Quote Originally Posted by alwaysinjured View Post
All I can say is **wow** - depending on how far you had come down scafell before doing an additional rep to get it and catch back up!

PS on this note. I am convinced that swinging well left of the edge then contour back all on runnable grass, is way better than going down or just before Rakeshead unless you are a mountain goat that runs down screes such as that. What are views on that?
It's pretty subjective. On the last two BG attempts that I supported (the past two weekends actually) both contenders did as you described and ran along the edge of Rakehead Crag before dropping down the grassy line in front of Green How (ie. the line most ACW contenders go). I think it's slightly longer, but if that's what you prefer, so be it .....

My own opinion is that there aren't many easier screes to come down than the one under Rakehead Crag, the shale is small and it's just a question of wading down until you hit the grass. I also like to aim for the corner of the wall rather than hopping over it and then take the steep grassy descent down to Lingmell Gill. Through the gill, over the tourist path and then onto the nose of Lingmell for a nice grassy descent down to Brackenclose, much easier than the gnarly tourist path. I'll admit there are drawbacks to this cunning plan - the first is that by going down the scree your shoes fill with all that brown shale, meaning a potential sock change and shoe-emptying moment, the second is that if Lingmell Gill is in spate it's going to be far from easy getting across. The wife and I found this out one day when the gill was really full of water and we got more than just wet feet.