I ran most of this with with a mate who is racing on Saturday. I've got the WHW race so won't be there.

On saturday in thick thick cloud it was bloody hard going. It starts with a long run in on roads, some down hills, then a k or so through fields, then a long ascent on short grass, up the ridge towards CD - this is all very runnable. At the top (~last 200m of ascent) of CD you hit scree, which can be quite large in places. In good vis you can connect up grassy runnels and run all the way up to the summit, but we just took a direct line. From the cairn you follow a fairly good path all the way to CL. This path often drops off slightly to the right avoiding the rocky ridge, but again in the thick cloud we just stuck to the ridge.

At the final col, you head up CL, a wall towards the summit runs straight up into the summit cairn so is a good handrail. Here is the tricky section. I know this area fairly well so tend to run north for 2-300 m then traverse around the slopes just below the summit avoiding the rocks, along the top of the crags, to the cairned path. A more direct line may be easier, Once you pick up the Yr Elen ridge it's easy to get to the summit.

The Yr Elen summit is right at the back, it's like a baseball field summit, flat and grassy, but where you (well I always do) think the summit is, it isn't. The summit is in the back right corner. From here the descent ridge heads straight off. It's easy to pick up and easily visible ~ 5 m from the summit cairn.

This is where we had issues. I only had a paper map I'd printed out and the contours were barely visible by now due to rubbing thumbs, and thought I'd found the area for the descent which heads off in a straight line towards the sheep folds after Afon Caseg. But in the clag we opted just to carry on down the ridge and out - as we both had family/friends commitments. We didn't get out of the clag until we hit the walls right down at the farm land. I'm not sure the descent point from this ridge will be marked, and it's not easy to find. I'd say the best way would be to have an altimeter watch on and descend until the right height and combined with the features head off. In thick clag on your own, I'd imagine it would take some convincing to leave the path.

In many ways I hope they don't mark it off as it's such a great traditional fell race, but with the recent fatality in a race in the area, then I couldn't blame the organisers for deciding to mark that point - although there's no crags once you are off the top section of the rocky ridge.

I've been through the bottom of these valleys a few times, you can often pick up sheep tracks through the bogs, and the sheep folds area quite obvious when you get there. The caseg isn't a big river and normally easily forded.

Good luck, it's a great route, but in thick clag a few will do a few extra miles. I found the 10 miles to be too short, we did 10.5 (as measured by watch gps) on Saturday and missed out GW so I reckon it's over 11 maybe nearer 12. Should measure it on Anquet.