Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon 1999

With the first checkpoint at the summit of Stobh Ghabar (a 3000ft climb) this looked like being another tough one. But I suppose we had been warned that the area is probably the severest that any mountain marathon has been held in. As the cloud level dropped, after an initial fine start to the day, I began to wonder whether the B class was going to be too tough. But Ken was galloping up the fells so I just followed in this wake. This was my fifth LAMM and it has always been popular with several diehards in the SOC, most notably Pete, Keith, Dave and Paul who are all veterans of the KIMM as well. The event on Jura in 1997 was probably one of the finest of its type and the LAMM now has the reputation of being the connoisseurs mountain marathon as well as being one of the hardest.

This year there were six SOC teams and all completed the course despite less than favourable conditions. Indeed Pete and Emma won the Novice Class, whilst Paul and Clare finished 50th in the C Class, closely followed by the Dave/Keith and Dave/Neil combinations. However, perhaps the prize for real fortitude in the face of adversity must go to John and Dave who managed to finish the C Class after being out on the hill for over 12 hours on the first day.

This year’s event was probably the hardest I have tackled. There are 12 Munros in the area which also abounds with crags, making route choice and navigation difficult. Conditions were good for the first few hours and the sun shone giving us spectacular views. However, by the time we had reached checkpoint 2, the rain had started and visibility was getting poorer by the minute. We had a very long and demoralising third leg which involved contouring three Munros across awful terrain. Finding the checkpoint after this leg also proved problematic but we teamed up with several others to conduct a sweep search until one of us located it. The remainder of the day went well and we were thankful to see the overnight camp after nine hours out. Pete and Emma had arrived some time before us and brewed us a welcome cup of tea whilst we got the tent up. We were in about fortieth position out of 90 teams so we felt quite satisfied as we ate our pasta and noodles.

After a damp night, the second day went well despite worsening conditions. At one stage I tripped crossing a swollen beck and took an early bath, much to the amusement of two Scottish lads. I was so wet at that stage it really didn’t seem to matter. As we clattered in to the finish we felt really quite good and we subsequently found we had improved to 33rd position overall - not bad for two old men. Everyone agreed that it had been a hard two days (it seems to get harder each year). But I have no doubt most will return for next year’s event - if only for the T shirt and meal provided by Wil’s mobile cafe, truly the best post event meal to be found.

Peter Ball

P.S. Apologies to anyone whose name I got wrong or who I omitted.

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