Hello All,
Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this. I couldn't think of any better to get the word out though ultimately this is maybe/probably something that is better aimed at a dedicated scrambling forum if there is one. Please also accept that this my "best effort" retelling of what I know - i am not an organiser of the race (just a participant) but I am taking the initiative to get the word out here as the ultrarunning organisers might not otherwise reach out here.
This weekend a pair of joined ultramarathons took place in snowdonia - the (Ultra Trail Snowdon) UTS50 and UTS100. On a mile per mile basis, these were tough ultramarathons - my pace ended up being nearly a kilometre slower per hour than I have done in any of my 40 or so previous ultras - that's quite a difference and despite as far as I can tell the field consisting mostly of quite experienced participants, the 100 (mile) version had a drop out rate of something like 70% give or take. In other words, these were very hard races by the standards of the activity encompassing all the usual ultra-runner favourites of wind, pain, rain, pain, dark, pain, hallucinations, and more pain.
So, just to get the word out - at around the 75% point of the 50 (and therefore around the 87% point of the 100 - the 50 was the second half of the 50), just as the trail was going up what I believe to be cnicht and where our race-provided maps were already showing a "..." (dangerous terrain) indication, it appears that somebody had moved approximately 4-7 (I think) trail markers from the intended route to a considerably tougher and more vertical scramble. Whoever did this (and it would be highly highly unlikely to have been a competitor) must have known the more difficult scrambling route fairly well as the markers were more or less competently placed for the more vertical route. It also surely must have taken whoever did this ~15 minutes of conscious effort to do this as this would mean going up one route, collecting the markers, going back down, and then scrambling up the harder one while placing them.
I and probably at least 10 others did the tougher bit. Others, including those who had recce'd the route in advance and therefore recognised the markings as wrong or who happened to be able to see others going up the correct safer route avoided it. At least one person's race was ruined (and possibly a few more) because they reached the face, found it too dangerous, and turned back despite having basically have completed the bulk of the race's real challenges at that point. And let's all be grateful that a dropout or two were the extent of the damage - this could have gone far, far worse.
By that point in the race (especially on the 100-miler), competitors are not operating at anything near 100% mentally or physically - some will have been out for 30 continuous hours at at that point. We not unreasonably make small 'local' route choices but generally trust the route to be reasonably signposted - as it basically had been to that point. Had it been a bit wetter, a bit darker, or had somebody's near cramp muscles seized up doing a difficult reach, the result could have quite easily been death. I'm not trying to oversell this - I actually had a lot of fun scrambling up it. But when I caught up to my friend at the top who was just ahead of me, his legs had gone to jelly and both of us were disgusted at how a reasonable race could have done something so beyond-the-pale dangerous. Only when we go to the next checkpoint did we hear of the evolving 'sabotage' story plus news that a team had been sent to fix the markers - thankfully before the bulk of the still active 100-mile competitors reached that point (in darkness!).
Don't get me wrong - we are all big boys and girls responsible for ourselves and who make our own decisions and I'd even venture that pretty much everybody on the race could do the scramble comfortably in nice day conditions. But this wasn't that and it could have gone badly. If you know who did this, please drive the point home to them that it well may have been culpable homicide. Please - if you have some philosophical objections to ultramarathons in your/pristine/whatever area, make them through proper channels. If you are trying to send a message about your philosophical opposition to the use of course markers (which were as far as I knew professionally labelled and geotagged for later pickup - these were not just bits of plastic tape). Whatever the reason for the apparent vandalism, the realistic potential consequences were not worth it.
Thanks for reading / sorry for the length.