Quote Originally Posted by alwaysinjured View Post
What of the welsh 1991 one (forget name) mentioned by Wheeze? - was that off route too?

Was Brian the only one believed to have gone off route deliberately?

If that was true, he would perhaps have done better to reverse sail, not just in order to use the good trod that descends to the valley between sail and ard crags: but also because in back tracking the route he would likely have seen or met , some other runner or marshall to say that he was intending to find his own way down.

I doubt very much you could formulate that as advice " to backtrack and tell someone" because of the wide variety of situations and the presumption that you know where you are, and you are where you think you are. Sometimes dealing with cold is simply about getting out of the wind on the tops, in the most expedient way.
Carol Matthews perished off route...which was pretty much a straight line between 2 points. It is believed she fell into the 'parallel error' trap whereby she continued to ascend straight up the hill whereas the marked line slightly contoured off to the right. She subsequently found herself in a trackless waste of peat hags, in very poor visibility and a chilling wind. By the time anyone know she was missing, the weather had deteriorated to a strong storm and the light was fading. She was found the following morning curled in foetal position against a hag. She was never more than half a K from a path. She must have circled in terror until the cold got to her. Only wearing a singlet and shorts. No extra gear. It still haunts me now.