Excellent White Rose 2007

[Freefall]

Just a brief note to say thank you to EBOR for an excellent White Rose. We didn't stop on for the Relays but it was a great weekend helped by glorious weather and a very pleasant camping site and assembly.

I enjoyed Day 1 (M50L Course 3), especially the first 9 controls up to the water point. After that it was a bit of a slog and the errors crept in. Seems I was fortunate not to have the final loop in and around the finish that some had (streams and mud).

The Night event was really fun - 30 minutes doesn't seem long but it was just right. Rough forest and rides mind...

Day 2 had a terrific first leg over two valley systems and the next couple of controls also kept you thinking. I then spent the next 45 minutes wondering if I would ever emerge from a green forest before slogging uphill at the end to finish on the easy open stuff.

I even came away in the top 10 so that's a turn up for the books

[IanW]

Well yes, I think I enjoyed it but, looking at the split times, it seems that quite a few people were, like me, confused by the mapping of the crags on the leg from 118 to 129 on day 1. I think this was on course 3 as well as course 4 (M60L) which I did.

I assumed that the contour which appeared to cross the crag just north of the reentrant was the same level on the downhill side of the crag as it was on the uphill side coming out of the reentrant. This led me to believe that the crag was at most 5m high as it was between two contours. In fact, it looked to me that is was probably about 2m high and hence almost certainly scalable. I therefore took the top route,failed to make the descent, came back to the reentrant, failed to make that too and finally went around the north end and wasted about 15 mins. After that, I lost the will to live especially round the loop at the end in 2ft deep mud.

In fact, after prolonged study with a magnifying glass, the two contours which appear to join either side of the crag are probably 15m apart - which of course explains why the crags were impassable. In fact, I am fairly sure that the contour leaving the reentrant ought to be an index contour, which might have given it away had it been marked as such.

Is it OK to just 'lose' contours as they disappear into a crag symbol? The stituation was further complicated by the fact that, south of the reentrant, there are lots of contours close together on the downhill side of the crag giving a strong hint that there is a big drop. But to the north, the slope looks fairly gentle because all the contours have disappeared beneath the crag symbol.

Was this just me being stupid or am I right to feel that I was misled by the mapping?

Ian

[Freefall]

I took the crag symbol to mean impassable and I decided to contour along from 118 to 129. Unpleasant to start but then some nice running along the light green. 8.54 split so happy with that!

[Scarpara]

A lovely event. Great campsite despite the lack of sinks or showers. Well signed and organised by very friendly people. Had a better than expected 2 days with my first gold standard run on day 1 and a top half finish in the overall results (W40s). The relay was good too but we seriously under estimated the distances involved to a few controls and I think I did my first grade 3 scramble up the crags!. Came away with no broken bones, a nice suntan and a big smile. Cheers to all involved.

[PG]

I hadn't realised that in ISOM 2000 the only difference between impassable and passable crags is the width of the line (0.35mm and 0.18mm), as the tags are only longer if the cliff is wider. Veterans using 1:10,000 maps which are mapped for 1:15,000 are used to seeing the impassable crag line width bigger (0.52mm?) and the old symbol used with a saw-tooth for impassable was much more obviously different.

So like IW I convinced myself the impassable crag was passable. It was easy to get down to the first ledge using a young tree, but then I was peering over a drop of 10m or so. The young tree was no longer vertical, but I managed to scramble back up.

Maybe planners using maps drawn at 1:10,000 including impassable crags might remind us of the mapping rules for safety reasons, particularly when there is no key on the map?

[Paul T]

Yep, good weekend. I particularly liked the Saturday night score event - a mass start of 120 runners and only a 30 minute time limit in a small area of forest made for a great atmosphere and also for a midge-fest.

My Sunday map seemed a bit short of blue ink, though I didn't check with anyone else and it didn't really affect my run. We (course 3) had a couple of early controls on blue features (ditch and marsh) that were very very faint on my map, but the flags were in the middle of the circles and there was plenty of other detail to navigate by.

[redpossum]

[I hadn't realised that in ISOM 2000 the only difference between impassable and passable crags is the width of the line (0.35mm and 0.18mm), as the tags are only longer if the cliff is wider. Veterans using 1:10,000 maps which are mapped for 1:15,000 are used to seeing the impassable crag line width bigger (0.52mm?) and the old symbol used with a saw-tooth for impassable was much more obviously different. ]

The maps for the weekend were not drawn to ISOM 2000 standards. The symbols used were for 1:15000 maps and not the 150% enlargement required for 1:10000 maps, hence the fact that the impassable crags did not stand out as they should and many of the point features were far too small.

[Tatty]

Hubby had a similar problem with the unpassable crag. Went down for a few metres and then gave it up as a bad job when the ground disappeared vertically below him. Two of my sons came up it on their M21L course and didn't make any comment at all.

[RJ]

Heard a report of a competitor having to visit A&E at Scarborough Hospital after reaching the bottom of said crag in a rather abrupt and hasty manner! Sounds like the next risk assessment for the area will need a careful review.