GMC 2025 Clachnaben

Congratulations to everyone who survived the heather.

Thanks to all the helpers and especially to the Organiser Dave Kirk and Planner Ian Hamilton for all their time and considerable effort in putting on another excellent GMC.  It is a unique event and is one of the few Mountain Marathon opportunities in Scotland.

Thanks also to all the competitors especially those who travelled far and the ‘repeat offenders’ who continue to support the event.  We took the decision this time to remove the solo class which we know has been popular in the past.  This was done as pairs are safer than solos especially with the lack of phone signal at the midway camp and over a lot of the area.  Thankyou for finding partners and continuing to support the event and we hope you made new friends (or are still talking to old ones.)

Tim Griffin, Controller

Organiser’s report and acknowledgements from Dave Kirk

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Results from Day 1, Day 2 and Combined https://www.sportident.co.uk/results/GRAMP/2025/GMC25

RouteGadget
RG doesn’t like the data in Ian Hamilton’s planning file for some reason so I’ve had to simplify it by creating 4 separate ‘events’:
Day 1 Hill map
Day 2 Hill map
Day 1 Forest map
Day 2 Forest map

The hill maps show the entire courses but due to the change in scale at the transition all the forest section controls had to be crammed into that corner of the map roughly in the right places.

The forest section maps show the forest controls in the correct position on the more detailed map but because RG demands the full set of controls and splits to function properly, the forest section controls still have to be there but are randomly scattered ‘off map’ due to time/brainpower constraints trying to get something up asap!
Your route trace for the hill section will look really weird but just ignore that and hopefully the forest section will work properly.

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Congratulations to all the GMC 2025 Clachnaben winners and hats off to everyone for persevering with the heather yet still finding time to smile and chat or simply say “thank you” as they passed me at control 190 today. It was lovely to meet you all.

Links above are to Google Drive stashes. Double click to open a file and you can then use the arrows on left and right sides of the screen to flick thru’ in slideshow mode.
*Slideshow seems to freeze about 1/3 way thru’ so try starting from the bottom photo.

If anyone has any snaps they’d like to share please email them or a link to webmaster@grampoc.com or add them in a comment on one of our GMC 2025 Facebook posts.

Several folk asked us about the people-hours and logistics required to make the GMC magic happen so FYI GMC 2025 Clachnaben was brought to you by the following team:
Dave Kirk (Organiser), Ian Hamilton (Planner) & Tim Griffin (Controller), David Esson (entries, timing ,results), Rachel Scott (download assist, RouteGadget, photo wrangler, control collection), Jonathon Smith (signage, mid-camp set up, taxi, emergency contact liaison) and Lenny (dog), Sean O’Sullivan (kit transport, hill marshal), Graeme Lornie (kit transport, hill marshal), Donnie Mann (parking, hill marshal), Mike Winn (parking, hill marshal), Pete Lawrence (transition list ticker, hill marshal, control collection), Sam & Lesley Gomersall (starts, transition marshals, control placing/collection and water fetchers), Helen Rowlands (mid-camp facilitator, taxi, emergency contact liaison, random tape and rubbish collector), Liz Kirk (meet and greet, relentless kettle boiler and biscuit unwrapper), Marianne Lang (sports massage), Duncan Grassie (emergency contact in that there London would you believe!), Tim Nash (control checker, test runner) and everyone pitched in with anything else that needed doing from unlocking loos to erecting tents to taping trashed fell shoes back together.

Tim G says “It took c 3.5 person days to visit each site once and that is an area with lots of cyclable tracks. Each site was visited 5 times including collecting the kites.
Two people suggested using a drone. This is probably out the question for tagging and placing controls but maybe the controller could bike to a nearby track and check the tag or control with  a drone……
Thanks for all the help checking, placing and collecting – all contributions to the 3.5 days much appreciated.”

Many thanks too to the following people, organisations and businesses:

• Eddie, James and Scottish Woodlands for allowing us to use Glen Dye Moor and being so encouraging about the event.
• Rachel and Glen Dye Estate for allowing us to, yet again, use the beautiful Glen Dye woods.
• Sheridan’s for a fantastic dinner again.
• Dan and the team from Esslemont Marquees.
• Nixons for our lovely loos.
• Ordnance Survey for the hill maps.
• Most importantly, to all competitors – for the enthusiasm, the smiles, and the many Thank Yous. That makes the whole thing totally worth it.