Kilnsey is complicated for other reasons.  We learned at JK 2016 that relying on a field for parking in March/April is not a good idea.  Emergency arrangements were needed just before that event when it was clear that a nicely sloping parking field with top access and a lower exit used for maybe a thousand cars for the Kilnsey Show in the summer would just be too wet in March/April.  Threshfield Quarry is massive and can swallow up lots of cars on hard ground.  But it means a long walk to a start and from a finish.  It was thought that this would put a lot of people off, though in the end it didn’t.  Cars for the event easily fitted into the quarry with hardly any hold ups even though much of the parking near the quarry entrance was initially taken up by Fellsman Hilke competitors returning from their event.

Kilnsey South rises to 450m.  With a north wind and rain it can be a serious concern.  Competitors were warned when the event was first advertised that a waterproof hooded top might be compulsory.  A few days before the event all competitors were informed that such tops would be compulsory.  It was very cold on the day when the start team went off to set up and early starting helpers went off at 10 o’clock.  Later starters were a bit luckier.

The area is used for farming sheep and cattle.  This gives two problems.  There are lots of walls and fences to keep the animals where they should be, and where would the animals be on the day of the event?  To a non-farmer, the latter seems simple, but farmers often don’t know where their animals will have to be, as it depends on the weather, the progress of lambing and so many other jobs that have to be done.

Yorkshire Dales walls and fences are big and they need big stiles to cross them where there are no gates.  Competitors on the longer courses were treated to a variety of ladder stiles, milk crate steps, a crawl through and a specially built step stile near the end capable of taking 700 plus competitors at a rate of 4 or 5 a minute.

The highlights of the day came as the first competitors returned smiling and giving very positive comments about their courses and the arrangements.  At the same time the weather started to improve.  And then when it improved further the ice cream van started doing business and it was warm enough for competitors to be standing around looking at results and discussing their courses.

CLARO is a small club and this was the biggest event the club had ever taken on.  Some much appreciated help came from elsewhere, but members rose to the challenge and did an excellent job on the day.  For the rest of the year the club will revert to hosting evening and family events with regionals in June and September.  This will be a relative rest before helping with the JK in 2025.

Northern Championships 2024 results. 

Kilnsey planner Vicky Bailey's perspective

Planning on Kilnsey was a challenge for all the practical reasons Mike has mentioned, but also because as planners we had two hard acts to follow in the shape of 2016’s epic acts-of-God JK and AIRE’s sunny summer special in 2018. It seemed appropriate then that our event served up something in between; on the day, a moderately grim start melting into a modestly mild finish; in the lead up, a catalogue of every other available weather, never friendly enough for shorts but nothing so hostile that it saw us off the hill. No sun, no hail strikes, but come the day: a sunburst of primroses.

With the assembly area already fixed we were limited with how much we could vary from AIRE’s event, which had used the same quarry for car parking. Early efforts to find a novel start location were quickly abandoned – you didn’t want a longer walk to the start, did you? But for the finish we gambled on a short walk back to assembly for the fun of a combined finish with the White and Yellow courses in the caravan park. This also left us with a little more length in the courses, which meant a better share of Kilnsey proper for the shortest senior courses before the inevitable march off the hill. For the longer courses, Mike and Chris’s efforts with permissions and crossing points opened up access to additional areas not used since the JK – a big help for keeping things fresh. Planning tactics evolved over the thrashing-out process. Our early strategy of avoiding long legs crossing the walls resulted in somewhat bland Middle-style courses that lacked “story”. In the end, using the walls to set up macro route choices provided better structure, and made for some entertaining post-race analysis on Routegadget. Every crossing point was worth it, Mike, honest!

The most memorable part of planning at Kilnsey has been the efforts undertaken by so many volunteers to overcome its challenges. Fathomless feats of endurance and ingenuity! An alphabetised schedule of animal-dependent crossing point logistics. A 60kg sheep-proof control marking solution! Dauntless control collectors taking on longer loops than their original courses and a map layout for every permutation of scale and paper size. The amount of time and care that goes into these events is in equal parts scary and inspiring. My tip for anyone considering taking on something similar is to get yourself a co-planner. Find one who always finds time to be slightly less busy when you are super busy; who has a seemingly exhaustible supply of patience, and a very good recipe for flapjack – then no amount of trans-Pennine weather tantrums and late-night PDF checking can get you down for long!

David Williams, the planner, identified a possible field for the arena, which we had never used previously; the field just to the south of the one we eventually used.   This allowed him to use the best of the area. He structured the courses Jan–March 2023 at the same time coordinating with Tony Thornley producing the completely revised map off new LIDAR data. By this time a year ago to allow review in competition condition the courses were more or less fully planned and controlled. Having had input during April 2023 from David Bowman assistant planner and Mark Garside (WCH) controller. Subsequently courses and map were given constant minor amendments and updates to take account of the storms, wet conditions and middle distance RWT rule changes.

The parking field has become a regular for us over the past 15 years, when we hold Regional events at Danefield.  We knew it was well drained.  It has coped admirably with the cars for all previous events.  We’ve checked it regularly throughout this very wet winter, and never had any doubts about it coping, despite having to accommodate three times the number of vehicles we have previously.  It meant quite a long walk to the arena, but we knew it was 100% reliable.

Last year by March the original assembly field was in prime condition.  This year we did a final check three weeks before the event, just before the map proofs were ready to be printed.  There was a strong chance the field would never drain sufficiently to take vehicles and 900+ pairs of feet.  This was when our brilliant hosts, Sue and Howard Cliff really came into their own.  They suggested we use the paddock and agreed to build us the bridge across the ditch leading to it.  It proved the best of arenas.  The grass didn’t cut up, and it was more compact than the original field which doubtless helped create the splendid atmosphere of the event.

The change of assembly field resulted in a few slight last-minute adjustments to the map, but did not affect the planning of the courses apart from the run-in.

We were able to pull the event off just using Aire members, which made recruitment and organising a good deal simpler than is often the case for a Major event.  From what I saw and heard on the day, all the teams did a pretty seamless job. 

At Danefield we were delighted to hear so many compliments about the courses and the organisation.  The rain held off, although a little more sunshine and a warm wind from the south would have been appreciated. I guess you can’t have everything.

We were pleased to see that both Rob and Lindsey King’s String Course and Maze were well used.

Results from the British Middle Championships 2024. 

Aire’s next large-scale events are the Sprint and Urban events in Leeds on 6–7 July 2024.

And the Dales Weekend in the Malham area on 14–15 September 2024.

‘Rest’ Days (Tuesday 3 – Thursday 5 August)

Instead of the usual one we had three rest days in a row this year. You can’t go to an area like this and rest for three days, there is too much to see and do.

Many from Lagan Valley Orienteers club decided the first ‘rest’ day would involve a climb up Ben Nevis, others went to seek out some eagerly anticipated local beverage or do a MapRun of Fort William. The Gambles opted for a climb up past the Pap of Glencoe to the Munroe, Sgorr nam Fiannaidh for views along the Aonach Eagach ridge and south over to the Three Sisters. Afterwards we took the short Corran Ferry trip over to Ardgour to enjoy the evening with family.

The other two ‘rest’ days involved white-water rafting and at last some proper rest, a bit of sightseeing, shopping and coffee shop hopping.

Day 5 – Creag Dhubh (Friday 6 August)

We awoke on our third and final race day to look out on a grey and damp landscape, a markable change in the weather. As we drove to the venue the weather deteriorated further, the thunder storms fortunately did not materialise, but we felt for the early starters and hoped the weather would lift for our runs. I’m pleased to report it did, instead of getting wet from above the later starters got soaked from the bottom up by the saturated, oxter high bracken.

The venue was used the previous day by the other 1,000 odd competitors in Group B and was down as a World Ranking Event. In the event information, Creag Dhubh (pronounced Craig Doo, or alternatively pronounced badly by anyone not from Scotland), was described as “Rough open birch forest on fairly uniform slopes either side of a spur projecting from Creag Dhubh with longer courses out on rough open moorland. Boulder fields and areas of scree.  Bracken areas are generally navigable.  Slow runnability for the majority”. My course certainly didn’t disappoint, I had a good mix of all this varied terrain. This time I learnt from day 2 and didn’t rush off, allowing my head to get into the map. Unaware at the time, there were many first controls quite close together and in slightly different directions, so the elephant tracks made by yesterday’s runners could be very misleading. In fact, they did prove very misleading for a number of runners, losing great amounts of time before they hardly started. Having found my first three controls though challenging terrain, my next leg led me 195m straight up onto the open hill. The route choice may have been obvious for some, skirt round to the north of the boulder field and cliffs, but I once considering myself to be a keen climber, so I fancied a more exciting direct approach. On this lonely climb I was joined by a few hundred small, flying, buzzing things, like tiny vultures waiting for me to drop – unfortunately for them I didn’t. When I topped out there was enough of a breeze to blow away my climbing companions only to be replaced by fellow competitors who could have proved equally fierce and distracting if I had allowed. With the big climb out of the way and with more open terrain the course started to run more smoothly, until I got back into the bracken again. Only a few short controls off the finish and I lost my position on the map and stupidly ran along a wayward elephant track. Afraid of losing height, I ended up wandering around for 15 minutes about 20m above my control. Eventually the illusive control was located and a quick finish followed, happy to have completed all the courses over the three days.

Back at the car, soon joined by my son Peter, we got ourselves dried off and some much-needed sustenance. The car park was clearing and uncharacteristically, Sarah was not back, so we went over to chat with the download officials near the finish. With not long before the courses closed, there were half a dozen people still out on the hill. Looking up we could see a frenzy of activity in the vegetation above and they all streamed out, Sarah being the last back with seconds to spare. It turned out she was one of the many who lost a lot of time on the first control. But was Sarah the last out there? On Sarah’s run in, Peter and I were joined by our friend Denis from LVO and Richard Oxlade the event organising coordinator. Denis was looking for the driver of his lift home (who will remain anonymous) and Richard was also interested in a last runner out there. When Richard asked, “Is he the determined type?”, Denis answered, “He is not the type to let things beat him”. Richard pondered this and then asked, “Is he a good navigator”, Denis was less complimentary with his answer this time. Within a few minutes, Denis’ lift arrived and to the applause of those remaining, and not involved in dismantling the site, he managed even to skip to the finish.

Staying to the very last moment of our last day, I and Lagan Valley Orienteers made the most of our 6/3 days. Not all of the NI bunch had their full monies worth though, some ran round their courses more quickly - congratulations to those who performed really well overall: Richard McCourt LVO, M75S 2nd, Olivia Baxter LVO, W21S 2nd, Helen Baxter LVO W65S 1st and Teresa Finlay Fermo W70S 1st.

Thank you all involved in putting this great event together - coordinators, organisers, planners, mappers, landowners, army of helpers and volunteers. In the circumstances, I think everyone appreciates that this was a very challenging and stressful event to stage and you did a fantastic job, well done!

Lochaber no more...............Moray for more!

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Have you attended any orienteering events for the first time this year which you would like to share with others? 
Email:  jtaylor@britishorienteering.org.uk