Let’s start with a public health warning – this is a challenge requiring winter mountain skills as well as running ability. I’ve written the story of my round below, but wouldn’t want anyone to underestimate the wider skills needed to take this on safely. Winter in the mountains will generally through more severe challenges at you, and even settled weather tends to mean cold weather. Have a think about what would happen if you injured yourself in a remote spot at night, or encountered problematic ice or frozen snow, or became so tired your decision-making deteriorated. If those prospects don’t worry you, I politely suggest you haven’t given it enough thought. I have put some suggestions for anyone thinking of attempting this at the end of the report.

Fun facts:

1. There have been more successful ascents of Everest than Bob Graham Rounds, by a ratio of almost 2:1.
2. More people have walked on the moon than completed a solo, unsupported winter Bob Graham Round (true at the end of winter 2023-24 – 9 rounds to 12 moon walks).

The story of the round

This particular challenge promised a real adventure. I first started thinking seriously about it in 2022, after a successful Steve Parr round, I thought I had the experience (mountaineering as well as running) and endurance to give it a proper go. The tales of successful and unsuccessful rounds were fascinating, although there weren’t many of either. (At that point there had been two successful rounds by Martin Stone and Shane Ohly, and I found one blog of a very near miss.) The rules were also intriguing: “unsupported” in this context meant not supported by pacers, road support, pre-placed drop bags (that would be “self-supported”), GPS navigation (this is fell running, after all), or even encouraging messages that might provide much-needed motivation.

The Bob Graham Club has also said “winter” means any day in December, January or February, and acknowledge that may or may not overlap with full winter conditions on the fells. They also recognise the concept of a midwinter round, which means the two weeks or so from the longest night, but might be deemed to finish early if the weather is very settled. Martin’s incredible 1987 round took place in midwinter, in full winter conditions of ice and consolidated snow. Shane said in his opinion a winter round should require full winter equipment, and he did it in such conditions using specially adapted boots and an ice axe. 

I decided I wouldn’t turn down such full winter conditions, but nor would I wait for them. Matching availability to weather windows was going to be hard enough, so I wanted to go whenever a window of opportunity opened up for me. Sure enough, December 2022 brought a longish spell of settled weather, and I was free around the start of this period. The forecast was perfect: game on.

I won’t describe that attempt in huge detail, but (spoilers), it was unsuccessful. I tried an anti-clockwise round, with a start around 3am, to get Gable – Langdales in the light. I have since concluded that anti-clockwise rounds suck, for all the obvious reasons. The weather forecast had been a bit optimistic – there was mist on every top until Rossett Pike, which slowed things down a bit. I was carrying a bit too much weight, and didn’t take my trail poles (because I thought my hands would be too busy with gloves, poles, map, compass, and trying to eat). All of that added up to running out of energy on the Helvellyn range, and not having enough time to finish it. I’d promised my wife I’d be sensible, which didn’t include setting out on the remote northern leg, at night, in a weakening state. I called my emergency contact Andrew Bradley, and arranged a pickup at the foot of Sticks Pass.

A few days later, Paul Wilson and James Gibson completed successful rounds (on the same day, in different directions), doubling the number of successful completions, and briefly making the concept look popular. The weather had come clearer but also colder, with almost all of the streams freezing. I wondered if I’d have had a better outcome waiting a little longer. There would have been another golden opportunity towards the end of the winter, in which I did the Cumbrian Traverse in absolutely perfect conditions. Perhaps with a bit more foresight it should have been another BG attempt.

The last few days of November 2023 were also perfect, clear and cold. But of course winter doesn’t start until 1 December, which was a Friday. The forecast was for the weather to break on Sunday, so I planned an attempt starting on Friday evening. A clockwise round, starting 9pm Friday, would put the rocky mountains into daylight. I booked a tracker and lined up some emergency support. 

And then, inevitably, the forecast began to deteriorate. Showers would come off the Irish Sea, sometime during Saturday, along with hill fog and stronger winds. By Thursday, the forecasts were for snow before dawn on Saturday. I hadn’t booked Friday off work, and hadn’t been sleeping great, therefore was reluctant to have an early morning start on the Friday. I did clear my work calendar to give myself more flexibility. My wife told me to wait and see what the forecast said on Friday morning, rather than ditch it because it looked bleak now. As usual, she was right.

By Friday morning, the forecast had improved again, with snow now due sometime around Saturday lunchtime.  My manager agreed to the day off, and I decided to start around 1pm Friday. This would be pretty unconventional, putting legs 1 and 5 into daylight, but I reasoned a clear night on the rocky mountains would be more useful than a potential white-out. As it happened, this promising forecast turned out to be bullshit, but it was better not to know that!

I arrived in Keswick around midday, and did some final sorting while the tracker warmed up. While doing so I received a whatsapp message from Iain: “You look like you’ve been tapering for something. It’s also pretty good winter BG conditions right now…” I almost replied with a photo of the Moot Hall, but explained what I was doing and shared the tracking link. Otherwise, only Jane, and emergency contacts Andrew Bradley and Ben McGovern had it. I hadn’t wanted to create any buzz or fuss around this, partly because there had been no guarantee of setting off, let alone finishing. And I didn’t want any encouraging messages coming through that might invalidate the round. I set off when I was ready, at 12:44pm.

Leg 1 was an absolute joy. It was sunny, windless, and felt warm(ish) despite obviously sub-zero conditions on the hills. I’d decided it was ok to get slightly ahead of a usual schedule here: surely it made sense to be quicker in the scant daylight, and take it steadier through the night on snowy hills? The first part of the descent of Skiddaw was icy, but otherwise the leg was probably easier than summer. Candleseaves Bog was frozen, as were most of the sections ascending Great Calva and Mungrisdale Common. I removed my shoes and socks to cross the Caldew, as I didn’t want them to freeze later, and in these temperatures, they would never dry out. Hall’s Fell was easy going, with little give in the frozen ground but clear of snow and ice, except for brief sections on the east flank. I reached Thelkeld in just under 3:30.

Sunset had been around Blencathra summit (a bit like a conventional summer round), and there was usable light most of the way up Clough Head. I saw a couple of other runners there in the gloaming, and my smaller torch (Petzl Bindi) came out half way up. I wouldn’t see daylight again for another 14 hours, or another person for another 16 hours. My idea with the Bindi was to use it on leg 2 which was easy enough, then re-charge it from a powerbank when switching to the Petzl Swift for leg 3. Running out of light would be fatal to the attempt, and I thought this was better than bringing my Petzl NAO, which was heavier than a powerbank.

Great Dodd was where the first error crept in. It was the first summit in proper darkness, where the way off wasn’t totally obvious (due to snow cover). I set off heading south, then realised I was going wrong, checked the compass and turned more west. Must always check the bearing unless I’m sure from now on: perhaps a couple of minutes lost here. Other sections went perfectly, for example leaving Stybarrow I found the trod (the snow made it a perfect and obvious white line on the ground) which takes a straight line to Sticks Pass. I got the right line off Nethermost, but had to correct myself again leaving Dollywaggon. 

Traversing under Seat Sandal was the first sign of problematic ice. Drainage lines and bogs had frozen, and sections of this path were very slippery. Still, I was doing ok, and it was possible to refill water along this section: the bigger streams were still running. My water bottles had started freezing in the colder air, and it had been harder to digest cold food and drink cold water. There was a bit of admin faff as I swapped torches, and then a bit of disappointment as the Bindi didn’t seem to be charging from the powerbank and worryingly, the Swift didn’t appear to be fully charged to start with. (I was certain it had been fully charged at home, maybe the cold was messing with it.)

Fairfield went fine, but the ascent of Seat Sandal was the first place I started feeling a bit wobbly. I tucked a bottle into my fleece, and cracked on to Dunmail, arriving with just under 8 hours on the clock. I’d kept to the schedule on this leg, keeping my advantage from leg 1.

There was something psychologically good about having only used 8 hours to here. If in another 8 hours I could be somewhere on Yewbarrow, I should be well away, and that felt very feasible. Leg 3 is often described as the “make or break” leg, being 15 miles with about 7,000 feet of ascent. Some schedules suggest this can be done by most people in 6 hours, but most rounds I’ve supported half taken at least 6½ here. I think amny schedules are overly ambitious for this section, and suspect people are put off unnecessarily here when they fall behind.

For example, a fairly generous schedule (23.5 hours overall) allows 25 minutes to Steel Fell, then a further 20 to Calf Crag. My times on this round were about 35 and 30, a significant loss against the schedule. I later checked my times for these sections on the much shorter Lunar Round with Ben, where I was just inside the BG 23.5 schedule times, despite moving pretty briskly and setting a relatively quick Lunar Round time. On the Bob, I was feeling a little low-energy and found these times a bit demoralising. SImilarly, I lost more time on the way up to Sergeant Man, going off line briefly to boot.

High Raise to the Langdale Pikes was better, benefitting from following the same line to Harrison Stickle recently on the Lunar Round. But then I got a terrible line after Pike O’Stickle, leaving the main path too early, finding lots of ice on the slopes down to Martcrag Moor, crossing the BG trod and ending up back on the main path to Stake Pass! I stuck with this, but then missed the turn to Rossett Pike, going the wrong side of a tarn and then having to cross some tussocks to get back on course. It did occur to me that ideally this would have been done around dawn. I’d had conversations with both Jane and Andrew about whether it’s worth setting off in less than perfect circumstances, and was beginning to doubt my choices.

I found Rossett Pike summit pretty well, but then (perhaps unsurprisingly) didn’t find the Bowfell trod. Does anyone ever really find the Bowfell trod and stick to it? From checking Strava, it looks like I crossed it at least twice, but didn’t get any quality time with it. I reached Bowfell summit with 12:20 on the clock, a bit slower than I’d have liked, but still ok. Roughly six hours of darkness left. 

I’d been eating and drinking better over the last few hours, and that was starting to pay off. I was still losing a few minutes here and there, but given it was night time, on the highest hills, that felt reasonable. There were still some dodgy lines, but also some good ones. The snow and rime was slippier here, perhaps due to a difference in temperature, moisture, or just my coordination. I’d put my microspikes on from around Ill Crag, having not needed them up to that point. A snow shower blew in on Scafell Pike, which was worrying as it was only about 3am; even the more pessimistic forecast on Thursday had suggested snow might start around 6am. But it cleared after about 15 minutes, and there was no mist yet. 

(It would turn out the snow came in earlier, and more severely than any of the forecasts I’d seen, with an amber warning later in the day! Most of it was focussed on the south-east Lakes, and caused significant disruption to travel. I was quite fortunate, as if I’d seen an accurate forecast I’d probably never have set off, but as it was the area of heavy snowfall just clipped my location.)

I hadn’t decided in advance which way to approach Scafell, thinking it would depend on ground conditions and time. Both factors pointed towards Lord’s Rake and the West Wall Traverse: I didn’t think I had time for Foxes Tarn, but also the conditions underfoot had been generally pretty good. Mostly it was absolutely fine, almost entirely snow-free tucked under Scafell Crag. The only problem was the exit chimney of Deep Ghyll, where ice clogged the back of the gully. It was passable by some awkward bridging, but with either more ice, or without microspikes, I think this would have been impossible. 

The descent off Scafell was good, with any icy patches clearly visible. I took the scree gully route, and discovered frozen scree is not at all helpful, opting for the heather instead. Things gradually eased, and even the stream at the bottom wasn’t an obstacle. I stopped her to sort out my stuff and get ready for the next leg. 8½ hours remained, which was enough, wasn’t it?

I felt good on the way up Yewbarrow. Until, that is, the snow started. Perhaps it was just another shower, but then I entered fog a fair way below the summit. My time on this ascent was good, but on the way down it was becoming apparent the paths were being obscured by snow. Worse, ice on the paths was being obscured by snow, and I had a cartoonish and painful fall at the start of the trod away from the col. This was probably the low point of the round: the realisation that time that had looked sufficient suddenly didn’t, in the mist, darkness, falling snow, and reducing ability to identify paths and obstacles. A sore bottom doesn’t help, either.

But, at this point there wasn’t much for it but to go on and see what happened. I wasn’t exhausted, and it wasn’t windy, so although the weather was unhelpful, it didn’t feel dangerous. I decided that even if I finished after 24 hours, I’d have had a great adventure. Onwards, to Red Pike, in an hour, where it should have taken 50 minutes. Leaving Red Pike’s summit was a good example of the problem: there’s a great grassy trod here somewhere, but it wasn’t visible beneath the snow, and the mist prevented any real sense of direction other than what the compass could tell me. My line across to Steeple was ok, not quite straight, and then the paths became stronger and easier to find. Red Pike to Pillar was roughly another 10 minutes longer than it should have been. At this point, there weren’t many spare minutes on offer.

One of the good things about Pillar is that you can now count the remaining significant ascents on the fingers of one hand. Another is that the descent is mostly runnable. And on this day, it was starting to get light, although in the fog, that didn’t initially make much difference. Amazingly, the Swift torch (apparently only partly charged to start with) had lasted 11 hours, no problem. By Black Sail pass, the light had fully returned, and it was apparent the cloud base was about 100 feet above the pass. Joss’ Gully was free of any troublesome ice, and Kirk Fell came and went, nav now feeling easier in the light.

Great Gable: the last steep ascent. I was feeling strong on the climbs and again this one went well. Poor visibility on the summit, but the mist was thinner here and I could see the line of cairns leading off. I caught an ankle awkwardly on a snow-buried rock, which would trouble me for a few days, but didn’t completely stop me running. I left Gable with around 4 hours left, which was probably about right, but only just.

Between Brandreth and Grey Knotts was where I saw my first people of the day. Two men, asking which way to Great Gable, having declared they’d already walked around in a circle. I said a few sensible things about making sure they had something to navigate with, and that it was misty up there. The line off Grey Knotts was remarkably easy to find, a great big white line in the snow, and the only thing slowing me down now was my ankle. Into Honister with around 3 hours to go. Pretty sure the leg requires 3 hours.

Dale Head, Hindscarth, Robinson. I hadn’t printed a schedule, and would have really liked to know whether I was gaining or losing minutes at this point. I knew it was meant to be 100 minutes from Robinson back to Keswick, but couldn’t remember the other splits. I ate quite a bit over these hills, preparing for a dash (relatively) with no stops. I reached Robinson with 98 minutes to go; must have lost a couple somewhere.

The descent didn’t feel particularly quick. I was moving reasonably well, and found grassy trods to the right of the ridge line, but ended up on the steep rock steps. (In the following 6 months I did numerous reccies and support runs for others, and now know all the best lines!) These weren’t helped by snow cover, and I took a bit of time to be careful and avoid a silly late accident. The steep descent from the tree was also frozen, snowy and awkward. I took a moment at the valley track to remove some kit, and then it was time to run.

Again, I wished I’d done more with a schedule, perhaps noting when I needed to be at Little Town. The minor roads were icy and slightly awkward, but I needed to move it now. I jogged along steadily, taking 9 or 10 minutes per mile. Several times I thought about chucking my pack behind a tree to go faster – there was no rule against leaving kit to collect later. But I seemed to be doing ok. I’d decided that if I could get to Swinside, near the foot at Catbells, with 30 minutes to go, I’d make it. 

I was just ahead of that. Portinscale arrived with 20 minutes to go, and finally I could relax a bit. I’d had visions of either missing 24 hours by a heartbreakingly small margin. But I entered the high street with about 10 minutes left, and reached the Moot Hall on 23:52:02. This was the fifth successful completion of a winter, solo, unsupported round, 36 years after the first one.

Emergency contacts Andrew and Ben were there waiting, with congratulations, photos, and soon, chips. I messaged my wife who had been so supportive of this attempt, despite thinking there was a fair chance I’d die on the fells. I missed a call from the legend that is Martin Stone, whom Andrew had seen at a race and told about this attempt. Well, my phone had been on airplane mode throughout, and I turned it back on but not the ringer. We went to the Keswickian and I ate a plate of fish and chips pretty goddamn slowly. 

Advice

What advice would I give to anyone thinking seriously about this?

1. Flexibility over when you can go will make a big difference to your chances of success. Winter weather is rarely settled for long, and even then, variations in temperature and cloud cover will make a real difference to how it goes.
2. Practice hill days with a heavy bag.
3. Take a laminated sheet showing both a schedule and the bearings needed from every summit, to save time.
4. Kit faff is not to be underestimated. With gloves on, poles, and maybe a map and compass, your hands have a lot to do. Be efficient about sorting stuff out.
5. There are lots of things you’ll want frequently – to have out or put away, and having places in your pack or pockets to stow these are really handy. Hat, buff, gloves, windproof, microspikes, map, compass all came out and went away repeatedly.
6. Therefore clothes with pockets are good.
7. Gloves that are warm enough, but also dexterous enough, are really useful. I got some windproof fleece gloves that worked really well. (But in wetter conditions something waterproof, like overmitts, would be needed.)
8. Water – might freeze, you can warm it inside your clothing, which also makes it easier to drink! Same for food.
9. I took a survival bag and insulated jacket, which were the only things I didn’t use. But it would seem madness not to take them. 
10. Snow/ice conditions can be very localised. Having found everything fine and grippy over the Helvellyn range, I’d been tempted to ditch the microspikes at Dunmail. Glad I didn’t – they sped things up over the higher rocky fells, and made Deep Ghyll (Scafell) passable.