Sunday 28 March 2010

The Cleveland Survival - a grammatical challenge

YC ran The Cleveland Survival yesterday - a 26 mile navigation event in the North Yorkshire Moors. The weather was beautiful with blue skies and a cooling breeze, so survival was not really an issue. The route included the local landmarks of Roseberry Topping and Captain Cook's Monument. YC took just over 4 hours and finished in second place (blimey).

Navigation was generally fairly simple, with well defined paths and in the early stages a host of walkers to follow. However YC did encounter a sign of which Lynne Truss (of Eats Shoots & Leaves fame) would have been proud. It read "No route for survival" with an arrow pointing to the right. YC duly went to the left, only to discover this was precisely where he wasn't supposed to go. Apparently the sign should have been read as "No route, for survival [follow the arrow to the right]". The pedant in YC thought the sign-writer would have done better to omit the word "no".

more detailed report on NFR website