Dorset Climb

I drove down to Pompey on Friday arvo, to take advantage of Daryl's flexi time and we headed straight over the Sandbanks ferry, picking up a court summons, to start a very wierd 24 hours...


We'd planned to do a spot of sport climbing at Winspit, bivvy at the crag and then carry on early o'clock the next day. This started well, with a bit of a leaden sky and some rain dodging, we managed to get a few nice routes in before feeling the fatigue and finding a nice 'cave witha view' for cooking up some din dins!





We then toddled off up to the pub for a few ciders and crossed paths with a group of people coming down. We duly carried on and enjoyed the atmosphere at the pub and the Morris men all getting drunk. We then headed back down, only to find that the group of people that we'd met on the way up were a group of Poles from London, having a party, so we were offered vodka and joined in!



Several hours later and after we'd promised half of Poland that we'd teach them to sport climb, we dug our bags out of their excellent hiding spot and bivvied down, somewhat ready for bed. The next day I felt awful (stomach bug, not hang over, well maybe a bit) and could hardly walk, let alone climb, so after a few aborted attempts, I gave over to belay only, whilst Daryl dug deep and did an excellent route to finish - probably the best he's done outdoors - and only completed because there were people watching.

I was so ill that I had to stop driving on my way home and it knocked me out for the entire weekend. Still don't feel 100%. What did help was a four hour ride yesterday where I really did get to grips with the new Trek. I'm LOVING it!


Daryl on the newly bolted route. Excellent!


Oh, remember that its CASH ONLY on the sandbanks ferry and don't point out to the jobsworth that you can use a card for any amount anywhere these days...

The Beast is BACK!

Thats right, back on the bike!!!



After much deliberation, price ups on Santa Cruz Nomads and general can I, can't I, I bit the bullet and managed to buy an 08 Trek Remedy 8, which my LBS had been using as their demo - but had only been out a handful of rides. As a result, I'm really pleased as I have an awsome and very fast steed again!




The Gerbil gets airbourne...


The new Bombers are prime for this stuff.


Jon has been building up his sweet little Stinky in prep for our four day Alpine assault next week, and getting in the practice down at Woburn when he's not been working. Very nice the build is looking too, with some nice new hope hubs and brakes, its mostly complete. Fast too, Jon put me to shame on the trails he's been running and neither of us can wait to get out to see Chris. BOOOYAAA!

WE DID IT!!!!

Edinburgh Marathon 2009 and we all made it!!!

Here's a sneaky pic but I will do a proper post next week as I am hectic at the mo! Thanks for the pic Amy!xx

What do you mean it's May!!

Well it's done, Kate and myself have just completed our first winter season. We are both completely exhausted but unbelievably pleased with how it's all gone.

The last 6-8 months have been so far removed from anything else we've done and it's all gone in a complete blur despite the near vertical learning curve. Joe Public can be a funny old sausage but in general pretty much everyone we've met so far as guests have been really friendly and easy to look after.

It's not been easy meeting people as we've been so busy and spent the first 3 weeks running on pure fear with the odd shot of adrenaline whilst feeling like the squeaky clean new kids on the bloc every time we met someone who was in their 4billionth season and owns 8 chalets and the south side of Morzine.

It is getting easier as we settle in to the way of life and I think summer will help as it's easier to meet people living out there year round as we're not so busy and there are less seasonaires (who I swear were all about 16 years old and had unfathomable fashion sense, good god I'm getting old, yoof of today, wasn't like that in my time, isn't the music loud in here). Also don't quite feel like the new kids on the bloc and having done reasonably well feel like we aren't just talking the talk.

Snow-wise we couldn't have been luckier, every 10-days to 2 weeks it snowed heavily on demand and even with our limited time to get on the mountain we still got our fair share of powder so the guests must have been loving it!


muchos white and powdery stuff

The worries of running your own business never quite disappear even when your on 'holiday' but on the other hand I can't remember the last time I was bored or was wondering what I was going to do with my life! Given the choice we'd be working on some property over the summer but we need to wait another year or so before anyone will consider lending to us as a business so it's all attention on the summer market for biking, walking etc.


parapenting email shot

It's pretty tricky trying to include everyone in your marketing for fear of alienating a certain group i.e. too much of a downhill 'too cool for school' biking image would put familys off but at the same time we might end up not appealing to anyone.

Once some of the general marketing is out of the way I'd like to concentrate on the biking bit more, it seems daft not too as it's so much fun out here. I'm looking forward to riding just as much as I was looking forward to boarding. Really looking forward to exploring the unknown bits so we can hit them up as soon as people come out for a visit, as long as we put Finter in charge of leading the way lest I fall foul of the long arm of the Gendarme for 'le illegal guiding' punishable by beheading on the guillotine.

It's been good to catch up with everyone although way too quick and I don't think I realised how much I miss having everyone around as we we're so busy. It's been really good to have Rob down the road as we haven't even lived in the same country for about 3 years never mind within walking distance. His experiences also make me want to make sure we never turn into anything like some of the flaky clusterf*ck holiay and tourism companies out there that seem to survive and take peoples money depsite having their heads secured firmly where the snow doesn't fall.


summer leaflet


alternative summer leaflet

Have just got a copy of photoshop on trial and have got a little bit carried away!! The first 'brown' leaflet is going on a textured rough card/heavy paper and just playing around with the second design. T-shirt desgins on the way although not to be worn whilst-
riding like a gimp
struggling uphill behind finter (that'd be me then, boarding not good for stamina apparently)
making a menance of oneself round pompey (ahem)
wearing any items of lycra
er.... list could be much much longer.

Peace

www.mountainspaces.com
catered and self catered holidays in the french alps

Beast of the East

Just had my first blast on the Beast of the East. Sweet little retro hybrid that I got given by Steffi's brother. Its great! I did an hour trip and then a 45 min run after with Ant... All part of the training.

Will give it a service and post some pics.

Oh Bugger...

Have been riding midweek recently with Jon, down at Woburn, enjoying the light in the evening and the rather fine and sunny weather that we have been experiencing! Lots has been built down there lately and we've been having a blast.

During a reasonably tame trail section, I was very surprised when I heard a 'ting' on a small drop down and then the rear end of my bike fell away over the next jump... Turned out I've destroyed the weld on my rear swingarm and it snapped! Even worse, I've since found out the Spesh don't warrenty this part as they consider it suspension related! Adam is coming to the rescue, but I'm a bit peeved, to say the least...



Anyway, I was set to ride today, so hired a Trek Remedy from my LBS and was thoroughly impressed. Barring a few minor tweaks so it would be set up as I liked (Shorter stem, less upsweapt and wide bars) and it would be pretty awesome trail machine.



Having said that, it didn't feel as solid as the Enduro, having what I can only describe as a 'plasticy' feel that I put down to the lighter build spec. Very chuckable though and it also felt fast on the ups and downs. The Lyrik fork was quite awesome, basically and I want one!

I rode with Jon, who has recently re-entered the riding scene with a Kona Stinky custom build that he is loving and Stu, one of Rob Bowles' friends from Uni - rob was scuppered by a knackered rear mech. Sun was out and it was nice to have a chilled trail/sesh ride, stopping off here and there for some photos, cake and jumping off little things.






Putting the Remedy through the jumps...


Stu does it properly with added gurn.

Marathon Sponsorship

As most people who know us, know, Daryl and I were involved in a fall coming down from a climb on Snowdon earlier this year in appalling weather. Having both made very good recoveries from our various injuries, we decided to dedicate our marathon running efforts towards providing as much sponsorship money as possible to the Mountain Rescue service volunteers who risked their own lives in our rescue.

The whole of the MRT service is volunteer based and funded through donations from the public, so please sponsor our run in the Edinburgh Marathon in late May, as we are training hard and all proceeds will go to MRT.

We have set up a Just Giving secure donation page, to make donations as easy as possible:

www.justgiving.com/darylanddave

This is where you can find details of the excellent service that the Mountain Rescue volunteers provide in all weathers around the clock:

www.mountain.rescue.org.uk

Running is fun.

Fun Run. Thats fun. What Daryl and I did last on the Fri bank holiday was far away from that. We converged on Windsor Castle in very skimpy shorts and broke free down the Long Walk for a killer loop that saw us take in all sorts of wooded delights, one or two too many inclines and a gang of deer...

We got a bit lost and our intended route was 14 miles on the dot, but we ended up doing 15.5 miles and neither of us had a watch, so I don't know what the timings were. Poor show, I know. Anyway, both our groins packed in and the poor sods that were visiting Windsor had to witness us limping through town, bearing far too much thigh whilst soaked in rain and sweat, before changing in the multi-story carpark, which drew some very long stares from be-rangerovered mums.

In other exploits, I've been getting back out on the bike as there are people to ride with here in MK now that Jon's bought a new Kona rig and we are trying to ride at Woburn and Bow as much as pos. Pics will be back when the camera is put into commission.

Air time

Having spent much time windsurfing snowboarding and a bit of time mountain biking, one tends to get some air. I have pushed it with the snowboarding this year with the hungarian flatmate Matays who is just a little crazy and doesnt have so much regard for personla safety We have dropped some silly things. Cliffs windlips houses whatever can be found. Must say mostly only in powder as a stack early on in the season left me with a useless arm for 3 days.





Getting air for me is one of the best bits of the sport. Those few seconds when you are 10 foot above things and have a chance to look at the ground/ water and think S**t im a long way off the ground is one of the best feelings in my opinion. Surrounded by amazing settings this is what its all about for me.




matays just before dropping the satelight on the last powder day of the season.

Having had one last powder day. The descion was made between Matayas and I that we wanted bigger air. Something like 1000m and instead of a a few seconds air time how about 10 minutes. Bring on the parapante course.

Running off the side of a mountain with a large parachute strapped to your back is a pretty big rush especialy when its a solo flight and never havig done anything like it before. Two flights done now. Next step learn about thermals and instead of just gliding down catch the air up like a bird and stay higher for longer. Bring it on.

Due to snowboarding, windsurfing, surfing or parapanting not being included in ibrakeforcake at no time during these activities was any cake eaten during brakes! But thought I would let you know what goes on any way!





cake could be eaten during these activities!

www.mountainspaces.com
catered and self catered holidays in the french alps

Fun in the sun!

Tuesday night saw James Linford and I speeding North West towards the A5 and two days of intensive and stressful (for some) activities in the hills of the Snowdonia National Park.



James, the chap who first introduced me to climbing in my teens, was to retake the nav part of his Mountain Instructor Award, after a shortfall on his previous five day assessment earlier last year. Wednesday dawned very fine and we rolled out of Pen Y Pass at 8am and over to the back of the Miners' Track and the start of our hunt for obscure contours and minuscule rock outcrops.



This was a new experience for me as 'nav' to me normally means 'routes'. ok, ' ' overload. Basically, I learnt to really put things into perspective regarding whats on the map and whats on the hill and in a few hours I had really tuned into it Basically we spent time picking a random point and going to it, using a mixture of pacing and time calculations against map/real features to locate ourselves. One would choose a point and nav to it and the other would try to put the finished position on the map. Very good.

We were buzzed all of our time on the hills by Police and RAF helicopters, who were apparently looking for a Canadian chap who had gone missing on Sunday. I hope he does turn up ok. After a few hours of this practice in the Llanberis Pass, we headed over to Moel Siabod and carried on, enjoying the fine weather.



Tired, we returned to the YHA and had a huge dinner, read magazines and James prepared for his PYB assessment in the morning.

Having dropped James of at PYB, I headed off to Llyn Idwal and sped up Devil's Kitchen after a detour scramble up the very wet and slippery waterfall gully next door. Excellent! Ten headed up to Y Garn and ran down it, much to the bemusement of other walkers who saw a red faced and sweating man with boots and a rucksack, pretending to be a fell runner! Why walk when you can run?!





I should point out that the weather was exceptional and the views from the top, simply amazing.



After driving over to pick James up, he was in great spirits after having passed the assessment by a thin margin and being made to sweat before being given the ok! This put us both in a great mood and we headed off to Milestone buttress on Tryfan for a relaxing and fun climb up Rowan route, an easy and thoroughly grin-on-face inducing two hours!

Parcio. Walkio. Campio! Walkio!

Thats right. The true Welsh speakers amoungst you will be as confused as the rest! Basically Rich and I headed up to North Wales for a delightful weekend of self punishment through the medium of heavy rucksacks...

We managed to get up to the camp site below Tryfan for just before midnight on Friday, after a relaxed getaway and faff at mine. Pitching the tent in the dark next to the sewer outlet was a stroke of genius that kept rich in fitful sleep all night, whilst I happily drank in the pooh aroma in side my toasty minus 9 bag. Both somewhat rested, we headed out at the crack of 7, after an uncomfortable moment when we thought we might not have had enough cash to pay for the site, whilst the black cigarette toting, tatood farmer looked at us with an expression that can only be described as 'valleys rock'.

Anyway, a short walk along the A5 saw us popping up the access road to the reservoir and up the flank of Y Braich via our own route, to break our first sweat, before following the path to the summit of Pen Yr Helgi Du and then along Y Lassalt towards Pen Llithrig Y Wrach. The weather was eceptionally good at this point and visibility was amazing. We stopped for a twix and admired the views over Cwm Eigiau and the Llyn Eigau reservoir.

Full of twix, we headed over to the crest path through a nice depth of heather and drank in the amazing view of the Llyn Cowlyd reservoir which was shimmering beutifully in the hazy sunshine. Again, a picture here would be amazing, but the fuji S2 battery eater had sprung its magic again and basically turned into dead weight. Rest assured the view was filled with fawns and imps of all variety in a Narnia-esque vista. With farewells said to Mr Tumnus, we headed on and created our own route of maximum resistance down to the Llyn Eigau reservoir, before assessing our situation as the cloud had really come in over the tops now and a good level of mist was everywhere except low in the valley. Our original plan had been to head over to the area near Cerrig Cochion on the map and then head round the top of the Dulyn Res. before hitting Garnedd Uchaf. We scrapped this for a walk up Cwm Eigiau where we'd take the path roughly to Foel Grach, onto Garnedd Uchaf and then take a bearing into Cwm Caseg.

As we headed up from the mine buildings in the Cwm, though, it became clear that the wind and absolute white out would make this nav reasonably hard as we were taking refs from indistinct features at the best of times. Having slogged up the river onto the Gledrffordd (yes that is a word) in 20ft vis, we decided we were really tired and this was stupid, so headed back down and set up an amazing camp above the disused mine. Very good views of Alphabet buttress which I really want to do - the UK's longest climb at 294m and an absolute classic.

The wind had got up, but after an excellent night in the Voyager - where any excursion outside for a wee or any other reason had to be accompanied by a shout of 'cliff!' from the person inside, as we were literally 1m from a very big drop - we set out at 7:15 into the same mist conditions that had been kicking around the night before. We navved up and hit our aim off points, but ran slightly low into the steepening ground above Ffynnon Llyffant and had to retrace and do a bit of a scramble. After that we got absolutely blasted by cold, windy cloud coming up onto the top of Carnedd Llewelyn, before an amazing shelter rock and break in the clouds made it all worth while. We decided that conditions would only be the same or get worse and therefore cut the route short, heading back down under Y Braich and back to the car in quick time, leaving at mid day! This left us time for a quick browse through the Cotswold rock bottom store before a leisurely drive home. Brilliant!

Yoggi-yo!

Long time no blog, been a busy busy boy.

Had a great trip at Chinese New Year (end of Jan) to South Korea for a bit of war-zone snowboarding. It was very cold, down to minus 19 at night - nippy! The hotel we stayed at was all out of western-style rooms, so we ended up in a traditional 'ondol', which consists of a heated wooden floor onto which you lay thin mattresses each night to sleep. This may sound like a wonderful zen dream, but the floor was hot enough to fry eggs on and the thermostat fixed, making it all a bit sweaty - next time I want a bed!

The resort was fun but pretty limited, you'd get bored if you were a black-run maestro but it was fine for my friends and I, plus it was nearly all floodlit each night until 2am, which was great fun. The snow was thin but the koreans are masters at regrooming 3mm of snow into something useful so it was all good, save the occasional ice-patch. The local skiing/boarding style was gun-ho at best - I got run into a lot without really doing anything, which kept it edgy.

We kept ourselves entertained asain-style by going to a karaoke bar; I did a frankly unpleasant rendition of "Gay Bar"

Don't have any good photos of me boarding because, basically, I was too darn fast for the the others to keep up with their cameras. So here is a pictures of me and my mate Stew saying "yoggi-yo!!!" with a lift girl (every time you get on the lift you are welcomed with a wave, a smile and a yoggi-yo - very un-french), and me standing still trying to look extreme...





Since then I've done a couple of extreme events. The Hardcore Hiking Ninja Playboys strolled out again to complete the Green Power Hike, a 50km trail walk on HK Island (with bits of running). Our team time was 9 hours 15 mins, which was respectful and put us about 40th of 150 teams. In actual fact 3 of us finished in 8 hours 5 mins (would have been sub-8 but I needed a toilet break near the end, which took 7 mins!) but Big Stew seperated some cartilage in his knee, dropped out, decided to drop back in and kept going to finish, getting re-strapped at each first aid stop - truly hardcore behaviour!!

Last Sunday a group us of did the Outward Bound adventure race, a 15km trail run/scramble/kayak with some challenges thrown in. It was brilliant! Somehow we came third in our category and won medals, I celebrated with a caipirnha so strong it put me to sleep.

Apologies for the lack of pictures, if any offical ones get posted I will add them to this blog.

Phew!

Well, that was fun! Probably the hardest thing I've done in the physical stakes for a very long time - the fact that I've only been able to run for three weeks was a slight hindrance, but thoroughly enjoyable all round and very chuffed to have done my first half marathon! Ant and I kept a reasonable pace together - slightly slower than we'd have liked from the start - and he then slowly pulled away from me. We both saw Steffi en route which was a big boost. Faye ran at her slightly slower natural pace and we all had respectable times. Ant came in in 1hr54, whilst I managed 2hrs and 4 mins (absolutely beat and at the end of my energy) and Faye came in on 2hrs 17, I think. Bit achy now but well pleased and knee/heel played ball..


That fence is keeping me upright.

Gulp.

Half marathon at Silverstone tomorrow and having last minute jitters! Went for a ride today down Peaslake way with Rob and his two mates. It felt very spring like and I was really feeling the lack of riding. Funny how you can be reasonably fit for one thing and not at all for another. Highlight of the ride was being shown a 15ft drop that I will never do. Some people are nuts. No pictures because no soul stealer.

Here is a picture of a nice bike to make up for it. ;p




Wish us luck!

one of the many powder days Morzine

This season has been amazing. It just seems that every two weeks we have fresh dump of snow giving us many many powder days. Because of this I have been hiking alot to get to powder fields and have not been riding on pist at all. Sweet.







Fiding people that ride with trasevers here is a bit of a problem but the hikes continue anyway.

The colur photos are from about two weeks ago and the sepa ones from saturday. I have put them on as they are the same peaks we hiked up to various levels.





On saturday we decided to go for the 3 peaks hike. Started off on the starwars run though the trees with a couple of medium sized drops thrown in. Straight after was the 20 min hike to the top of satelght wich gives a good open powder field, nice and steep and then though a gully and trees down to the chatel car park. Very nice indeed with a big drop at the start.

Onwards and upward to the hidden vally. Was pretty tracked out but fun none the less. Quick coffee stop the bubble and chair to the top where we saw a small avalanche created by some snowboarders. Decsion made lets hike to the top! Only 10 mins and another nice steep face to go down. Quite humbleing when there is still snow falling down where you have come from when everyone was gathered at the bottom.



Last hike took over an hour to get to the top. Little sketchy, made worse by the fact th clouds came in half way up. Very strange when all you can see is white. As we reached the top the gods smiled and it cleared giving us a nice big face to come all the way down to the linderette bowl for a beer and a sneaky bofti at the ice bar.



Had to sleep all day today as legs didnt work anymore. Its been snowning all day againg so bring on tomorrow for mre of the same.


Rob

www.mountainspaces.com
catered and self catered holidays in the french alps

Absolutely saturated!

I knew it was a bad omen that Gav had finally decided to get some waterproof trousers as it meant that we WOULD be needing them. That said, I don't think either of us were prepared for just how MUCH water the clouds would be throwing at us! 5 hours of solid sideways rain and hail was too much for even my poncy re-proofed gear...


Gav with Scoat fell and Pillar and our retreat route down Windy Gap behind him, along the stream.


Looking up at Looking Stead and the top of Pillar, obscured in cloud. Hard hail and high winds here...

Friday saw us hightailing it up to Jen's house for a comfy night in Shef, before heading out at the crack of 6 the next morning destined for Wast Water and our route from Wasdale Head up Mosedale and the Black Sail pass, before turning left up Pillar. As there were just the two of us we used this as a good exercise to nail the distance over time Nav that I'd been trying to get my head around for complete whiteouts. We used Naismith's rule as a starting point and found our calculations to be spot on. This was good as we then needed these new found skills on the higher part of the hill and it was exciting to be so accurate with both comps and time.



Not much shelter at the shelter on Pillar...

The weather really was quite bad and the wind was on the limit of what I found comfortable (same for Gav!), but we assessed conditions at Looking Stead and decided that we would proceed with caution and retreat if we felt things were getting a bit heavy! The path up Pillar from here is good, with little object danger and the winds seemed to have dropped a bit from the funnel at Looking Stead, so we were set and into very thick rainy cloud! After hitting the shelter, we navved out and headed for Scoat Fell, via Windy Gap. Coming down here was more hairy than either of us liked as the snow conditions were appallingly soft with the mild weather. We made the call at this point that enough was enough and headed down the scree path of Wind Gap, back to the Mosedale valley.


The new tent finally got an airing and is absolutely bombproof and rather comfy...

After making a sizeable puddle on the pub floor, we went staright to the campsite shower block and slowly became human again! The tent went up and food was cooked whilst the rain and high winds continued outside. Pub, crossword, chat to people, Bed. Nice warm sleeping bag!


Theres nothing quite like a full English followed by cake! Yes that is a mug with a karabiner attached...



We had a bit of a leisurely morning as the winds had got worse over night and decided to drive up to Windermere, have a bit of a shop and head back to Shef, where we caught the last of the amazing light and went for a bit of a walk at the Popular End and did some boots on bouldering. Spot on.



On a sad note, it was so wet that both my phone and the little digital camera which has taken so many of the shots on this site, bought it! Time for a canon Powershot G10! I ca dream...