Shudder Been Up There

This is a shot of a snow-covered Cross Fell and the Dun Fells, bathed in perishingly cold sunshine. (It was minus four on the tops and a bit colder just after the sun set.)

Dammit.

Instead, today I battled the frozen bogs of Pike Rigg with Brian. We didn’t go there on a whim and I would say that if anybody is considering a visit to this particular forsaken spot then the very best time to go is when it’s frozen hard, just like it was today. Otherwise, you’re going to get wet. Very wet.

Possibly more about Pike Rigg at a later date.

There’s been a bit of a hiatus in outdoor activity for a week or so, partly due to some Christmas stuff (trees, Robin Hood meets Babes in the Wood panto, lights, prezzies, drinking practise…) and partly due to an attack of lassitude of a specially sleepy nature which involved  using a warm dog as a hot water bottle.

But I’m back now. 

Here’s a pic of Brian heading back over the (usually) quaking morass…

 

TGO Challenge It’s All In The Mind

It may be possible, of course, that many blog readers who aren’t already booked onto the 2013 TGO challenge will, by now, be heartily sick of blog posters who have places or who are high up on the standby list. What with all their gear talk and everything, I can see that this could well be the cause of many an eye to glaze over a bit.
But it’s not about gear and how light you can get your toothbrush or your tent pegs, or stakes or whatever you want to call them– it is, in fact, all in the mind. If it isn’t within your constitution to ignore the snow and the wind and the rain and the heat and the regular alcohol overdoses, then no matter what state your feet are in, you won’t make it to the other side.

You have to relax. You have to leave your watch at home. You have to forget the pounding forwards damply day after day and learn to sit and have a brew and watch the world go by. Only by this mental model will you arrive in a happy state at the other side. Forget the route. Forget the hill ticks and the miles to be covered each day. This is the way to failure. Ignore the driving snow and the contour count and have a lie-in if the drizzle is sizzling on your flysheet. Whatever it is you wanted to do can be done later, or changed, or cancelled or, in other words, managed.
The wildness doesn’t rush. The wildness has a slow and relaxed rhythm. You will get there. don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about being behind the herd. They’re going too fast. They will hurt and some will fail. Get some scoff inside you and melt into the way of the hills. It won’t necessarily be easy, but you can battle on and soak up the hardnesses and the pains in the toes.

Me and Dawn are going to have another crack at the TGO next May. We have a route up for vetting. We even have beds booked in some places. We have a plan. I expect that the plan wont stand up to reality in the end, but trying to bend reality to a plan made six months in advance is the road to oblivion. That’s what happens.
Actually, out of eleven previous TGO Challenges, this will be the first one I haven’t done solo or with one of my easily-controlled children.
So, we may, or may not arrive at the other side. If we worry about it too much, we’ll likely fail. Actually, Dawn has much more experience of backpacking in Scotland than me and our early morning body clocks are more-or-less in tune, which is a major consideration, so I’m optimistic, nay, expectant.
But I bet you forty pence, a bag of crisps (salt and vinegar) and a night out with either Kylie Minogue or Clint Eastwood (as was) that we’ll be in Montrose without too  much damage at the end.
Or possibly not.

Advent Adventure – Jaunting Around Crook

Advent Adventure is the fairly naff name I gave to a Durham County Council guided walk which circumnavigates Crook. The idea is to start off Christmas with a nice walk and end the jaunt with hot coffee and festive pies in St Catherine’s Community Centre, thereby contributing to the Centre’s funds ( a bit) and, generally, having a bit of a jolly, or, more appropriately, perhaps, a Merry for ‘tis the season, innit?  We did it last year, so we did it again this year.

I did the reccy last week in sunshine but with horrendously sloppy conditions underfoot. Bruno the superdawg came with me and, as there’s very little in the way of stock on this route – apart from one field of sheep in the early throws of pregnancy (morning sickness – baaa  .. blech…) he was off the lead and bouncing around just like a twelve year old dog doesn’t.

The reccy was incident-free, apart from the mud.

On the day, eleven people turned up, including a local and his wee doggy, and, including me and the two stewardsEric and David ( a completely different Dave to all the previous Daves mentioned recently). The conditions were sub-zero in a very arctic kind of way and the paths and so on were frozen hard and very slippery. We slithered around the course without any accidents or much in the way of excitements.

We lunched on Billy Row green where there are seats to sit on and, often, a sunny, sheltered spot from any searching North-easterly breeze.

It was here that our local described how he used to play footie on the green (it’s a bit tilted) and used the war memorial to bounce the ball off.  He also had personal family knowledge of the local pits and now defunct and disappeared industry, so he was useful too.

We heaved ourselves up Dowfold Hill, through the newly waymarked golf course (we’re very proud!) and over the frozen newly cropped fields to Helmington Row and on through the land mentioned fairly recently in a blog post as being barricaded off by the landowner – now with new stiles and then….  a chap was seen to be performing some kind of pirhouette on a wooden bridge and, arms waving and uttering a cry of disbelief, he disappeared into the five foot deep ditch (luckily frozen and not filled with wet water), legs and feet waving uselessly in the air.

 

Various people extracted him from his hole and he was noted to have a small hole in the skin next to his ear and a grazed wrist , but otherwise cheerful and ambulant and happy to go on. So we went on. There’s an accident report……..  

We finished, in a snow shower,  as planned in St Cath’s with various pies and toasties and hot drinks.

It was just short of eight miles.

We might put a handrail and some wire netting on the bridge.

 

Newton Fell to Cartmel Fell Damply - Wainwright Outlier Bagging

 

At some point in the year, I realised that I only had about eighteen fells in Alf (come sit on me knee, pet) Wainwright’s guide to the Outlying Fells of Lakeland and I decided to do something very passive about it – this being the handing over of walk design and leadership to the bro…

And so, me and  the dawg the bro and his walking pal Ria  parked on a very old and unused bit of the old main road between Kendal and Barrow and lurched off in a heavy rainshower up the brackeny slopes of Newton fell (North) aka Saskells. 

The forecast was for occasional  rain showers and, luckily, we only had two during the whole day. The first one lasted three hours and the second for an hour and a half. During the dry half an hour, nothing dried out.

Anyway, the first top, Newton Fell (North) which probably has a really nice view and certainly has some kind of electronic thingy on the top fell fairly easily and we retraced over a subsidiary top and then into the woods for Staveley Fell. his, we made more difficult by using a vague track through forestry from the forestry road. The summit is rough and heathery and has a grand view of the Southern end of Windermere.

More damp wanderings followed and, eventually, we arrived on Cartmel Fell which also probably has a nice view and certainly has a big, square cairn or “monument” on the top from which vantage the Very Fine View can probably be inspected whilst lolling in the sunshine scoffing a cheese and tomato butty. Today’s conditions were unsuitable for such luxury, however , as the bread would have got all soggy and the loller would have lolled himself into hypothermia. So we left.

Our return journey was through more nice woodland and through new nature reserves on Simpson Ground Allotment and, ultimately, back to the start.

The return journey over the A66 in a blizzard was interesting.

We did nine and a bit miles and 1700 feet of up.  Here’s a map for the interested.

 

Special Christmas Discount Maps Offer - A-Z Adventure Atlas

Most pieblog readers will be familiar with the A-Z mapping concept.
I was a bit sceptical when I was offered a copy of an A-Z atlas of OS maps for review but more than chuffed when a small cardboard container plopped through the portcullis at Knipetowers this morning and which, when opened, revealed a neat little book containing an  A-Z Adventure Atlas of the Northern Lake District at a scale of 1:25000 and even more chuffter (made up word) to find that I could now fit the equivalent of Outdoor Leisure Maps OL4 and OL5 in a small pocket.
The first of the series of these Adventure Atlases
are now available with a special price of £5.45, with free postage from A-Z Mapping Co. Those with children studying arithmetic will be able to calculate that if the full price is normally £7.95, this is a discount of just a bit over 31%.
But what are they like, I probably would hear you ask?
Firstly – OL4 and OL5 have been somehow fitted into a small booklet 14cm x 24cm and weighing 150 grammes which is around half the weight of the OS maps.
The maps appear to be exactly the same as the OS maps at a scale of 1:25000
There’s a key, as on OS maps.
There’s a key to map pages, so you can find which page to use (provided you have a vague idea where you are!)

There’s an index of place names with grid references. This seems to be an very useful innovation since the list of places is extensive and appears to cover even fairly obscure Birketts, for instance.Want to know the grid ref for Heckbarley?  It’s NY766142 ! Tap this into a GPS and Robert is your mother’s brother.
There’s a page and a half of Safety/Security info – the usual stuff, but good advice for many who don’t seem to appreciate that heading off up Snowdon at half three on a November afternoon dressed in jeans and a jumper is the thing to do….
And there’s a section of QR codes for national park info, Ramblers, Weather, Access, Advice on map reading (possibly a bit late!) Danger areas and Mountain rescue.
Maps currently available are:
South West Coast path
Dartmoor
Lake District North and South
Dark peak
White Peak
Snowdonia
Norfolk Broads.

The offer expires on 31 December 2012
The website isA-Z Mapping Co and the discount code to be entered at the A-Z cart is TRMK250
I’ll be trying mine out on the hill as soon as I can….

Technorati Tags: adventure atlas,a-z,OS maps