Panarams

Very bored at work this week, so have put up one or two panaramic shots that I had on my work computer - some have been seen before, some not. May put up some more in due course. They are on Flickr, so click on the pic below and It'll whisk you there...






Right, I'm going climbing at Amersham wall, with Jay!

The Langdales and Gales!

After the annoyance with m car last weekend, I was full of enthusiasm to get back up to the Lakes this weekend and have a go at another wild camp with the intention of doing a two day circuit around the Langdale valley. My route would start on Friday night, going up the path to Stickle Tarn from the Dungeon Gill Hotel in the dark, camping and then setting off up Jack's Rake, over the Langdales and north to High Raise, before heading back towards Angle Tarn where I'd camp, but not before popping up to Glaramara and back. Sunday I intended on closing the loop, going round Bow Fell, coming down via the White Stones path. Well, that was the plan, and after a careful pack on Thursday night, I just managed to get everything in my day bag, which weighed 1 3/4 stone!

I got up to Langdale about 8:20 and drove around for about 40 mins, trying to find either a quiet spot to the side of the road or get in touch with Steffi for our National Trust membership number, as I didn't have £12 cash for the two days parking. The situation sorted itself when on my return to the Old Dungeon Gill Hotel, I saw the sign that said you can pay them to park in their carpark and the nice lady at reception said 'oh don't worry, you can just park there for free', result!

So off I toddled and got up to Stickle Tarn about 10pm, where I spent ages trying to find a sheltered spot (it was absolutely howling) that wasn't already occupied by six sheep, but I got there in the end and pitched, inserted earplugs and regretted not having a hip flask.

Saturday morning dawns bright and cheery. Not.

Up at 6:30, it was now raining and good fun trying to pack the tent away. I got into another sheltered spot and made some coffee behind a rock whilst checking out Jack's Rake, but came to the conclusion that it was just too windy to attempt on my own, so I headed to the more sheltered Easy Gully and got almost flattened on reaching the summit!

I went quickly over to Harrison Stickle and the wind was getting stronger, if anything, then down crossing the stream to Loft Crag, I got blown off the stepping stones and got a boot full of water. Nice.






En route back down to the DGH it looked much more civilised.


Climbing up to Pike of Stickle, I reckon that the forecast of 85mph+ gusts was correct as it was impossible to stand up and very dangerous and I was hanging onto rocks! My roll mat which was lashed to my bag and had been acting like a sail, was blown off at some point.

After trying to locate the start of the path to High Raise, I realised that a full day off this combined with my already wet boot was going to make life very uncomfortable, so I did the only sensible thing and headed back down, missioning it home for 6pm!

The video clip below was taken on the sheltered side of Loft crags. You get the picture. I was shouting....

Hellvelyn Shambles er I mean Scrambles

Never have the forces of nature and the law of sod combined so effectivley with a higher than usual perpancity for faffing to result in a background of utter organisational chaos from which we managed to rescue a mighty fine weekend.

Despite the entire English media attempting to convince us that waking within a 4 mile radius of Hevellyn or the surrounding area would result in certain death or dismemberment we rocked up to very good visibility and low winds with a scattering of snow on the last bits of the ridge and summit.


Rich, almost indistinguishable from his natural surroundings, blending effortlessly
into the background

Rich on striding edge on the way up, not the most technical or scary scramble we've done but well worth the trip, presence of more snow would have made things a bit spicier.


Daryl 'not so indistinguishable-sonic blue boom' Finter


Bigfoot


Daves pauses to digest another Ranulph Fiennes fact from Rich, 50% of climbers die on unstable
snow packs.........................................

One of the patches of snow just before the summit on the striding edge side, swiral edge itself actually had more of a covering of unavoidable snow with the top 40-50ft requiring a bit of thought over foot placement.


Car's broken, a*se.
One broken car on the way to Great Gable, the law of sod carefully arranged for this to occur on the steepest and most remote road in England, HardKnott Pass, excellent


Can you tell whats going on, because we've patented this idea and we'll be sending the boys round.

Waiting for the AA with nothing but tea, Gavs monumental supply of food, Family Guy on teh iphone, surround sound................the perils of Lake District adventure. Still, scuppered any walking plans woth teh shortest route 3.5 hours and 3 hours of light remaining after the car was fixerated, quick change of plans and back to Sheff for a spott of climbing.

Climbing pics to follow

Hi, I'm Ed Winchester

There it is. Not content with rubbing our European noses in his South American adventures, Bob shows off his new woman, complete with red highlights and fresh from the waxing salon. Looks like she's probably gonna ask you to do some DIY, Bob, as the plastering in that gaff is horrific... Must stop thinking DIY, pretent to be normal.. pretend to be normal!

Gay Paris

Having purchased ourselves a spanking new Nikon D40X for Christmas both me and the woman have both decided we've got Bailey licked and Branfield doesn't stand a chance.....er....or not.

Spent 3 days beating Paris with the tourist stick and got along the Seine, in the Louvre around the Notre Dame up the Eiffel Tower and round the Montmartre whilst taking photos every 5 paces. We rocked up onto the Trocedero at about 10.30 and chugged wine till midnight when the tower lit up and we dodged a champagne cork delugue from everyone else watching.

Saw an amazing amount even if we didn't have a massive amount of time and I discovered that travelling by metro and not falling over when under the influence of several carrafs of wine becomes easier if tied to the train by your scarf.



Big ole' shiny tower thingy


Going up?


Champane glasses and posh bubbly a go go.


Yikes!! Windmill in the head!


Ahhh, innit pretty

Brecon Beacons

Gem and I (Daryl) took a little jaunt off to mid Wales at the weekend to work off some Christmas excess and to rid myself of no sport cabin fever...
Booked oursleves into a sumptious double en-suite beauty courtesy of the YHA at the foot of Pen Y Fan and headed off in our wonderful little hire car



Beep Beep

On Saturday morning we were expecting some sunshine....Maybe not then. Arrived to glorious snow instead and set about our planned route up to Corn Du, onto Pen Y Fan and then Cribyn. After some testing navigation in the nigh on zero visibility we got onto our summit ridge only to be buzzed repeatedly by the mountain rescue chopper-bit disconcerting really!! Anyway got up Corn Du and then Pen y Fan to be met by some major winds and hail-lovely, missed out Cribyn as light was fading so headed back down to finish the loop and eat some sausages...

Sunday saw us tackle something a tad gentler in the shape of Sugarloaf as the forecast 60mph gusts didn't inspire us to get up on anymore ridges. This actually turned into a cracker as we had awesome views all the way up (+no camera battery!!) and then some epic winds on the final haul to the top which actually had us on the floor a couple of times-Gems fault not mine of course-ahem....pretty sketchy at the top actually so had a quick peek and then headed down into rain being driven into our faces-yes I love Welsh weather.

Back into the beauty-cup of tea, gingerbread man, home. Job Done..

Posts

Lots has happened recently - we had a cracking New Year at Jen's Mum's place in Colchester, I went clay pigeon shooting with John L and Andy (who used to work at the studio) at Andy's Dad's place in Leicestershire which was ace. Also Chris and I had a good blast out on the steeds at Leith the other weekend - we were surprised at how busy it was and to see a few lads out on full on DH rigs, mirror goggles, the works. Makes me wonder what we've missed, but probably, as normal, nothing that requires that level of bounce! Need to be out more as I managed to fall off in truly amazing style going down the bank to the tin shed. Oh dear... All good events and no piccies through amazing amounts of laziness. Bum. Cars have been conspiring against all of us - particularly me and Chris - but this didn't stop Daryl and Gem who have been away this weekend... Good stuff.

With the snow looking good, I can't wait to get up to the Lakes for three days with everyone this coming weekend and be 'captain new' with all my sale purchases, gunna be cold and fashionable! Oh and there's 180cm (40 of it ffffresh) in Auron, where Steffi and I are in 5 weeks time! Hope it stays. Woop!

Wetherlam and Swirl How

(bigger version of this on Flickr!)


Steffi and I did a nice loop in the Lakes on the 30th December, celebrating two years since I proposed and trying out various new bits of shiny gear that had been purchased/given over the festive period! We traveled up to Jenny's place in Sheffield, the night before, which was very nice and helped keep costs down... Got up early the next day and drove over the Peaks to Glossup in really bad fog, and then on to Manchester and up to the Lakes. The view as we drove through the dawn past Low Wood hotel on the shores of Windermere were spectacular and you could see the hills we were headed for looking beautiful.

We got up to the spot on the Wynrose Pass and parked before heading up to start our loop, climbing to the top of the ridge and along it, dropping down to a bridge at the bottom of the valley. After crossing the bridge, we walked up towards the disused mine and on Steffi's request, headed straight up the face above it! This was a bit of a climb and we were both feeling the Christmas indulgences slowing progress. However, with minimal complaint, Steffi got up to a really cool mine shaft set into the hill and after a quick breather, we carried on up and with a bit of low grade scrambling and some false summits, we were on the top of Weatherlam and enjoying the last of the turkey sandwiches, the great view over to The Old Man of Conniston and some of our wedding cake that Steffi's parents had brought over for us!








After this it was down to the pass which sees a track run of to Levers Water and Conniston, but straight up the Prison Band for us, and more light scrambling in places on which Steffi acquitted herself very well, but complained, hehe (turned out we ended up doing over 1000m of climbing for my 'easy walk' - I knew she'd be up to it!). As we reached the top, the cloud decended and visibility was down to about 20m, but with the compass set after a false start, we were off and climbing down around the horseshoe back towards the car.

After a small hicup and tense moment as we ran over a massive rock, pulling back onto the road - it crushed the jacking point behind the passenger side whee!l - we were off and made excellent time back to MK - 3 1/2 hours!








A picture of the loop grabbed from Google Earth (it remains their copyright)

Is it ever dry in Bracknell?

no.

I've figured out why it didn't actually rain when we were in Bracknell, because all the water, in the world, was already on the floor. Until we arrived at which point it mixed with mud and most of it ended up on me and Dave.

I was going to night ride ride one evening with Adam this week except the water from Bracknell has recirculated and is falling on Brighton, below is an artists impression of me and Adam riding at night

Birthday rain walk...

Mud, mud, mud. Rain, rain, rain. Oh, and some sheep. Steffi took me on a nice walk around the Cotswold hillocks on Saturday, for my birfdee. We wore jeans and got very wet and cold. How irresponsible! Luckily it wasn't too bad and we really enjoyed it, retiring to a pub and a cruise round the Christmas market at Stow on the Wold, complete with mulled wine, minced pie, tarteflette and a bloomin nice blue cheese dried sausage. Mon Dieu.

Bum

Crash. Bang. Wallop. Daryl's broken.

Lakes trip with Out There

What ho internet land!

Last weekend saw Jay, Jay's housemate Chris, and I mission it up to the Lakes on Friday night after possibly some of the most hectic couple of weeks at work, for me at least. Luckily we were in the safe hands of James Linford, a wise old mountain goat of a man that got most of us hooked on the outdoors as kids. James runs an outdoor club based in Colchester, Out There, and brought along some familiar old faces from when we where younger and in my case, more athletic!

The weather was bad to say the least and as we approached Ambleside, the SPORT rated tank that Jay had borrowed from work, was reading -5 C. After what seemed like three hours sleep, we woke to cold, dark rain and made ready to become miserable. Saturday really was quite a horrific weather up on the hills - sleet, ice and 55 knot winds making it one of those days that sting your face and make you look forward to a hot bath and a pint, but it was great to have such good company and whats life without a challenge? We did a route from Langdale up Crinckle Crags and then onto Pike of Blisco which was a good challenge and made more interesting by the ice and generally slippery rock! It was great to get back to the YHA and warm up though and a typically epic pasta meal ensued along with some engaging mared tete and a few sly ales...


Sunday dawned better with no rain and the promise of clearing weather, which held true and our route from the Copper Mines, Miner's Bridge up round the Old Man of Conniston was thoroughly pleasant with the cloud closing a bit towards the end. Lots of fell running chaps were about to make us feel inadequate as they jogged on past us. Jay, Chris and I had to cut the route a bit short as we popped in to Arnside to visit Jays Grandparents and drove home all tired and satisfied!






Ice!



Thats what 55 knots windspeed does to you!

Captain Slow goes all X-Country

Last Sunday I competed in the ActionAsia MTB Classic race, consisting of two 15km loops around Tai Lam Chung reservoir in the west of Hong Kong. You could either do one lap or two - I thought I was doing just the one until the guy from work (James 'Fishboy') who entered me informed me that I was doing the whole shabang; obviously I didn't want to look unmanly so I didn't dispute this. So with my saddle up to the maximum and some power-energy-gel stuff at the ready, off I went. It was really quite hard!

I finished in 2:26:47, slightly ahead of the people whose bikes had broken so they had to carry them. I was actually quite proud of my time considering a) I am a lard-arse b) my bike weighs quite a lot and is all squidgy and c) I fell off in true style and had to get minor medical attention (seriously, it was a beauty - I tried to ride up a small set of steps, got it all wrong, punted straight into them and went over the handlebars in front of a group of elderly chinese ramblers, who all started screaming. It doesn't get much more rad). James finished in 2:07:55. Also riding that day was James's brother-in-law Martyn who was visiting from NZ - he finished in a very impressive 1:49:47. Thanks to Martyn for the photo below, which was taken after the race. Note the particularly pleasant belly-sweat patch.

Bracknell Sleet Fest

Damn cold and wet... Thats right. Thats what it was and there was no escaping it. The trees tried to stop it but when your pants are wet, your PANTS ARE WET and the heated carpark debate about which waterproof to put on really didn't matter. May I point out that Daryl actually said that he was going to buy some leggings. 3/4 lenght buggers to boot. AND I AM LORD LYCRA?!?! I ASK YOU!

Anyway. We hit up a familiar route round Bracknell's trails with a few forays off to find some new stuff and I was quite impressed with how Gareth's riding has come on, on his new Orange Crush, complete with whopping discs. Even though it was sodden, we had a good bash and found some of the gems that have been constructed since I, at least, rode there last in the summer... Up near the tree run downhills (which are now a lot more channeled into the earth and a bit tighter) the one on the left as you approach has been finished off in style. Much better than last time with some tight banked and bermed corners and a few little jumps it was very flow-y! Think this was what Adam had been talking about, and a nice surprise.

We ended up back at the cars, exhausted after I stacked in the ice-mud of the gully jumps and spent about three hours restoring core temperature and driving home looking like St Trinian's Girls.

Mike Rides Again! (Hong Kong stylee)

I finally got my buttocks in gear today and took my bike out. I discovered that the old Enduro very nearly fits into the boot of a standard Hong Kong taxi, with just enough fork sticking out for the flapping, bungeed boot to smack up and down on the front caliper. Perfect!

I peddled up to the top of Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong's highest peak (957 metres - massive), with a view to riding down a trail I'd been spying on the way up. There is, however, a considerable weather station on the peak, and there was no way to get anywhere near any trails, so I rolled back down the hill trying to look as rad as possible. Hooking up with a trail further down, I experienced first-hand an issue that is upsetting many a local rambler; everytime there is something even vaguely approaching an incline, the kindly HK government build a lot of steps. If it looks like it's going to break the 1:10000 incline limit, they put in a handrail as well. This is very annoying.

Close to despair, my luck changed when I ran into a group of local riders tweaking their bikes in a layby. Turns out they were running a couple of downhill routes, and invited me along. Better still, they'd hired an uplift van. They made it very clear to me that this was an illegal activity, and if we got caught I'd have to go to court and pay a fine of £30! I accepted the risk, safe in the knowledge that I could say 'I'M BRITISH, DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!' and still get away with it, God bless the Empire. And the good times ensued. Safe to say, I'm now an official member of the Hong Kong downhilling scene of 12 people.

Friday feeling.

As its been hard to get out and ride together because of weekend commitments, I thought I'd make use of Chris' slack working practices (i.e. half day Fridays) and we hooked up down at Holmbury Hill in the ghettos of the Surrey badlands... Ahem.

Had rained the day previously and was a little soggy under tread but still thoroughly enjoyable as I wondered if Yoghurt Pots got its name from the soggy pits in the bottom of the little whoops? First trail was the afore mentioned 'Pots' which we ran a blew the cobwebs away a bit and then carried on in true style down the Telegraph Road and down the rest of the Hill. After climbing back up we had a had a word with the Ranger who pointed us in direction of Barry Knows Best which was better than I remembered from riding it with Adam ages ago. It was so good in fact that even after the steepest push up in history (a challenge for Manning Jones to ride up I think!), I got out the full face and Heath Robinson-ed the video camera onto it to film a second run, which will appear below this writing in a day or so...

After this and the steep push up again (!) the light was seriously starting top fade so we thought what better than to run T'Pots and Telegraph again at breakneck speed which made it all the more enjoyable. QUALITY!

A lovely jolly to Keenya!

Last week I went on a trip with school to Kenya to do some charity work with a school near Nairobi, followed by 3 days on safari in the Maasai Mara. It was an amazing experience overall, Kenya is very interesting and I'd certainly consider a trip back there again. On the last night we had an 'meat extravaganza' - I ate beef, pork, chicken, ostrich, camel, crocodile and buffalo in one sitting. The next day I had a dodgy stomach, I wonder why?

The photo below shows me lookning unbelievably smug in front of the Great Rift Valley, which is really quite big.

Beautiful Welsh cwm

Well, late on the words, but nice to reflect on what was another ace weekend of weather, which we were fortunate enough to be walking in Wales for. Saturday saw an early start from MK and after driving there, we had the firm intention of doing a route up the Caniefon Arette. This would have been great, but we misjudged the actual arette and basically did a variation/scramble up the down route for the Idwal slabs... Was a good route though and we Topped out on the West end of Glyder Fawr and then headed round to Y Garn, after a spot of lunch. Stunning views down the valley.

Then it Was off to Ffyninon Wen (i think) to our yha, which was brand new and very well appointed except that there were no kitchen facilities... You could have food gourmet cooked though - not the YHA way and I'd much prefer a kitchen! We braved watching the Rugby world cup in a N Wales pub, which could have been spicy, but was OK...

Next day we had decided to do the Crib Goch route up to Snowdon, as Rich hasn't been up before and the weather was perfect, if not a bit windy with some truely epic views of the summit and others!

Jay unfortunately had to bow out half way up as he had killer blisters and was really going through the mill. Southern Softy. Only damper really, other than Daryl's absence. Another excellent IBFC trip!

On a more serious note, I got an email from freind James Linford with a shocking bit of news from his trip to Wales last week:

Sadly, on the Friday, a 10 year old boy died after taking a serious fall on Crib Goch. It was wet, windy and very cloudy. A man and three boys had wandered off the main ridge and got stuck in a steep area of loose rock. They tried to climb out and one lad fell to his death. We were some of the first people on the scene and were very involved in looking after the rest of his group and looking for the casualty. Kelvin and I found his body and did CPR until mountain rescue arrived. He died from severe head injuries. The dense cloud prevented a helicopter rescue. Our group worked really well together; looking after the others, communicating with mountain rescue HQ and dealing with the casualty.

Be careful out there.