Sharing the ground: etiquette on a multi-day fastpack

Almost every complaint about runners on shared ground comes down to the same thing: somebody appeared from behind, faster than expected, and gave no warning. It is not that running is resented. It is that being overtaken without notice by something moving three times your speed is startling, and being startled on a narrow path above a drop is worse than startling.

This matters more in fastpacking than in trail running because the ground is more remote, the other people on it are more committed, and you will meet the same ones repeatedly over several days. A runner who is rude at nine in the morning meets the same party at the shelter that evening.

The whole of the etiquette below reduces to giving people warning and time. Everything else is detail.

• Announce yourself early and gently — A greeting from ten metres back, not a shout from two. "Morning — behind you when you’re ready" gives somebody time to move without feeling pushed. Bells and shouted "on your left" translate badly in Britain, where the convention is a spoken hello.
• Slow down to pass, always — The eight seconds this costs is the entire price of being welcome. Passing at speed on a narrow path is the single behaviour that generates complaints about runners.
• Yield uphill, and yield to everything with more inertia — Walkers going up have the harder job and less ability to step aside. Horses need a wide berth and a spoken greeting so they hear a human rather than see a moving shape. Give way to laden walkers on narrow ground even when the convention says otherwise.
• Do not run through a group — Threading a line of walkers at pace is deeply unpopular. Wait, or ask, or go round on stable ground.
• Stay on the line, especially when it is wet — Running round a boggy section widens the path, and fastpackers travel light and fast enough to be tempted more often than most. This is the one where a runner does measurably more damage than a walker.
• Gates as you found them, and no shortcuts — Standard, and worth repeating because momentum is exactly what makes people leave a gate.

• Arrive late, leave early — and be quiet doing both — The standard wild camping practice, and fastpacking makes it easier rather than harder because you are carrying so little. A tarp or a light shelter pitched at dusk and gone at dawn is close to invisible. Head torch pointed down.
• Do not pitch on top of somebody — Space is not scarce on most British high ground and there is no reason to be within earshot. Somebody who walked all day for solitude did not walk there for company.
• A bothy is a shared building, not a booking — You cannot reserve one and you cannot be full. If you arrive and there is one space, you take one space; if somebody arrives at midnight, you make room. Fastpackers are more likely than most to arrive very late, which makes the quiet-arrival part specifically your problem.
• Carry out everything, and that includes what you buried — Human waste, wrappers, and the tea bag. Fastpacking’s weight discipline works against this, and it is the one place where a few extra grams are not negotiable.
• Leave a bothy better stocked than you found it — Fuel, a candle, dry kindling. The convention is that you leave the place ready for somebody arriving wet at night, because one day that is you.
• Do not treat a mountain hut like a resupply — Where staffed accommodation exists, it is a business with bookings and a kitchen, not a service station. Turning up unbooked at eight in the evening because you were making good time is the fastest way to become the story staff tell.

The sport is small enough that the conventions between fastpackers are still being set, and two are worth naming because they are easy to get wrong.

The first is about routes. People share them generously, and they share them with conditions attached — where the water is, which bridge is out, which landowner minds. Passing on a route without the conditions is worse than not passing it on, and publishing somebody’s hard-won line as your own discovery is the thing that makes people stop sharing.

The second is about records and reporting. Self-reported times on unsupported journeys work entirely on trust, and the sport has repeatedly demonstrated how fragile that is. The convention is to be conservative in what you claim, explicit about any support you had, and generous about other people’s efforts. Nobody minds a slow report. Everybody minds a vague one.