Compass Sport Cup & Trophy 1st Round North West

Farleton Knott

A new area to orienteering

SROC Regional Event Sunday 15th March 2009

More photos of the area in the SROC Gallery  

Final Details (pdf) Assembly  Courses  Terrain  Map  Safety  Start List  Control Descriptions  Results  RouteGadget  Planner's_Comments Organiser's_Comments Controller's_Comments

Individual club scores: MDOC WCOC LOC DEE SROC BL PFO BARRO

Planner's Comments

Roy McGregor

Organiser's Comments

This being the first event I have organised, I would like to thank Martyn Roome for his steadying influence and complete support throughout. Malcolm Campbell's map was excellent and Roy's courses proved challenging and enjoyable. Events like this rely on the support and backing of club members - a heartfelt thank you to all who helped in so many ways during the build up and on the day itself.

Thanks are due also to Mike Taylor for allowing us to use his splendid field as our car park and assembly area. As permissions for the previous car park had been removed when I took over from Bill Cook, a couple of hectic weeks were spent approaching land owners in an effort to find a location that wasn't a marshy bog or resembled the north face of the Eiger! Several restless nights were had over the parking field saga along with the recurring dream that it had been muck spread and ploughed the night before the event. I admit to having made quite substantial detours back and forth to 'the field' several times after work - just to check...

On Sunday, teams were well organised and coped with a busy schedule - some competitors even managed a spot of sunbathing in the glorious weather that was ordered specially for the day. I'm glad to report that my phone was fairly quiet. The only 'incident' being reported was that of cattle heading for an open gate on the way to the start. Hurrying over there with visions of trampled competitors and irate landowners, what I found were several sleepy looking cows paying little attention to all the brightly coloured bodies running around.

Considering there were over 600 competitors, the absence of litter was impressive!

Congratulations and good luck to WCOC and BL.

Mark Edwards

Controller's Comments

I enjoyed being your Controller, and the people I worked with. The "underfoot" worried me a lot but, as with Whitbarrow, no major injuries. Glad it all went well from South Ribble's point of view.
I did get very annoyed about quite a few runners turning up without full leg cover; some new to the sport, some saying they have never been stopped before and some, who should know better, ignoring me.
Your start team ought to have refused to let them go out.
I am to raise the matter, on a general basis, with my bosses at BOF.

John Bettinson

Entries - CSC/CST entries via club captains to Sarah Watkins cscentries@sroc.org no later than 6th March. All non-CSC/CST entries are entry-on-the-day (EOD) only. Registration opens 9.30. Fees: £9/£3 with £2 discount for adult BOF members. SI card hire if required £1. £25 charge if not returned.

Assembly Field:

Parking/assembly in a field at SD538770. Follow this link to a Google map of the parking field. Parking charge £1 per car. Please note that the field is not suitable for coaches. Facilities will include Registration, SI Card Hire, Download, Results, 1st Aid, Toilets, Compass Point Orienteering Shop, Wilfs Cafe and the NWJS Cakes Stall.

Course details:

Start:

There is one start for all courses.  It is 2.5km from assembly along easy paths and a road.  There is 100m of climb, but nowhere is this steep.   Allow 30-40 minutes. Start times are provisionally between 10:30 and 12:30, although this period will be extended to accommodate a sizeable entry.

Finishes:

The North finish is 1.8km from assembly.  Slightly downhill for most of the way.  The South finish is 700m from assembly, again, slightly downhill. 

The walk to the start, and the walk back from the North finish follow a minor road for part of the way.  Traffic along this road is infrequent, but may be moving at speed.  Younger children should be accompanied.  These walks also follow the same route as the taped leg of the long courses for approx 500m.  If necessary, please give way to competitors who are on their course.

Terrain:

Farleton Knott is an area of limestone fell and woodland.  It can broadly be divided into three areas.  The flanks of the fell to each side are generally open, with varying amounts of short cropped grazing, gorse thickets and scattered trees, and numerous paths.  Runnability is generally very fast.  All courses use these areas.

The high ground in the centre of the map, known as Holmepark Fell and Newbiggin Crags is characterised by gently sloping open limestone terrain, with a few scattered trees and lots of boulders.  There are few line features, relocation is very tricky if you happen to misplace yourself.  Runnability varies enormously over short distances, if you find the going difficult, then a parallel route a few metres away may be much easier going.  All courses from Light Green up visit this area.

Finally, the area to the South of the road, Lancelot Clark Storth, is visited by all courses going to the South finish.  This is mixed woodland and scrub over limestone.  There are more line features, but visibility is much lower, requiring detailed contact.  Runnability again varies enormously over short distances, varying from fast open areas of grass amongst the scrub, to moss covered limestone under the trees which requires due care.

Walls:

ALL MARKED CROSSING POINTS ARE MANDATORY.  DO NOT CLIMB WALLS.

The National Trust has recently finished a programme to refurbish the walls on the area, at very significant expense.  Our use of this area is very much dependent upon their goodwill, and we have undertaken that walls will NOT be climbed except at crossing points.  Courses have been planned so that there should be no advantage from doing so.  The area will be patrolled, both by ourselves and by the NT.  Anyone crossing a wall will be disqualified.  Please report any damage.

There is a wall which crosses Lancelot Clark Storth from East to west.  For part of its length it is broken with gaps.  This is marked as broken wall on the map.  All courses going to the South finish will cross this broken wall at least twice.  The wall may be crossed at any pre-existing gap.

Gates:

CLOSE ALL GATES BEHIND YOU.

The area is used for grazing.  All courses pass through gates through the walls.  Unless a gate is fastened in the open position, it is essential to close it behind you.

Map:

To reflect the unusual terrain, there are some unusual aspects to the map.  In the many areas where you will be running on bedrock, the map uses non-standard screens to represent the different types of surface vegetation and woodland:

 

·         Where there is solid underlying rock with few if any 'clints (ridges) and grikes (holes)',and where there are significant tracts of thin grass cover surrounding regular patches of exposed grey rock, a screen of grey dots has been used over the 'rough open' (pale yellow) colour. The grey dots are symbolic, and do not show the position of individual patches of limestone. These areas are fast runnable.

·         Areas of open limestone pavement (virtually no trees) are shown as solid grey. Here, individual trees, where they exist, are accurately mapped as white 'cut-outs'. Again, this is fast running.

·         There are a number of significant areas of limestone pavement with a liberal sprinkling of small, stunted (mainly) ash trees. These are shown with a white dot screen over grey bare rock. Again, the white dots do not show the position of individual trees. This is essentially the 'rough open with scattered trees' format, but with grey rather than yellow as a background. Again, this is fast running.

·         Where the limestone pavement is sparsely covered by what would normally be classified as 'white' woodland, the grey dot screen as in point 1 above has been used over a white background. Runnability here is very variable, and depends on the how big the clints and grikes are, how much vegetation is covering them, and how slippery the conditions are.

·         Where the limestone pavement is covered by vegetation which would, even with ideal underfoot conditions, reduce running speed (ie the normal shades of green), the triangular boulder field symbol has been 'scattered' to show the existence of the limestone pavement underfoot. All of these areas will be much slower than the green runnability might normally suggest. They may also be quite hazardous, particularly if it's damp.

·         Use of the 'Open Land' (strong yellow) colour. The area to the south of the road is grazed by cattle, and about 5 years ago, there was a large amount of  'land improvement' and 'bracken culling'. The remains of this work, which is apparent on the ground, is shown by strips and patches of the 'Open Land' colour. There are also patches of 'Open Land' shown amongst the limestone pavement on Farleton Knot, and these are used to indicate areas where the underlying limestone is well grassed over and indicates the best runnability

·         Boulders - there are over 2000 mapped boulders and 300 boulder clusters! Individual boulders are each accurately mapped because nowhere do they form classic 'boulder fields'.  In order to do this, the size of the boulder symbol been reduced somewhat from the ISOM norm. However, the 1:7500 maps make it possible to use boulders for navigating by 'map contact' where there is very little shape/contour detail.

If all that sounds complicated, it is quite intuitive once you see the map:

Footwear:

 It is of course your own choice of what footwear you choose.  If conditions are dry on the day, and if your course goes to the North finish, then you may consider Walsh type fell running shoes would give better grip than ‘dob’ spiked o-shoes on the open limestone of the northern areas.  If however it is wet on the day, or your course goes to the southern finish, where there is much more moss and lichen over the limestone then dob spikes are highly recommended.   

Safety:

Part of the Western edge of the map borders on Holme Park Quarry.  This is strictly out of bounds under all circumstances.  The quarry is bordered by a high wall or a fence with danger notices at frequent intervals.  These should not be climbed or crossed.

All courses will have bare limestone underfoot for some of the time.  This is very slippery when wet.  Limestone does not offer a comfortable landing.

As the limestone is generally closer to the surface than on nearby Whitbarrow, grikes and holes are generally easier to see.  This does not make them any less dangerous to put a foot or leg into.

The edges of the boulders, pavements and scarps vary from a few centimetres to 20+ meters in height.  Whilst courses have been planned so that you shouldn’t be blundering over the largest crags, there is still plenty of opportunity to take a smaller tumble if unwary.  No attempt has been made to put black & yellow tape on specifics, as there are countless edges which are smaller than mapped crags, but you still would not wish to run off.  As a piece of general guidance, do not jump off anything unless you can clearly see where you are going to land.

All courses going to the southern finish have a taped leg of approx 500m, which is along the same road and footpath as the walk to the start.  Approx 200m of this is along the road, take due care.

There are some groundworks in progress at a pond near the North finish.  This should not affect your navigation but please take care if passing any machinery.  There is some bright blue plastic water pipe running over the ground nearby.  Please ensure you do not tread on this if you are wearing spiked o-shoes.

Start List  (updated 14.03.09)

Click here for the start list in alphabetical order.

Results

Click here for the results index.

Enquiries: General enquiries to the Organiser Mark Edwards 01524 841130
Planner: Roy McGregor (SROC)
Controller: John Bettinson (LOC)
 

Last Updated : 18.03.09