UKC

NEW ARTICLE: Interview: Glen Coe Skyline, UK's 1st Scrambling Hill Race

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 UKC Articles 18 Mar 2015
Aonach Eagach - it's not trivial ground for a race, 3 kbThis summer a new event will for the first time bring mountaineering into UK hill racing. The Glen Coe Skyline includes serious scrambles on Aonach Eagach and Curved Ridge. Is this a risk too far for a managed event? We asked race organiser Shane Ohly to explain his thinking.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=7189
In reply to UKC Articles:

Climbing race without ropes? What could possibly go wrong..
 tony 18 Mar 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

It would have been interesting to find out more about the "robust plans and processes" to mitigate the impact on other walkers and climbers. Short of closing the route to all bar the competitors, I'm not sure what can be done to cover this. Having a race where competitors are potentially held up because someone's taking a wee while on Curved Ridge or on the Pinnacles on the AE ridge seems a strange kind of race to me.
 Simon Caldwell 18 Mar 2015
In reply to tony:

I wonder what measures were taken when the AR world championship used Curved Ridge? There's also been a race that went up Pinnacle Ridge on St Sunday Crag, where similar issues apply.
 alasdair19 18 Mar 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

great article good work Dan. Pleased to see the NTS involved.
 chris_B 19 Mar 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

I don't understand all the negativity raised about this event. Sounds great to me. There's plenty of space for 100 or so people to race around Glen Coe, even on the scrambling terrain. I'm not based in the UK so won't be doing it, but certainly would be if I was a bit closer.
 Simon Caldwell 19 Mar 2015
In reply to chris_B:

The main thing that puts me off is the waymarking - the only way I can avoid humiliation in this sort of event is when the navigation gets hard and the decent runners get lost!

The other thing that puts me off is the 12 hour time limit
In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Hi Simon, Gary Tompsett was also the planner for the 2007 AR world championships. He says that on Curved Ridge they used fixed lines and jumars, or some equivalent ascenders (for safety, obv, not ascending the ropes). This year there are to be no fixed ropes, which I guess is quite a different thing both for competitors and in terms of managing it.
 thedatastream 19 Mar 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

Given the good organisation that Shane and team put in place on the Dark Mountains MM this year I would expect this to be a well run and thoughtfully considered event.
 Roadrunner2 19 Mar 2015
In reply to Simon Caldwell:

have you seen the new lakes race? uses pinnacle ridge, swiral and striding... again the obvious concern will be walkers, looks a good route though.
 Simon Caldwell 19 Mar 2015
In reply to Roadrunner2:

Yup. Again, looks tempting, but I prefer events that have a navigation element.
http://www.lakesskyultra.uk/
 george sewell 23 Mar 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

the lakes one looks interesting but i think a mountain trial style format would be more interesting on this kind of thing just checkpoints no marked route but set in such a way that the hard options are fastest. like in the mountain trial this year where the shortest route on one section was over striding edge. more fell running style where your navigation and a bit of local knowledge can put out some surprises as far as who can do well.

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...