Beginners Guide

This is a beginners guide to The Brow Hike, which is an annual competition held in March each year.

The route roughly follows the old Sowerby Bridge Urban District Council boundary. Some of the checkpoint locations move around each year while others remain fixed.

Teams of 4 enter the hike, walking around 16km (10 miles) on the Saturday, and a further 14km (9 miles) on the Sunday. At some of the checkpoints there is an incident for the teams to take part in before carrying on to the next checkpoint.

Points are awarded for speed of hiking, route plotting and navigation, performance at incidents, cooking food at the campsite and team leadership to give a score out of 1,000.

There are trophies awarded for first, second and third places along with a trophy for the highest scoring team leader. However, all those who complete the hike are seen as winners and each receive the Brow Hike certificate.

The hike is controlled over the weekend by a dedicated and experienced team. All the checkpoints are in radio contact with Hike Control to ensure that the Hike Controller knows the whereabouts of all the teams. The Safety Check Officer follows the rear of the hike by car, with a Sweep Team following the back of the hike on foot. In the event of a team being overdue at a checkpoint, the Safety Officer and Sweep Team can be deployed to check all possible alternative routes quickly and efficiently until the team is located safely.

All hikers carry with them a tally card detailing the locations of all the checkpoints. This also contains an emergency phone number, in case of any incident or accident.

When teams arrive at the finish they are checked in and change into their uniform.  They are then provided with a hot meal and are free to relax and put their feet up until the presentation which normally takes place at 3.15pm, if all the teams are in by then!

We spend a lot of time organising the event, we want every team that starts to get to the finish and we always do our utmost to ensure that happens.