Quote Originally Posted by MarkClayton View Post
Does everyone take the route around Howden Edge? Am curious (as don’t know the area very well), looking at the map, seems like you could potentially drop from Outer Edge trig towards Oaken Bank and then head towards Swains Head via Humber Knolls. I appreciate this will add extra climb and the overall distance doesn’t look that different (maybe even fractionally longer according to Tracklogs), but maybe the ground conditions are better?
Well Mark, I have recced that route along the Derwent and timed it a couple of times. It is about the same timewise. If you look at previous postings you will see comments about this. The main arguments against doing that route are that you will miss out the "best" part of the challenge and you will also go against the spirit of the event, which implies that you should follow the Derwent watershed (more or less!).