Tom Hollins Report –
A winter Bob Graham round is something I fancied as a challenge ever since my summer round. The best way to do it is to select a few winter weekends, ask a few mates when they are free and be flexible depending on weather. Unfortunately I tried and failed on the shortest day 2 years ago because of high winds and cold soaked through rain on leg 3 (Paul Crabby Crabtree and Ste Brock will remember that well) and i got fixated on a shortest day round after that. The 16hrs of darkness just seemed to add that something extra. Last year I showed up for a pub crawl as winds up to 100mph plus total whiteout on the summits meant we didn’t even start. This year the forecast was for 50 to 60 mph winds with gusts up to 80mph on the summits. A few of the support team were convinced we would call off but after a safety discussion we decided we would start leg 1 which is mainly sheltered, link arms on the summits and see if it was safe to carry on. I knew there wasn’t much snow down and not cold enough for major ice so conditions underfoot would be good. Schedule was set for a 23hrs15 round to allow for 45 minutes of difficulties while keeping in the 24hr cut off.Set off at 8pm from Keswick moot hall on the 19th with Lucas Payne and Rick Clark. Conditions were good. Until skiddaw summit. We couldn’t stand. We crawled to the top with linked arms then crawled off. Great Calva was OK but blencathra and the ridge descent off on doddick was interesting. We stayed safe. We enjoyed it. We were 15 minutes up on schedule. We had a lot of winter kit. I wasn’t carrying any of it.Leg 2. JP Hopkinson in tow. We decided to set off but keep below the ridge lines and link arms to summits. It was mental. Leg 2 very exposed. We were being constantly blown off our feet and had to make loads of route alterations to stay safe. Snow/ hail almost continuous. Plus wind = almost no vis. Navving via GPS but unit kept shutting down due to weather conditions despite adequate battery. Fortunately had recced leg in not dissimilar 2 weeks earlier. That plus the excellent FRA nav course I did earlier in the year meant we didn’t put many feet wrong. JP held us both up amazingly several times. Arrived on leg time and still 15 up on schedule. Very pleased.Leg 3 covers all the highest summits, takes the longest and is the most technical. Set off with Paul Orton and Gary Bradley. Temperature came up. Bad news. Snow became rain. Wind no better. Soaked through within 2 hours. Having learnt from 2012 I had a full change of clothes and waterproofs somewhere near the langdale pikes behind a rock. After 4 hrs starting to get tired , making nav errors, already 30 minutes down, getting into constant snow underfoot from bowfell on and realising rain and wind needed to stop to be safe up to scafell. And it did. 12hrs in the winds dropped to 20-30 with 50-60 gusts on summits and OK in valleys. Rain intermittent. Arrived in wasdale intact but having lost an hour. My 15 minute advantage and 45 minute buffer gone. Now needed to finish each leg on time to finish on 24hrs exactly.Now knackered. Despite great encouragement from Paul calderbank and Phil sturgeon I lost 15 minutes just on yewbarrow out of wasdale despite sunshine and no real wind. For some reason it didn’t occur to me to quit. Just kept grinding it out. Gained a minute just about every peak on schedule. Paul even managed to convince me to stop for a couple of photos. Glad I didn’t regret that later…. Arrived honister on time.Leg 5 set off with Paul calderbank and JP hopkinson and did the legs peaks in pretty tidy fashion. As we came down to the 5.5 miles to the finish I remembered that at home in happier times I had decided I would 10 minute mile this section. Might not sound much. But that road is very hilly. I hate road running. I had already run 61 miles and 42 peaks. We had 55 minutes left. What does a man need at that point? Paul Hindle like a vision out of the mist. On Pauls fresh legs it must have felt so slow. To me it felt like sprinting all the way. We must have done something right. Ran into the moot hall at19:52 giving a total time of 23hrs52 minutes. An exhilarating experience.It’s 30/12 now. I have been ill since Christmas day. I havnt spoken for 3 days due to laryngitis. Joints and limbs all work except I got some minor frost bite on leg 3 and still can’t feel my toes properly. Nothing dropping off though and sure will settle. I have still got a big grin on my face.It was nothing without the support. You were all amazing in so many ways. I could write an essay on each person. Thank you.