PEAK ASSAULT 2012

 

Richard, one of the Scout leaders wrote this post about a recent competition...

 

Every year, in October, the Hertfordshire County team organise an event called Peak Assault, open to all Groups in the County. The event is for Explorer Scout teams (14.5 – 18 year olds), Network teams (18-25 year olds) and Senior teams (25+).  An element of this event is the secret location – you turn up and get on a coach on the Friday night, and get driven to ‘somewhere hilly / mountainous’ in the UK.

3^rd Ware, and Ware and District were well represented at the 2012 event – 3 senior teams (all from 3^rd Ware plus a representative from 1^st Great Amwell –two mens’ teams – the A-team and the I-team, plus an all girl team, none of which had previous experience of the event), 2 Explorer Scout  teams (one from Lygean in Ware, one from Armynage in Buntingford) and a Network team (from the Caveo Network – there’s one for the Latin Scholars amongst you).

There was a rather ominous start to the event, as we awaited the arrival of the coach at Chauncy school whilst it poured with rain. The coach took us around the M25 (taking a diversion via Slough to join the M4 because of the traffic). Heading West along the M4 meant there was effectively only 2 places we could be going – Dartmoor or the Brecon Beacons. Several hours and a Burger King meal later, a failure to turn left at Bristol and a journey over the Severn Bridge meant there was only one place we could be going – the Brecons.

We arrived at our destination, Llanthony in the Black mountains (Eastern end of the Brecon Beacons), at 2330, and went about setting up camp. The rain that had met us at Chauncy school had disappeared and it was dry and clear.

The format of the event is slightly different for the Explorer Scout teams – they do the event as a 2 day expedition, taking all their kit with them and camping out at a pre-determined ‘high camp’. The Network and Senior teams return to base camp on the Saturday night, doing the event as 2 day walks.

The event itself is essentially a wide scale orienteering event. You are handed a couple of 1:25000 maps plus a sheet of (8 figure) map references of the checkpoints, along with their scores (the further away / more remote they are, the higher the points value – this year the checkpoints were worth 3, 6 or 8 points). Each checkpoint is a 1.5 foot high metal post, with an orange circle on top, attached to which will be a orienteering stamper with a unique pattern. The competition is to locate as many checkpoints as possible, stamping your sheet to prove that you had located the checkpoint. Being only 1.5 foot high, some checkpoints are very challenging to locate and really test micro navigation skills – esp. challenging when using maps dated 12 years previously which had, amongst other things, an entire forest marked which had now been felled.

There are more checkpoints to find than time available, so decisions have to be made as to which ones to attempt and which ones to leave – for every 5 mins late back from your 8 hour allocation, 1 point is deducted.

Once the tents were all up, there was a short time to admire the beautiful stars (it’s amazing how many stars you can see when there’s little light pollution – it was stunning, you could even make out the Milky Way). As we gazed up and our eyes scanned the horizon, we noticed these rather large hills surrounding us. With those in mind we turned in ready to get up a few hours later.

We were very blessed this year to have a fantastic support crew to do the catering – Richard Knight and Michael ‘Weasel’ Walkerdine, who looked after us so well all weekend – a huge thanks to the pair of them. We got up to be greeted with bacon butties and hot tea. Wonderful. All too soon it was over to kit check (there are mandatory kit requirements) and then to start day 1. We did the kit check in the dark and by the time we actually started it was just about light enough to mark the maps (you are only handed maps and the list of checkpoints once you’ve completed kit check) and make a decision as to which checkpoints to go for

The team I was in decided to go for all the checkpoints on the ridge (incl. Ben Mawr) on west side of the valley – since there were more points available from the checkpoints. Any spare time we had left would be used to get ones on the other side of the valley. Many teams came to the same conclusion, albeit route selection was somewhat varied.

A slog up to the top ensued, meeting our first marshals towards the top of the climb just before we bagged our first checkpoint. A walk along the ridge followed as we picked off more checkpoints. One of our most challenging of the day was the checkpoint furthest from base camp on this side of the valley. It was marked beside a Boundary Stone…..although in reality it was no longer there causing us some doubts as to whether we’d found the right checkpoint. We guessed we had, grabbed the stamp and moved on to collect the others. Despite another challenging one hidden amongst a load of bracken, we successfully located all the checkpoints we were aiming for and decided to head back to base camp via the 3 point checkpoint on the eastern side of the valley. A checkpoint that, despite being a little tricky, we successfully found. This find was to prove significant in the final reckoning.

We had bumped into both the other senior teams, and our Network team whilst out and about – all of whom had picked different routes. The Caveo network team, I-team and Insanity team both came back within the 8 hour time slot. The A-team went for a different tactic of deliberately getting back late (and thus incurring penalty points) – whilst trying to pick up enough checkpoints on the eastern side of the valley to give them a net gain of points. The A-team were very reticient to admit how many points they’d earned themselves at the end of Saturday, meaning they’d either done well (as I thought), or gone a little wrong.

After a short sleep to recover, a superb Richard / Michael meal of pasta bolognaise followed by chocolate sponge and custard was provided, after which we all retired to a local bar to socialise and share thoughts and experiences.

On Sunday, after another bacon butty and tea breakfast, all three 3^rd Ware Senior teams picked the same strategy – pick off all four 8 point checkpoints up on the Eastern ridge. The ridge actually forms part of the border between England and Wales, and is part of the Offa’s Dyke footpath (so you could say the event took us to 2 different countries). After 2.5 hours the I-team were back in base camp, followed by the A-team, the Caveo Network team and then Insanity. Shortly afterwards the Explorer teams returned and we set about packing up.

Once we were all back, we loaded all kit into the bus and awaited the prizegiving. In all, it was a pretty successful prize giving for Ware and District – the Caveo team won the Network competition and in the senior competition the 3^rd Ware teams came 3^rd, 4^th and 9^th. I think the Lygean Explorer Scout team came 10^th in the Explorer competition.

To try and put into context the amount of height the teams had to climb – over the course of the 2 days most teams climbed the height of Snowdon from sea level. The A-team climbed this sort of height on the first day alone.

Everyone from 3^rd Ware seemed to enjoy it. The dry weather certainly helped, and it was great for the Leaders, who put in so much time and effort during the year on behalf of the young people, to have an event that they can take part and compete in. Everyone seems to keen to take part in next year’s event………wherever that might take us. Let us know if you want to join us next October.