adidas TERREX Swift
Going Underground
Rob Howard / 03.06.2012
On the final trekking stage, between the 2nd and 3rd of the Three Peaks there was a final challenge for the teams – a caving section at Calf Holes.
Teams had to carry their climbing gear during the trek as they would need it here, not just for the cave but also because the descent began with a short abseil. They arrived at a cave opening where a waterfall fell some 20m, but luckily there was no need to abseil through the waterfall. There was a dry abseil point beside it and teams could drop into the submerged river below, which was only around calf deep.
Once into the cave the route was about a kilometre, following the stream down and out through a much wider cave mouth, but in the middle part of the descent there was one very narrow squeeze. There was also a waterfall with a rope set alongside it to guide teams, who took about 45 minutes for the round trip down through the cave and back up to the checkpoint. It was an ideal caving section for an adventure race, not too long or technical, nor too wet for the tired and cold teams to cope with.
The first teams to arrive there were a mixed team made up of racers from retired teams, and then the French team Averne Outdoor. They were followed by Spirit of Adventure, and all of these are teams who had taken short courses somewhere along the route.
The big question was which of the leading teams would arrive first? Those who had been following the trackers knew that adidas TERREX were catching Team Mountain Hardwear, and it was the adidas team who arrived first, having made up a 40 minute deficit on the trek to that point. They had passed Mountain Hardwear descending Ingleborough and had already descended into the cave before their rivals arrived.
Stuart Lynch went down first, followed by a slightly nervous Tom Gibbs, who muttered, “I don’t like this” as he tried to get in position to drop into the cave. Sam Noble was more sure of herself, but clearly still on the edge of exhaustion. She will have been happier being on foot for the end of the race after such a long bike ride, as it is fell running she has been competing in this year. (She only came into the team as late replacement.)
By the end of the cave the team were in high spirits and a few whoops and cheers echoed around the cavern as they cleared the last of the obstacles and scrambled out to make their way back up to the checkpoint. They knew now they had one more mountain to climb, then it was downhill to the finish back in Settle.
In contrast Mountain Hardwear looked a defeated team, disappointed at being caught after opening up a real lead for the first time in the race. Sally Ozanne clambered over the stile to the checkpoint and ruefully answered a question asking how she was with the answer, “Sick.” She added, “It’s taken me the last two hours to eat one cracker.” She struggled to get into her harness and both Ozanne and Anthony Emmet asked about how wet they would get, clearly hoping not to get too wet as they were so cold already and would be emerging back into the bitter wind for the final climb over Pen-Y-Ghent.
Luckily they didn’t get submerged, though they were slower through the cave than the leaders, and emerged to tackle the final peak at dusk.
SleepMonsters
