I would like to say that my original post was NOT intended to criticise the practice of a reconnaissance as such, or to suggest it is morally wrong. There is no rule against reconnaissance, and I can think of a number of situations and personal circumstances where some reconnaissance might be helpful.

Whether someone does a reconnaissance or not, they still have to walk the hundred miles. I know some people like to do the whole route beforehand and treat doing so as a recreation pursuit in its own right. That is fine with me - and I can certainly understand that it is interesting to view "the night section" in daylight - which would otherwise be a bit of a mystery tour. So, I am not an antireconnaissanceist* ( *I just made this word up)

Also, I would be personally surprised if anyone carried out a reconnaissance just to identify potential shortcuts beforehand. The subject of deliberate "deviations off route" seems to me to be a quite separate matter.

Since this post may have been triggered by my piece on recce-ing next year's hundred, I think I should reply. I'm doing an early recce for three reasons. First, I'm marshalling on the event (and doing the marshal's walk) and am feeding back any problems and issues which I have found with the route and RD (none significant so far apart from one wrong bearing), keeping in mind that it's seven months away. Second, I live near enough to this route to be able to get there and back in a day on public transport. I expect to be more busy next spring than at the present, and since I'm doing small distances a day at a time, before the winter is much better than after. Third, I enjoy doing a new LDP at my own pace, even though taking notes is pretty tedious.

Hundreds are so challenging, particularly for a walker (I don't run and therefore take two nights - I didn't think it was possible to be asleep on your feet, but it is) that making more sure that I understand the route and its major places to go wrong - and there always are - just eases the business of keeping going for more than 40 hours without sleep. If the route were further away I would recce only the night-time stages, perhaps none of it. Seven months from now I will have forgotten much of the non-problem bits, but I will have emphasised in my notes where those are, and will be better able to identify them out should others go astray.

After 50 years of walking there isn't much left that's new and really challenging, but these are, and I'll continue to do them for as long as I'm able. Doing recces is a way of lessening the chances of going wrong, not a shortcut to what is already a monumentally difficult piece of sustained endurance requiring months of preparation. I'm just starting earlier this time.

Maybe some do a reccie to find all the short cuts, not unheard of. On one hundred a walker was bragging in the pub on the Friday night before the hundred that they got it down to just above 90 miles.

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The only reason for a reccie that I can see, is to go faster and try to set a new PB or "race" others. But to me it rather defeats the object of the challenge and event, I don't actually want to cover the same ground twice just so I can go slightly faster the second time, I can enter a proper race for that.

In these days of all singing & dancing electronic devices to help navigate and route descriptions covering virtually every yard there seems even less reason and need to reccie, if you can't get round quick enough with a GPS you must have a problem.

I did the Valleys 100 slightly differently as I wanted to prove a point to myself. I did no reccie (obviously), no GPS (don't own one), left the route descriptions at home and marked out the route on some printed 1:25K from OS getamap + a compass. So solely map and compass all the way, nothing else.

Not the best route for that, with far too many towns and niggly suburban bits to navigate around and I struggled there, the open hills I made no mistakes, but some serious "misplacements" in and around towns. And I lost a 5 mile section of my map so had to go with some walkers, lost a lot of time overall, I think, but finished in 32 hours. So it can be done and I felt quite pleased with myself!

Maybe we can have a proper 100 one day, organised like the SSC and old challenge walks, turn up, mark your map and go, that would be fun. Matt.

I agree. To me the time saving * if any, is irrelevant (anyway, it is not a race) because I quite enjoy navigating in "unknown" country. If I had walked the route a lot beforehand, it would lose all the sense of discovery and interest. Not knowing exactly what the next section is like is actually an attraction. *Could it really be measured in hours? Is that many people's experience?

The 100 is a major undertaking and I suspect the reason people recce the route is so they don't have route finding issues on the event itself. If the route is familiar I suspect the time savings can be measured in hours rather than minutes. As a rule I prefer to not recce the route so it is fresh and interesting on the day.

I have noticed that there are often postings (mostly on the "Events" forum) about the subject of reconnaissance of the 100 route.

It seems taken for granted this is a good thing (?)

However, I have not seen any serious and objective discussion about the purpose and value of doing a reconnaissance beforehand. I can understand the assistance this may give with navigation and preparation. But, for me, I find it detracts from the challenge and adventure in doing a 100, and I think it could lead to certain sense of "done it all before" on the day.

So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of reconnaissance??