Hare and Hounds Hash

Report by Rob Mackey

We met at Moel Famau car park at 10.30 on Good Friday. It was a cold, wet and breezy morning. And not many of us really knew what we doing. We were given a sheet with some symbols on it and a few words of instructions. There were 21 of us mainly from Buckley Runners but also from Tattenhall and Pensby and some well-known local runners.

The idea was to follow a trail laid out using sawdust. The signs at the junctions give you choices and you have to find which one is correct by trying them all until you find the one that isn’t marked as wrong. It’s easy to go wrong and do a lot of extra distance. Add to that the rain and the cold and mist and you had all the ingredients for a good day in the hills, also for good measure nobody knew where the finish was, except that it was a couple of miles from the car park.

In the end 11 out of the 21 reached the finish having managed to follow the entire route. The last group (that included me!) finally found the finish after 2hrs 15mins. We were cold and wet and after jogging the 2 miles back to the car park we were very happy to get dry and drink hot tea. The route was said to be about 6 miles, although that is disputed by several who ran the course. And the 6 miles does not include the many deviations and back-tracking, or the significant amount of climbing. The route included forest roads, walking paths, sheep tracks through heather and wet bits.

An excellent experience, good company and an interesting challenge; it what mountains were made for! Huge thanks to John (The Fox) Morris and his team of helpers, we only had to run round it. They had to carry big bags of sawdust!