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Re: Route of the Year Award

I never knew the Route of the Year thing was something to aspire to.

I'm not that keen on carrots, but I think the threat of a stick is a bit hard.

They are tough.

Please spare the rod.

Re: Route of the Year Award

Speaking for myself I feel there is sufficient reward in the privilege of actually being successful in getting onto the Challenge and then completing it.

Anything else is a bonus.

JJ

Re: Route of the Year Award

I would quite like to see Jean's route and write up, and I'd quite like to be awarded Route of the Year (NEVER going to happen!!) but because it would give me pleasure, not a prize!! And I'll probably send my piece in for the same reason, not to get a freebie.
It's hardly in the (non-competitive) spirit of the Challenge, surely?

Re: Route of the Year Award

"Speaking for myself I feel there is sufficient reward in the privilege of actually being successful in getting onto the Challenge and then completing it. Anything else is a bonus." ..... John

I guess I'm just greedy. I want to wring every last ounce of pleasure out of the event, and if the Route of the Year Award encouraged and helped me to do that then it was a good thing IMO.



"I'd quite like to be awarded Route of the Year (NEVER going to happen!!) but because it would give me pleasure, not a prize!!" ..... Louise

Me too (particular the "never" bit). Speaking as the most uncompetitive person in the south of England I couldn't care less about prizes and would be highly embarrassed to have to collect one. I too felt that the competitive element of the award was odd, and I think it's possible to encourage people without offering awards.

I say yes, scrap the award (after all the odds of winning are 1:300 which is pretty slim, so who's going to bother?), but come up with a better way to encourage diverse routes. Maybe "stick" is just John's gruff Yorkshire sense of humour, but I dislike this more than competition.

Re: Route of the Year Award

I think it's a shame that the Route of the Year award has been abandoned but I don't think it has worked as a way of encouraging people to be more imaginative in their planning, and take more care in the submission, of their routes.

This may be because we don't get to see the winning routes, so we can't learn from or by inspired by them, but I think it's also the case that many Challengers want to stick to the tried and tested routes with their well-known social spots. Just look at the number of people who go via Braemar and Loch Callater and finish in St Cyrus EVERY YEAR!

I know I would never have the imagination or courage to come up with the Route of the Year but I will continue to value words of encouragement from the Vetters and will aim to plan a route which takes me to new areas and pushes my own experiences a little further each year.

Judith

Re: Route of the Year Award

Hi Judith,

Tha's exactly what I was thinking. Could we have a "perfect" route sheet as an example so we know what we are doing wrong. As a newbie I'm not sure what I might be doing wrong.

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

So what type of "stick" can we expect?

Will "Our Glorious Leader" implement a weight penalty system? There could be a sliding scale of stick. So if you put down the trade route from Braemar to St Cyrus you will have to carry a half brick. If you have not measured your height gain properly you have to carry 2 bricks and if you put in a route sheet that consists of only grid reference points you have to carry 3 bricks, 2 vetters and wear lead lined boots. Bricks would be embossed with the Challenge logo and handed out at the sign out points and must be handed in at Montrose before you can collect your certificate. Vetters would carry out spot checks along the way and any Challenger who can not produce their brick would be barred from the event.

Or will "Our Glorious Leader" implement a shackling system? All Challengers who have not submitted perfect route sheets would have their legs shackled together at the start points. The length of chain would depend on the seriousness of the deficiency of the route sheet. Those who submit a trade route would have a chain long enough to take their normal stride. Challengers who submit an unclear route sheet would have a half stride chain length and those who put Jocks Road as a FWA would have 6 inches of chain so they could only take baby steps.

I'm sure either of these would encourage Challengers to take a bit more care filling out their route sheets.

Ian C.

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

I never did see the 'Route of the Year' award sitting comfortably beside the basic Challenge principles of non-competitive involvement and achievement of personal goals for every participant.

It would be helpful to see examples of good practice of preparing and writing route sheets.

Unlike the vetters, I have never studied any route sheets other than my own!


Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

Well put, Laura.

Let's see what a well presented route sheet should loook like. That way we can use the route-sheet- perfect-example in doing our own.

Better still we could all submit the route-sheet-perfect-example and make the TGOC much less competitive.

300 starting in ...................

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

How about offering a number of unballoted places each year to those who produce a good quality & original route? That would certainly be a 'carrot'.

You could also do the reverse with the worst routes...

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

"So what type of "stick" can we expect?" ..... Ian

I can see you fear the worst like me Ian

How about twelve finish points and you say which of these you'll finish at when you apply. There's a draw for 25 people at each finish point.


"How about offering a number of unballoted places each year to those who produce a good quality & original route? That would certainly be a 'carrot'." ..... Patrick

That really is a carrot and stick method. The trouble with giving a place on the Challenge (or other valuable award) to a good route sheet is that people will submit breathtakingly original routes and then walk the trade route.

I'm with Judith pick out some good routes and give them some publicity. It also seems the real "problem" is the east coast. It is easier to do the trade route on the east coast because it's not so easy to camp between the hills and the coast. Maybe if there was a list of camp sites it would encourage a wider range of routes at the end.

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

I do like this shackling idea. Hobbling can be good too. A set of stocks would provide hours of harmless enjoyment. I would, however, draw the line at carrying an effigy across country, if only to comfort the Ultra-Lights amongst us.

But . . . why not rename this the ROOT of the year?

A recognition of outrageous snorting, wallowing, snouting and general gonzo behaviour. The award to be decided by general acclamation at the Challenge Dinner. Winner buys a round for all and sundry.

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

I'll drink to that!

Mind you...

JJ

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

I was very chuffed to get a very smart 'shortlisted for route of the year' certificate last year (it's still proudly on show!) and this was for planning multiple FWA's (and FFWA's for FWA's) for various dodgy rivers and long high ridges. This year, however, my route was returned for a bit of extra detail since I hadn't managed to describe fully enough some of the long mountain days - but this was because I couldn't fit the detail and the long Gaelic names into the space provided! Every year I find space is a problem and I'm printing some lines in very small size print - if I don't, then it runs to an extra page and I still get into trouble! Any other views on the actual format and space allowed?

Re: Route of the Year Award: A Modest Proposal.

These are my personal views not necessarily those of the Challenge organisers and they are the points I considered when nominating a route from those sent to me for checking. RoTY has never been competitive. Routes were always judged against certain criteria not against other routes.

Firstly routes had to be well presented. That is to say legible and contain all the information required and spelt out clearly in the route planning notes sent to each applicant. Too often information is missing from routes, commonly when Challengers use a computer based mapping system they leave out the OS Landranger sheet numbers. Many routes provide FWAs which do not allow the original route to be followed when (if) the weather improves or they are not suitable as a FWA. All too often distance and more commonly height gain calculations are inaccurate and place names spelt incorrectly.
All the above points and more are addressed in the information given to Challengers but every year questions are put on the forum which have already been covered in these notes so it is obvious that some Challengers are not bothering to read them hence the poor presentation of some route sheets.

Secondly, as the majority of route sheets are well presented, vetters who are short listing routes for consideration look for something fresh in the approach the Challenger used for planning their route. In the past Challengers have constructed routes which linked castles, walked from the furthest west to furthest east points within the Challenge area; similarly furthest north to furthest south. Routes have also included the eight ( a ninth has now been included ) highest Munros and some high level routes containing 12 or more Corbetts. It is not necessarily the hardest route which will win hence this year Jean Turner used the theme of song and poetry and linked her route appropriately.

Personally I am sorry that RoTY is being dropped as I saw it not as a competition but as a way for the Challenge organisers and vetters to show their appreciation to Challengers who had spent time researching their routes and taken care in their presentation.

In the final Challenge details JM has asked for Challengers to send suggestions of ways to improve the event to him. Some of the above ideas are valid and so I hope that as well as publishing them on this forum that you have contacted him direct.

I'm off back to bed now; talk amongst yourselves.

Re: Route of the Year Award

I have never seen any listed CRITERIA for choosing the "Route of the Year". What were vetters actually looking for in a route for it to qualify as a potential "Route of the Year"? Was there any criteria in the first place, or was a route chosen simply because the vetter liked it or applied their own personal criteria? Mr Grumpy has outlined some possible criteria, but is this his own personal criteria or is it the vetters agreed criteria?

Without stated selection criteria, it would have been useful to have at least a summary of why the successful route was chosen.

Stuart Scott

Re: Route of the Year Award

There appears to be a certain ********** to this thread, and I do not understand why. Jean Turner has consistently submitted original and themed routes. Some of them really tough and including many Munros as well. She well deserves her award. By the way, she is 71 years old and is in the process of organising an expedition to the Himalaya. So what are you folk doing?
I fully understand the reasoning behind RoTY,as someone who has improved my planning, with the aid of the vetters, through the years of the challenge. With hiccups, it has to be said. I will never win the Roty award either, but I do not begrudge to someone else who is more talented than I will ever be.

Re: Route of the Year Award

I thoroughly endorse Catherine's comments. I take my hat off to people such as Jean who plan an interesting and themed route. I walk on my own and to date have taken a fairly low risk approach to route planning (each year it gets a little more ambitious) but it will be a while before I can aspire to RToY award. I think it is a shame that it is being abandoned and hope this might be reconsidered as it is something that I would like to aspire to.

The vetters do a fantastic job and it is only a courtesy to submit a reasonably planned route. Maybe one's place should be conditional on providing a reasonably planned route based on the criteria set out in the TGO document and any route which does not meet these criteria is rejected outright. I do not think it is fair on the vetters to have to attempt to interpret poorly planned routes and, rather than being so helpful, vetters should return the routes and ask them to be submitted according to the laid down criteria - perhaps with an exception to first timers.

I just hope the routes I have submitted have been OK as I feel very strongly that our vetters are there to advise - not to plan.

Our vetters have a huge knowledge base which has certainly benefitted me - they do it volontarily and put in a lot of work to make the TGO happen - safely.

Re: Route of the Year Award

Reading the above comments it seems to me there's two aspects to this - RoTY and RSoTY (Route Sheet of The Year).

I think there has been difficulty with the format of the route sheets, with some peoples extending to three pages because of lack of room. I suggest sending the electronic route sheets out as pdf files rather than doc files.

It's a shame space is short. It'd be interesting to have ascents from paper map and ascents from computer map (if you write down ascents from a paper map but usually judge an ascent from previous computer ascents it can be misleading - after all it's all relative). Also a total km and ascent.


"There appears to be a certain ********** to this thread, and I do not understand why." ..... Catherine

Catherine, I don't think there is any ******** in this thread (if I've understood ****** correctly). I'm sure we all congratulate Jean. I for one am looking forward to her write up.


"By the way, she is 71 years old and is in the process of organising an expedition to the Himalaya. So what are you folk doing?"

I'm working hard in difficult times trying to keep a family going.

Re: Route of the Year Award

We for one will never get the route of the year award. We don't even aspire to it. We do our best to get ourselves an interesting route, we are conscientious in filling in our route form, but...only as far as Mar Lodge. We love the Trade Route that takes us via Loch Callater Lodge and St. Dostan's to the coast. The Challenge for us is a challenge as far as Braemar and after that is a highly sociable event. No way are we going to give up catching up with Bill and enjoying the atmosphere and singing in LCL or the banter in Tarfside. One can walk across Scotland any time, but meeting up and having a good time with friends made over the years is what makes the Challenge special for us. And could we have the lightweight brick now,please...

Re: Route of the Year Award

... is in the process of organising an expedition to the Himalaya. As a potential member of the expedition, I thought it was being organised by KK Adventure Travel.

So what are you folk doing? Trying to save up for one!!

Re: Route of the Year Award

Well, I was going to keep out of this but.....

I am with Stuart and Maria.
I agree completely with them.

I can walk Scotland coast to coast whenever I want, or anywhere else for that matter.
So, I try and make the route to Braemar as exciting and adventurous as I can manage.
And then I join in the sociable bit.
Which for me is what makes the Challenge brilliant.

And expeditions to the other side of the world.
Maybe one day.
Lucy already has that T Shirt, and like John, I have to work for my family.

So well done to Jean.
It was an inspired route, with a wonderful theme.

Anyway, enough of that, I have to get ready for work tomorrow.

Re: Route of the Year Award

I thought Challengers went to sleep in the summer, but logging on I came across this intriguing thread.

I have sympathy with all the views expressed so far, and I should say that I still regard myself as a tyro on this event. Planning a route, usually modest low level forays, is the greater part of the challenge for me. And that is a good thing.

The intellectual challenge of planning has led me to books that I would never have encountered otherwise (currently Seton Gordon's "Highways and Byways in the Central Highlands" published in 1935), discussions with people that I would never otherwise have met, and from that, a deep appreciation of the land that I traverse.

But all of these are diverse and eclectic elements - very hard to pin down - so when someone says "we must have set criteria" by which to measure the merits of a route, I think that they are rather missing the point. The route of the year, beyond meticulous planning and documentation, should have something unique at its core.

And something unique, by definition, cannot be easily measured by a set of established rules.

So, surely enjoying a sociable jog to the coast from Braemar is fine (fine with me Stuart & Maria) but there is so much before! And even the closing stages can produce magic, as I found a few years ago when I abandonded the conventional plod to Edzell to discover the Blue Door walk by the river.

So I think it's a bit of a shame that this award has been dropped, but if it's ever revived then it should be idiosyncratic, unpredictable and surprising - just like the "average" challenger.

Oh, and by the way ...

Re: Route of the Year Award

Oh dear, I ought to have been responding to this sooner, but thanks to family commitments I have't seen the Message Board for a week.

As a keen hillwalker, but one who couldn't find an opportunity for the Challenge at all until just before retirement (I used to read about it & dream), from the first time in 2004 I LOVED the business of planning a route. That year, being instructed as a Challenge novice to stay low, I started where my parents grew up (Plockton) and passed through where I grew up (Portsoy) to finish in Fraserburgh....a very lonely hike, in the event. Almost unconsciously thereafter, I gradually fell into the habit of finding some sort of theme: but also in nine Challenges I've never duplicated more than a few miles of route in total (although sometimes I can see bits of one from another!) And I tried to find places I hadn't been, and to find interesting bits where initially the map didn't seem to promise much.

Last year, someone who heard I was on an "ancient history" theme said I was obviously aiming for the RoTY award: I wasn't. My efforts to make it interesting predated the award by years, and the pleasure in planning is part of the "return" John wants from the event. And I agree with Phil about the reading: and this year I found lots of new music, too!

As for competition - Mr Grumpy assures us it is not so, and anyway the final details always announce the first to finish, and it used to be that the greatest tally of Munros was announced at the dinner..... it's all very light-hearted, surely? Sure, it's encouragement in the presentation - I understand to try to reduce the workload of the vetters, which must be good. The point about not seeing the "ideal" route-sheet is valid; we used to get a sample completed route-sheet sent out with the details - perhaps that could be restarted?

I can sympathise totally with Stuart & Maria's policy - I often feel that the chaos in Montrose doesn't allow me long enough to reinforce friendships I've made en route. If I survive to my magic 10th next year, it will not be only post-Braemar that I'll be planning the most sociable route I can find!

Finally, I WILL write up 2012 eventually, I promise, but in the meantime (if anyone has read this far), I've collected all my route sheets into one compressed folder (about 16MB because the earlier ones had to be scanned), and I'm happy to e-mail this to anyone who asks for it. (This includes two versions of 2009, where I got in from Reserves two days before a long trip abroad and had to do a rush-job, and got a well-deserved rap over the proverbial knuckles.....so you have an example of a bad route presentation, too!) I have the vetters' comments too but I guess they are copyright of the vetters.

And thank you, Catherine and Jane, for your support, which alleviated the guilt feelings from some earlier posts

Re: Route of the Year Award

I know some Challengers do unspeakable things with the comments, including hanging them from a nail in the outhouse. I can't speak for fellow vetters, but I have no objectons to passing on my notes; just tidy up the grammar and spelling and take out the sweerie words.

Re: Route of the Year Award

Thank you for lightening it up, JD! Next time we meet I'll try to bring your favourite dehydrated food (to share, of course).

Re: Route of the Year Award

Despite my general thoughts about the RoTY award I do add my congratulations for your efforts this year! The theme for your crossing sounds inspired and inspiring!
I hope you enjoyed it and I hope we'll bump into each other on future Challenges.

Re: Route of the Year Award

Thank you, Laura. Seems I'm too late adding to this thread for anyone to take up my offer (I mean those who said they wanted to see the winning route sheet) - perhaps I'll have to make it again on a new thread, although I confess I'm reluctant to prolong the controversy!

Re: Route of the Year Award

I don't blame you - things did seem to get over-heated for a while!

Certainly my comment was in no way meant to be a criticism of anyone who had ever been given the award. My apologies if it seemed to read that way.

Re: Route of the Year Award

No, Laura, it didn't read that way - in fact I didn't take any of the individual comments that way.....I just began to feel a trifle guilty about the award! And I think it's true that they no longer send out a "sample" route sheet (or perhaps that was only for first-timers?), so I have sympathy with that comment.

I think we all have headaches fitting it in the space!

Re: Route of the Year Award

You certainly shouldn't feel guilty Jean.
It was an inspired and very worthy route.