Quote Originally Posted by Dave_Mole View Post
But I also sense an "old school" who have grown up with, and are used to, both the mountain environment as a whole, the ethos and approach to fell running specifically and who grew up with a sport which whose lack of regulation and rules was one of its attractions.

I think we all agree that fell running is a risky sport and it's a sad reflection on wider society that it's felt there's need for regulation etc, but that's the way it's gone and we'll have to get used to it. It's surprising that we've got away with it for so long, frankly.

This, coupled with the changed expectations of people new to the sport, or coming into it from other areas where there is more regulation, has huge potential to cause problems across the board from the FRA to ROs and, ultimately, to us humble runners who turn up and try to comply with the rules, but just want to get out into the hills and "enjoy" ourselves.

It seems a real shame that some real issues raised here don't really seem to be given the full consideration they perhaps deserve, largely, it seems to me, as an outsider, based on clashes in personality and issues over protocol.
Dave, I've selected some of the phrases from your last post to reply to. This has been debated many times over the years. I fully recognise that I am 'old school' in the current climate but of course, 25 years ago, I too was 'new school'. And, surprisingly enough, Elf and Safety was just as pervasive then. And it WAS because fell racing offered a refuge from red tape and control that I and many others found it to be our natural home. There is no reason why it can cannot continue to be so. It just needs the appropriate ethos in the senior minds of the sport. I suspect that has changed over the years rather more than anything else. And, of course, a shift from a mountaineering ethos to an athletic ethos eventually brought us into the UKA fold....which was supported by a positive vote from the FRA membership as a whole. I spoke passionately against the UKA link up at the time but put up and shut up when the vote went so much the other way. C'est la vie. But the sort of issues we see now are exactly what I feared.

I don't accept that argument about changed times and different expectations. But I do accept that most people apparently want something different out of fell racing compared to what I felt when I entered the sport. But then I race mainly in a little bubble down here in south wales when we get excited by a field of 100. 500 charging off into a bleak day in the lakes is something entirely different.