BGR - groups supporters etc

[Stolly]

There seems to be even more interest in the BGR this year! For the sake of the round is it worth limiting recces (and numbers of supporters) so that the route recovers and perhaps ultimately reverts back to something of a nav challenge? I would have thought that one proper recce per leg and then a pacer per leg on the attempt ought to be enough? I know that ultimately people will do whatever they want to do but am interested to know if anyone else has avoided trapesing loads of people around because don't want to contribute to the trods?

Jules.

I mainly disagree with you .

The problem with one pacer per leg is if that pacer gets injured the attempt is over - given the amount of effort you have to put in, to have a BG fail because of a helpers injury would be daft. I'm co-running with a co-bob graham attemptee this year, which helps things in that we could at a push confirm each others arrival at the summits and, for sure, we're only taking a couple of pacers to accompany us - we are wary of trudging round with a huge crew. So anyway most attempts sensibly need a couple of pacers.

As for one recce per leg being sufficient? Well that depends on so many things, the weather especially. Equally though route choice and just experiencing the terrain is another. For sure there's a heck of a lot of terrain to remember and, okay, you could do the round almost as a train being driven round by people who know each leg back front and sideways but thats not what I want to do - I want to know it all myself. And I enjoy piecing it all together.

On the erosion front, having just run Threlkeld to Keswick yesterday (our intended leg 5) the erosion is all centralised in one area and although the ground is pretty boggy, given the massive acreage of pretty much untrod on wilds all around you, in the scheme of things its limited damage and at the same time keeping that damage concentrated and very localised. To assume that BG attemptees and recces are causing damage surely has to be taken in the round of things - on any given day the Lake District there is a big number of walkers out in the hills, its a key attraction of the place, a big employer and most of the people out in it have an endearing love and respect for the area - the number out doing their BG business is extremely small in comparison.

Finally a very large part of the route is over well used paths or trods or, conversely, over no trods at all and as such is not actually changing anything one way or the other.

All the same having an ounce of common sense and a big respect for the Lake District and everything about it is a given surely?