsite, I was pleased that I managed to get 5 courses out of 24 controls and maintained a good balance, that would have coped with double the entry that we ended up with. I had to make sure I got all of you back to the finish in time for the prize giving and still manage to take you to some mind blowing locations en route. The terrain was very rough and rocky which disguised some topographical features. That’s why I used so many “lochan” controls – easy to find – hard to get to. It’s amazing how some competitors will choose routes completely unthought-of by the planner. We had runners on the “A” who wanted an even better view from the Beinn Eighe ridge and dropped down to the col control (CD) at Ruadh stac Beag, from above. Down a virtual rock climb! Apologies to those concerned for those adrenaline pumping moments. I never thought anybody would try that. Local knowledge blinded me to that route choice. All told for me, it was very satisfying to see competitors so happy and enjoying themselves. All the favourable comments at the finish made all the hard work worthwhile. We still have some stunning locations in the bag for future years. So – see you next year!
Ian Hay
Maps with route choices
Gairloch 2010 – Controller’s report by Alec
This year’s area was a wonderful one to work with, and we hope you all had as much fun doing the courses as we had in setting them. The area round Loch na h-Oidhche (the loch of the night) and the bothy at Poca Buidhe (the yellow pocket, but locally, deer’s stomach) boasts possibly the grandest mountain backdrop in the UK, and An Groban must be high up on the list of the country’s Top Ten Small Hills, with a view and a character completely disproportionate to its modest height. Add to that the most perfect spring weekend imaginable…I could go on. Hopefully you’ll all want to come back and explore some of these fantastic hills, although perhaps at a more leisurely pace.
Winter was a time of extreme conditions across much of Scotland, but the Flowerdale hills didn’t get too buried in the snow, so our course preparation wasn’t unduly delayed by the weather. However we could have done with starting the planning earlier than we did. We hope that the courses challenged you in the right ways by providing a good contrast of the rugged but runnable Day 1 mountain terrain followed by the rougher going and remarkably technical navigation on the lower hills of Day 2. We know that there were one or two teams who found things much harder than they expected. Generally we felt that the event did what it says on the tin, though we would certainly have preferred to have been able to offer the D class an easier route on Day 2. Unfortunately we were stymied on that due to losing the only bombproof “handrail” glen in that area due to a last minute issue with roosting raptors. Well done then in particular to the D class competitors on completing what must be one of the most testing D courses ever set in a mountain marathon!
All was not completely roses. The raptor revelations delayed our map production, so the maps only reached us on the Friday morning, leading to a premature shortening of the controller’s fingernails. Fortunately when they did arrive they were for the right area. Our team organisational skills stuttered a little at times, as much as anything due to some inadequate communications, at times internally, at times with you, and it seems to me that there were a few details where we could have done better.
An accumulation of small glitches resulted in a misplaced control at AR. Fortunately very few people were held up by this. Most realised we’d had a cock-up, signed the orange bunting pre-marker, and kept going. Good initiative, guys. We also whipped in a few of the controls a little on the early side for some teams. We have no regrets about that – there is a lot of organising to be done by a small squad, we have a pretty good idea of what you are/should be capable of, and the courses cannot stay open without limit. However we should have imposed clear advance cut-off times, and will do so next event. But we will also remain heavily reliant on people correctly assessing their own abilities and fitness levels and deciding if they are competent to safely complete their chosen course within a reasonable length of time.
The control at CM caused some problems. It confused me in January when looking for Ray’s marker; it confused Alasdair when he put out the control box on the Thursday; and it confused me again on Sunday when taking it back in (fortunately there was a D class team on hand to point me in the right direction – thanks Eleanor!) Maybe there’s a wormhole in the OS map continuum here, but more probably the feature (a lochan) was in the right place, whilst the surrounding map features were inadequately shown. Or maybe I’m just rubbish.
On the plus side, one of our marshals on top of An Groban got a special award for his stone man construction – a testament to his professional abilities as a dry stane dyker.
So we’ll iron out the gremlins for next year, and hope you’ll all want to come back for more, somewhere in the Highlands in 2011. And remember – there can be only one.
Planner’s Report Day 1
Yes, the highland weather gods were smiling yet again, allowing us to actually enjoy the challenging mixed terrain.
The area, smallish by MM standards was self contained by big rivers and lochs, so there were no big wet crossings which could have been nasty if it was exceptionally wet.
It was quite tricky to get an “A” course that was hard enough and still stayed under the 700m ceiling but judging by your favourable comments, it was a success.
Overall, on all the courses, I think I managed to give you some scenic and exciting sites with as much route choice as the area would allow.
The one major “glitch” was the misplaced AR. --- Apologies to all the affected competitors and well done for coping with the confusion. (The culprit has been forgiven but now has a new identity and is living in a “safe house” in Bognor)
Thanks to the intuitive use of clockwork technology, the first teams there signed my orange marker which in turn started a trend with following teams.
Commendations to our controller Alec, who, flipped on his turbo, and rocketed out to replant AR correctly.
The major point producing area on the “Score” was in the SE area around Poca Buidhe. I gave you some huge juicy carrots there, mainly because I wanted as many as possible to experience the stark desolate beauty of that isolated spot.
All told, from all your comments, the event was a big success.
How do you follow that ? ......With an even better one next year, of course.
See you then
Ian
Planners routes
A B C D Score
Planner’s Report Day 2
The dramatic scenery and more open running of day 1 and the more technical and intricate navigation required on day 2 combined to make the courses the most memorable of the Highlanders so far. Torridon was probably more memorable for completely different reasons.
From a planning point of view the preferred option of starting from mid camp was ruled out due to a combination of the narrow corridor available, a deer fence with no gates and a gorge with only two crossing points. Though this was considered again when the Eagle problem reared up at the last minutes.
Fortunately after negotiations with the RSPB we were still able to use An Groban which meant it was just the score and D courses which had to be revamped. This gave the score less options at the start but the field was able to spread out well after the first 3 controls were bagged, though how one team managed to do the first three 10 pointers and then the final control on the enclosure without picking up any other controls beats me. It would be interesting to know the route they took.
Getting the D simple enough was quite a problem given the terrain and I hope it wasn’t too difficult.
Hope to see you all back again next year
Ray
A B C D Score
