First married Munro...

Claire and I are in the North of Scotland on a belated honeymoon. We are based at Forest Way B and B until tomorrow morning - and then will probably camp in Ullapool.

Having driven to Edinburgh on Fri afternoon to spend the evening with Dad and Pat, we carried on the drive North on Saturday - on an A9 redolent with holiday traffic and idiots in caravans who refuse to go above 40 mph - until the get to the dual carriageway section and speed up. However, we arrived just south of Ullapool with a lovely forecast and so decided to get out walking the next day - Sunday.

After driving to the parking spot we set up following the stream we followed in ascent of Beinn Liath Mhor Fannich and the in descent on our final day of last year's holiday. This time it was much drier - the benefits of the recent heatwave; and we were able to make sustained progress. A party of FSP (fit Scottish people) whizzed past us and disappeared up Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich at high speed. Regrettably, the two of us have spent far too much time at work and not enough in the mountains so we opted for a more sedate pace as we ambled towards our chosen hill.

One thing that was new was the construction of half a bulldozed track some of the way to the bridge before one starts the trackless section to reach the foot of the corrie under Meall Gorm and An Coileachan. I say half a track as it came and went for no adequately explained reason - however it did make for easy going when it was there. Having used it for a bit we descended to the bridge and began the grunt across country (and up). Given the dry spell this was better than the last time we did it; however it was not the highlight of the day and required us to have some sustenance before the final ascent.

The weather was good - as can be seen from the Picasa site https://picasaweb.google.com/102361192587557786751/AnCoileachan

and the final ascent to the summit of An Coileachan was ok. This was the last of the Fannich summits for me and the last one on the main ridge for Claire, and we found a nice spot out of the wind to have lunch. Although we both felt tired, we eschewed the 'simple' descent down the way we had come and elected to ascend Meall Gorm and go over it to try and descend the steep corrie beyond it and thus pick up the stalkers path where it terminated. It was at this point that the weather became - changeable. As in, we had sunshine, rain, gales and snow within about 5 mins flat! This pattern continued for most of the rest of the walk.

We had got to with 100 ft of the summit of Meall Gorm when we looked at our proposed descent route and it looked a trifle dodgy. We thus decided to descend the way we had come and amble back to the car. This would still leave a walk of a little over 10miles - which frankly is all we can manage at the moment.

The descent went ok - thanks to finding a path for the last third of the descent to the bridge! and we used the new stalkers path instead of our initial path by the stream to speed our way and allow our legs to stretch out a bit. The walk was lovely, however the levels of our unfitness our now painfully obvious and is something we need to think about when planning future walks.

Church Rock, Thirlmere..

Well, a scorching week of weather in Cumbria; and Claire and I got the chance to make the best of it today. Despite both of us having so much work to do it is stupid; we went to Church Rock in Thirlmere to get a bit of climbing in before we head north on belated honeymoon next Friday.

It's only a 10 min walk to the crag from the church in St. Johns in the Vale and it was a lovely morning - hot and sunny but with a nice, cooling breeze and we had the crag to ourselves. Neither of us had climbed in a month or so, so nice easy routes were the order of the day. First on the list was Confidence - a nice 1* Diff. The climb is a little bold at the start - however all the holds were there and once worked out it went very nicely indeed. One feature of this crag is the fact that an outdoor pursuits centre have installed belay bolts on top. This meant that I could clip in, relax and see Claire as she came up. No problems at all for Claire and she was soon at the belay.

After a quick instruction in abseiling; I showed Claire how to do it by abbing down and then walking back to the top (only a 2 min walk) to watch. Claire took to her first abseil like a duck to water and was soon down.

Next on our list was Carrick's climb; which took an improbable line at Diff through some overlaps. There were a couple of moves on this that were a little committing and I dithered a bit before committing - it's all their and Claire waltzed up and found it easy - GRRRR. Another abseil and we called it a day....lovely setting and a lovely morning - followed up by lunch at the Mill Inn!

Hopefully the weather will hold - will be updating the blog from Scotland next weekend onwards whenever I am able to.

Go well

Warming up...?

Claire and I spent the weekend in Edinburgh; Claire had a conference on Saturday and I was feeling full of cold.

I actually feel a lot better today - the decent weather from last night helped; however all I could manage was a wander along the beach with Claire. The amount of work I have to do is ridiculous, especially when combined with job-hunting. I seem to be running hard to stay upright.

The forecast for the week is quite encouraging - with temperatures around the 20 degree mark. Given that Claire and I head to Scotland on honeymoon in the NW Highlands. Some good weather would be VERY much appreciated...

Back on the hills....

With bank holiday weekend upon us; Claire and I took the opportunity to go for a walk...the previous weekends being scuppered by a combination of tiredness; too much work and Claire working last weekend. The original plan had been to go to Scotland - however the fact was that I simply couldn't face driving up north for 4 hours - given how exhausted I was it would have been too dangerous. So we opted for a weekend in Cumbria instead...

So, it was a small(ish) walk that we planned; and as such drove to the Skiddaw Car Park on a sunny morning although with quite a wind. Despite the wind it actually felt warm in the sun for the first time in quite a while; which was good.

The pace was slow as we are both unfit, however we plodded up the path towards the gate; where we had a choice. Claire, being a true daughter of Howard (a man who has tabasco sauce on his cereal he is so hard!); we elected to go over Lower Man. Although the extra ascent was steep we we're rewarded by the sight of 3 curlews sitting in the heathery grass (there was one party ahead of us but no-one else had gone this way).

Coming over the other side of the hill - the path up to Skiddaw was full of people and the cloud was hovering over the summit. So, we elected to go down to Skiddaw House (our intended destination anyway) and have lunch there in quiet rather than with loads of people in the cold.

The descent to Skiddaw House was nice and gentle with great views of the 'empty quarter', the hills at the back of Blencathra and Skiddaw, and of Skiddaw House. This has been a Youth Hostel off and on over the years; I have no idea if it's open now or not. It is certainly a lovely spot; and provided a nice log for us to have lunch on.

The walk back around the slopes of Lonscale fell was pleasant in the extreme, with the wind dropping and us both actually feeling some real heat from the sun at last...

https://picasaweb.google.com/102361192587557786751/SkiddawHouseViaSkiddawLowMan


these are the pictures...

Honeymoon in the Dales...

 So, Claire and I got married on Friday (the 13th of course!) and, after a lovely meal with the close families (including Claire's mum and dad who came over from Botswana) Claire and I set out for the Yorkshire Dales.

My father and Pat had booked us a B and B at West Witton in Wensleydale; which was a lovely place in a lovely spot. I had forgotten how lovely Wensleydale is, the winding river and the narrow valley.


After a meal in the pub we had breakfast and watched the snow falling outside; closely followed by the sun; closely followed by rain - clearly changeable was the order of the day!
That being the case - we elected to drive to Whernside, a hill I know very well and one which would give an ascent on well-made paths that should not be too boggy. After a 40 min drive we arrived at Ribblehead - to find a biting wind and not much warmth in the sun. I discovered this by being dispatched to get some tea from the tea van!

Suitably well wrapped up, Claire and I started up Whernside via the viaduct -as in the picture above. It was a slow ascent, but very well judged given our progress up the mountain. Ingleborough was snow capped as can be seen from the shot. What was amazing was the number of people around, I had imagined it would be busy but not as insane as it was. It seemed that hordes of people were on a 3 peaks challenge walk.                                                                                                                                                                    Quite a few were either dressed oddly and/or sporting headphones depriving themselves of the noise of the birds and sheep....

The summit ridge was very cold, with a cross-wind and Claire was able to wear her birthday present gloves ( a present from Mum expected for Scottish winter). Fully dressed up we wandered down - Claire being extremely nimble on her feet on the steep descent.

Turning left at Ellerbeck farm and suddenly the numbers dwindled to about 1/20 of what they were before...all that remained were hot-dogs and hamburgers - twice. Oh and a lovely (but rotund) doggy who offered to help!

https://picasaweb.google.com/102361192587557786751/HoneymoonOnWhernside

pictures

Walking around town in the snow...

weird weather with a capital W...went up to work today and then met Claire for lunch in Carlisle; the wind was biting and it was sleeting gently.

Went for a stroll around town this evening - snow was in the air and was falling; although not settling. Wonder what it will be doing in the mountains?

Climbing again..

another amazing day in Cumbria...blue skies and sunshine; although we sat outside in Keswick eating our ice-creams with the forecast saying snow on Tuesday - mad!

Back to today; Claire and I decided to have another go at climbing - an reasonably early start saw us at Brown Slabs on Shepherds Crag before the madding crowd. The fact that Shepherds gets the afternoon sun meaning we had a couple of hours as being one of only two parties on this part of the crag.
Brown Slabs (Diff) was first on the menu - the first route that I had led for nearly a year as well. I felt ok on it - it is polished but not to oblivion and I could potter up ( I have done the route several times before) to the top ok(ish). Claire did a really good job of following - the top does steepen a bit and become quite arkward - with a couple of high steps that are easier for me with my longer limbs. However, she climbed really well - using her feet well - and soon joined me on the summit.

After an amble down we found a few more people arriving at the bottom and so staked our climb for Brown Slabs Direct (V.Diff). The start to this was horrendously polished and the gear a bit minimal for the first 30' or so. Once above that; the rock improves a lot, the gear is spaced but excellent and I really started to enjoy the climbing. It was good to feel like a proper climber again; picking my way up a route. After the tree; which is a possible belay the route steepens a lot but the holds are all there and the friction is good...I was soon on the top and watching a bravura performance from Claire. Claire climbed the route faster than I did and showed really good technique. More to the point, she seemed to have enjoyed it as well which is the key thing.

The crag was getting rather busy as the sun had hit - so it was time for lunch and a gear spree in Keswick. With Claire working nights this week, we might need to test her new fell running shoes out!!