I was at work till 11pm and not under the stairs. Being young in Challenge terms I still have to work - some here (lots) remember work don't you?. We had a wee (well long to be honest) Twitter chat about this last night.

Ok we all want an easy FWA that the vetting team say well done and ok. On this they are right. If it bad - its hell there. I last crossed the Avon further down just before dark and it was thigh deep. I am good at river crossings. Real good, strong and able. But I also don't mess with rivers and if the fords are bad there off limits.

So if its bad who needs to go into the maelstrom ? I am not. In bad weather My plan now will be to miss the high level stuff and Fords of Avon as its high and not a FWA. Over to Glen Avon and around. Why go to the Fords of Avon in bad weather hoping its crossable? Better to use the time on an assured way round.

If the weather is nice the next day there is still many hills to bag. It's not a lost day.

Yes,

This simply is what it is all about- to have something up your sleeve when everything goes pear shaped. No scratching around saying what the bl..dy hell do I do now? -its there , its thought out and it should be easily doable,is passive- you don't need to do anything with it if all is well and doesn't cost anything except a little bit of exra thinking at the planning stage . By all means do what you want to do- that is the ethos of the Challenge but do it as safely as possible and allways have in the back of your mind the "what if". The vetting team have absolutely no desire to inhibited or restrict the enjoyment of the Challenge for any Challenger and, collectively, all have the same passion for safety and achieving the ultimate goal of seeing everyone arrive safely at Montrose- its as simple as that.

Hi
Thanks everybody for your comments.
The Fords of A'an crossing is my FWA for the Lairig Ghru and like so many of you I didn't expect any problems with this. I have crossed the ford many times and it's always been ok, I've even had to dig upwards through a snow bank on the south bank just to get out of the water but still nothing to worry about. My vetters comments however are based on not just his experience, but on the experience of every vetter since the start of the TGO as I understand they collect notes to share. Therefore I am taking the request for a FWA seriously, that's why the vetters are there.
What are others using as a FWA for the Lairig Ghru, the Glen Feshie route seems a long way round if the decision is made at the north end of the Lairig.

Final thought on the Fords of A'an. Why would they put a refuge there in such an exposed spot if the crossing was always easy.

Colin

Lots of good reasoning going on.

Can I put forward another reason why we need an FWA?

If there's been a couple o' days bad weather and a Challenger's phone-in is at least a day overdue, we'll raise a flag in Control. First thing we have to do is check where that Challenger ought to be.

If the weather's been crap we'll assume they're not on their main route.

If they have provided a FWA, we don't have to guess a lot.

If they haven't, and we have to request an MRT search – as happened last year – and we don't have a clue where they might be, we look like prats and, worse, that Challenger could be in serious trouble for longer than would otherwise have been necessary.

I've done the Fords myself, of course, on numerous occasions but once it was knee-deep and getting touch and go – there were four of us and each member needed assistance from the other. The following burn was almost as bad, as has been mentioned above.

In practice, FWAs aren't precise – as happened in 2012, the weather can be so dire that even FWAs are out of bounds and folk have to sit tight until the storm's past or re-plan on the spot and get themselves out of trouble using their skills and experience. Thankfully the vast majority of Challengers have the commonsense to be able to use their skills and experience!

Be safe folks!