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LDWA 100 miles May 2008
Several Club members are regulars at the annual
LDWA 100 miles walk, held over the late May bank holiday weekend.
The LDWA 100 miles always takes place in an area of beautiful
scenery, and, with excellent organisation and support provided by
checkpoints every few miles en route, you are assured of a very
enjoyable and exhilarating weekend - which you will remember fondly
and talk about enthusiastically when it’s all over and you have
re-hydrated with several pots of tea or pints of local brew,
according to taste!
The
2008 100 miles took place in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, from
an event HQ at a school in the delightful town of Skipton. Skipton
offers a medieval castle, a wide main street complete with bustling
open air market, lots of excellent pubs and tea shops, good rail
connections, and the Leeds/Liverpool canal, along whose towpath the
first few miles and final mile of the 100 were walked. In between
came the climbs, totalling around 13,000 feet in all, about par for
the course for a LDWA 100. The high point was the top of
Ingleborough, a remarkable steep-sided, flat topped mountain which
gives fantastic views of the fells around, and of the famous
Ribblehead viaduct on the Settle – Carlisle railway. Other stretches
of the route took walkers along gorgeous, wooded river valleys, in
one of which Richard and Sandra watched spell-bound as an otter
fished and frolicked.
With 48 hours to complete the 100 miles, and
generous provision and support at checkpoints, no wonder 400 - 500
walkers take part in this event each year. SWC walkers enjoying the
fine scenery and good weather this year included: Roger Michell,
Gail and John Elrick, Richard and Sandra Brown, Ian McLeod (with
personal trainer John Westcott) and Fiona Cameron. Several members
were espied helping out on the event particularly at the checkpoint
in Settle ably run by the London Group.
Road walkers who are used to speeds in excess of 10kms/hour, and to
Centurion walks of 100 miles within 24 hours, may think that 100
miles in 48hours sounds a stroll in the national park. Think again!
The LDWA 100 has to be experienced for walkers to understand how
tough it is, and how rewarding. The toughness comes from 100 miles
of route-finding using 16 pages of closely typed, coded
instructions; 100 miles of walking, almost entirely off-road,
through whatever terrain (and weather) Nature provides. You must
take in your stride the rough and the smooth, the hard and the soft,
the wet and the dry. The LDWA 100 always offers fine scenery and
great views, and can easily involve several thousands of feet of
climb. And finally, if indistinct moorland paths and navigation by
compass bearings are challenging by day, how much harder and slower
the whole business feels during night hours.
Report by
Sandra BROWN |
