Todays permitted exercise!

[Travs]

All completely fair points.

A non-local fell runner may say "well I've ran the Fairfield Horseshoe, Wasdale in awful conditions, got round the LDMT in zero visibility, done BG legs in the dark in winter.... I'm no more (or less) of a risk than any local".

Of course you can't ask every visitor to submit their running/walking cv before leaving their car, which I suppose is the main problem.

I thought long and hard about this yesterday... Would I travel to the Lakes to run...? I'd deem myself less likely than the average visitor to find myself in trouble. I'd probably consider the chances of needing Mountain Rescue to be minimal (I'd have to keel over. Or sustain an injury severe enough to immobilise me to an extent that I couldnt get down to safety). I'm sure most regulars to the Fells would think similarly.

However, living in the Midlands, I'd have to pass by several alternative hill destinations with less pressure on them... Shropshire Hills, Lancashire Hills, Howgills, etc. So no I wouldn't travel to the Lakes in the current climate.

However if I lived anywhere from Preston northwards, I'd have to be brutally honest here and say that I'd be highly likely to be finding a quiet part of Cumbria/Lakes to go running. As you say, there is risk in every part of life, and I'd probably weigh up that risk and decide to hit the Fells (as you have done). Of course should anything happen I'd rightly have to take all criticism on the chin.

Personally, as stated somewhere on this forum, I'd ask the mountain rescue teams to stand down. This would force the national parks to either close the Fells as per Wales, or at least people would be fully aware that if they go up the fells there is no specialist help for them.