Yorkshire & Humberside Regional Middle Distance Championships – Plumpton Rocks, Harrogate

Organiser – Richard Kirk

Plumpton Rocks is one of the jewels in CLARO’s crown. It is a compact area containing a range of tall flat-topped craggy-sided millstone-grit rock formations, the result of wind erosion - rather like those at Brimham. The Rocks are riven by deep gullies, ginnels, caves and crevices. There is also good mature tree cover in the area. Over the years a thick layer of leaf litter has swept into and around the Rocks.

The result is an other-worldly look which explains their appearance in many a fantasy film. Its size and complexity make it ideal for a Middle Distance event. After days of mild, sunny weather, the morning of our event started wet and cold. The ice cream van operator looked depressed at the prospect of poor sales.

Happily, the rain started to ease off and whilst a chill wind took its place, the first of a total of 356 competitors (293 seniors and 63 juniors) arrived. We thought we had more than enough parking space – an old road which occasionally appears in Emmerdale – but the 162 cars which turned up tested us. We used blocks to control the flow of runners through the Start - a picturesque spot near a small lake where a dragon was seen in the Witcher.

Images below and throughout are credited with thanks to Wendy Carlyle (AIRE). 

Planner – Lois Parker

Planning courses in Plumpton is immense fun. Almost every feature in the area could be a control site, with so many interesting rock passages, caves, tops, twists and turns. We even managed to find some new control sites (no, the rocks hadn’t moved!). The skill then was choosing the most interesting and varied sites, and joining them all together in a suitably challenging, and legible, order. The latter was probably the most difficult due to the small and complex area -only 1:3000 and a 3km round trip to all the 57 controls. Trying to limit line crossings shaped the courses. We had to do a lot of line and circle cutting (taking out sections of the purple lines between controls and control circles) in order for competitors to be able to see the detail of Quentin’s beautiful new map.

Standing out among the rocks while people ran was superb entertainment. As planner I was aiming for my courses to cause ‘brain overload’ but neither Ruth nor I expected to see quite so much craziness! For 3 hours there seemed to descend a wonderful madness on all who were out in the rocks. There were people ping-ponging all over the place - scrambling up, squeezing through, sliding down, and visiting many controls that were not their own! I was cursed and praised in equal measure by competitors running past.

One of my favourite controls was 193. The control description reads ‘cave, cave, between’. We were not sure if it would be possible to attach a control in there, as it had no earth in which to plant a stake and was too small for a trestle. But we found a small hole in a rock ledge on the wall, into which we could just fit a cable tie to attach the kite, and the control box was then able to be grippled onto that.

Organiser – Richard Kirk

It was truly rewarding to see finishers streaming back from the Rocks, muddy, wet, but clearly happy. No one managed to fall off a rock, although someone mentioned that the Rocks might be suitable for a new sport – rock climbing orienteering. Two people swam the lake as a way of shortening a leg and paid the ultimate price – disqualification.

The sun made a rather reluctant appearance, and the ice cream man looked happier. I finally took my over-trousers off as people began to leave for home or Betty’s Teashop in Harrogate. CLARO’s team machine rapidly packed up, the controls were collected, and the Rocks were left to dream.

Results

Results - Route Gadget