We were honoured on this outing by our very own World Champion, Pete, freshly back from the orienteering championships in Finland where he won the V75 street sprint event in about 13 minutes. There were other lower and, more importantly, higher age groups, V80, V85, V90 and V95, though, admittedly the latter had only one female competitor. As the ages of our Slow Warts group tonight were mainly V75 with one U60, we felt as if we were at the junior end of the age distribution and the possibility of aspiring to compete in V95 competitions was mildly encouraging.
Pete’s Finnish experience was probably not the ideal preparation for our adventure from Doctor’s Gate, though we did have a few short excursions from rough moorland on to paths and stone flags. On one of our previous ventures to the western Dark Peak hills, we also went to Higher Shelf Stones and on to the pond near James Thorn though, then we did veer off to the right so needed to back track to the pond. This time we simply followed the path straight to the pond. To celebrate our success, we did a lap around its surprisingly circular edge. In an even earlier attempt to reach the pond, this time, in the dark and in mist, we had arrived at somewhere in the vicinity and were looking for it, only for Pete to point that we were standing at its edge.
In our youthful days, the next but one checkpoint would probably have included a crossing of Yellowslacks to its cave from The Pike cave. However, age, infirmity and common sense prevailed so we took various lines, feeding on the bilberries on the way, to The Pike for a rest in the very pleasant sunshine.
Whilst we were almost enjoying ourselves here, the long return balanced our joy with a long trek on undistinguished and occasionally soggy ground from Hern Stones to the cars. Two hares, one short-eared owl and a single grouse did lift the spirits before leaving for the YBI.
Here, surprisingly, detonators and gelignite (!) were a notable conversation topic which only goes to show that the Slow Warts are an eclectic lot, nothing is out of bounds! We were joined by some Slightly Faster Warts (Sarah, Penny, Will, Rob and Dave) who brought our average age down, significantly.
The Warts live on!
Graham
