The Bob Graham 24 Hour Club

Try and keep the number of pacers to a minimum, ideally no more than two. Remember that every pair of feet adds to erosion on the round. There’s simply no need for large groups doing the round no matter how many mates you think would enjoy it.

In your eagerness to keep to schedule (or regain time on your schedule) it can be easy to accidentally miss a summit especially those in confusing areas such as Bowfell and Great End where if it’s misty or cloudy it’s easy to mistake features.

The screenshot below is from an attempt where the contender missed the summit of Bowfell.

If you are using a GPS unit then typically they let you load waypoints, setting up these for each summit beforehand removes one source of worry. If you are old school then it’s a good idea for you and your pacers to have visited the actual summits so you know what each looks like.

Great End has two tops of very similar height. Either top will suffice for ratification purposes but Wendy Dodds notes that back in the day, clockwise rounds visited the SE top while anticlockwise rounds visited the NW top.

Grey Knotts is similar in having two tops of very similar altitude. The eastern one is the true top.

Red Pike. The OSM mapping has the summit marked in the wrong place. The true summit is about 100m further up the edge.

While GPS devices, trackers and programs like Strava are popular they do have downsides:

1. Battery life of the device, particularly mobile phones can struggle in cold conditions.
2. Someone wandering off with the tracker. It doesn’t look good when you are heading up YewBarrow and your tracker is going past Sellafield!

Note that there’s a difference between a GPS device and a tracker:

• Devices like Garmin Fenix or Suunto watches produce GPX files with small time gaps between each recorded point, typically in the range of 1-5 seconds. These are usable with the code used by the ratification form.
• Trackers such as OpenTracking/Kong Running trackers, Garmin inReach and SPOT typically only record locations every one to fifteen minutes. Their primary use (at least in the context of the Bob Graham and similar challenges) is to send the location to a web server so it can be displayed on a web page. As such the files they produce aren’t ideal for use with the ratification form’s code but we can get the summit times by a slightly different means.

If you do use a tracker or GPS device then wear or carry it yourself - quite often pacers skip tops, particularly the out and back ones - so wearing it yourself avoids an “invalid trace”

Good old fashioned paper and pencil will work in pretty well any conditions, though care might be needed in high winds. All that’s needed is a list of the tops for each leg then when you reach each top one of your pacers records the time:

Some pacers text/Whatsapp/semaphore summit times to someone in the valleys or at base to record. Again can be battery dependent but has the advantage that if the message doesn’t get through it’s still in their phone’s outbox.

Scafell Pike: 14:12

Note the use of the 24hr clock - the ratification form uses this format so using it from the start makes things simpler. Also record the time of day, not the number of minutes since the last top or the time taken on the round to that point.

If you print out the schedule from the calculator then there’s space on those sheets to record your times.

There are few free parking spots in the Lakes these days. Bob Graham attempts are not exempt from them. If you use a pay and display car park then please pay up. This has become a big enough problem that there is now a specific dedicated parking page about it.

Don’t park in situations that block access either for locals or emergency vehicles.

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t litter. Though in high winds and when you are tired that’s easier said than done.

It’s worth looking at your food wrappers beforehand and seeing if you can figure a way to open them without a fragment coming away. It may be that repackaging items would help avoid any mishap.

In addition: if you come across any litter on the route then pick it up and pack it out, the occasional wrapper or two isn’t going to add to your or your pacer’s load.

As indicated in the guidance notes, please ensure that you, your pacers and your support team act in a responsible manner.

This includes but is not limited to...

• Littering - the Lakes is beautiful because people care and look after it, don’t be a Litter Bug!
• Noise - you are likely to be passing people’s houses at unsociable hours. You wouldn’t like someone whooping and shouting in the middle of the night outside your house, neither do they.

• There has been some friction between some BG attempts/supporters and the traders in Keswick market. This culminated with an altercation and the club then receiving correspondence from Cumbria County Council about that incident. Remember that the traders are trying to make a living in increasingly difficult times.

  So if you can, please adjust your start time so that your expected finish time avoids Saturday afternoons. If that isn’t possible and you do return to the Moot Hall while the market traders are around then do not get in their way, one of the stalls is very close to the start/finishing door. There’s also a local bye-law of no drinking on the street so do a quick “well done!” and head to the pub. Please make your supporters aware of this - that’s your responsibility.