24 hour record

[dave h]

I have been scouring the literature to see what the current ethical thinking is on what qualifies as 'peaks' or 'summits'. Looking through the extended BG schedules there are some favourites that get added as 'extras' even though almost on the BG route anyway and there are others that seem to be ignored, even though they are 'nuttalls' or similar. Has anyone recently gone for a big peak total in 24 hours ignoring the BG route completely? I am trying to devise a round at the moment with 80 tops (all ovre 2000ft or included on previous rounds) a bit longer than BG (80 ish miles) but which ignores everything north or Keswick and all the Eastern Fells. Should I be stupid enough to attempt this in the near future,(and succeed) would it 'beat' Mark Hartell's 77 peaks or would it in fact not qualify as it only includes 25 of the BGR summits???? What does anyone think? NB It starts and finishes in Langdale and doesn't go anywhere near the Moot Hall !!
Dave

[Grouse]

It would qualify if you wore a pyjama top and took a boiled egg.

[Epocian]

Should have thought for the record to be accepted by other fell runners you would have to include the BG summits then any additional ones you can manage

[IainR]

Should have thought for the record to be accepted by other fell runners you would have to include the BG summits then any additional ones you can manage

While any round would include the BGR summits I see no reason why it should include all. I didn't think there was a defintion of a summit, like on the PBR some of the 'summits' included push the boundary, in fact if you weren't told youwouldn't know you'd passed the summit.

[BillJ]

My understanding is that the 24-hour record is a cumulative one:

To break the record you need to do the same peaks as the current record holder and add at least one more on - and get round in under 24 hours of course.

[BillJ]

You got me curious about the details, so...
Anne dug out the "criteria and guidance" that she was given by Fred Rogerson before she set the Ladies 24hr record:

Since 1971 (when Joss set the first of the 3 times he increased the record) the basis for attempts has been: the same summits shall be traversed on foot completely, in a faster time and/or the addition of a separate summit, within 24 hours.

The definition of what qualifies as an additional summit is that it is over 2000' in height, requires a descent and ascent of at least 250', and is at least 1/4 mile from another peak.
This definition was laxer in the earlier days, so some of the extra peaks added in the earlier record-breaking rounds definitely did not meet the current criteria for additional peaks!

Out of interest, the peak that Mark Hartell added to beat Mark McDermott's record was Catstycam.
The peaks that Anne added to improve on Anne-Marie Grindlay's record were Catstycam, Lingmell, Haycock and Grasmoor.

[gej]

That's fascinating Bill. According to my calculations, a basic BGR is only 25 peaks if you apply those criteria retrospectively - sounds far less impressive!

[Bob]

I believe that the 2000ft "rule" was first promoted by Dr Wakefield on one of his rounds (best thought of as prototype to what we now call the BGR) when he stated - from memory: "to traverse on foot as many tops as possible of 2000ft and over and return to the starting point within 24hrs"

The 250' rule sounds like a variation on those used for Corbetts and Marilyns which require a relative height - ascent on all sides of 150m or more. See the links on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor..._British_Isles

Working on Dr Wakefield's rule, the BGR as done today would only have 40 tops - Steel Fell and Calf Crag being the two that fail to make 2000' (~610m). Graham also included High Snab which isn't considered a top of any sort these days.

Interesting to note that the Scottish Munros 24hr record doesn't have any restriction on extending existing rounds, contenders may choose any suitable grouping. Though of course there are a limited number of such groups so most will end up using the same as previous records.

Using the reascent and 2000' rules, it should be relatively easy to determine the maximum possible number of tops. Quite a few of these will be outliers so the effective list will be smaller.

[ydt]

My understanding is that the 24-hour record is a cumulative one:

To break the record you need to do the same peaks as the current record holder and add at least one more on - and get round in under 24 hours of course.

...and you do not need to go past Moot Hall.

One can devise any number of new challenges with different hill designations but if one wants to try and better Mark's amazing record of Lakeland tops then it must be done as Bill says.
Yiannis

PS: Two possible Munro records can be attempted in Lochaber and in Glen Shiel/Affric with very similar statistics.

[dave h]

Thanks for the information about the 'technical details'