Blencathra via Hall's Fell

Gategill by rantoutloud.

Sunday, early start alarm off at 5:00AM hoping to get a weather window before the heavy rain and wind predictied by our chums at the Weather Centre for later on in the day.
Dash over to Threlkeld marred by forgetting the speed camera ot Low Row service station on the A69, think I got snapped! Damn!
Walk up to the summit of Blencathra, technically Hall's Fell Top, is always a challenge. It's steep, lots of pretty orange lines to cross, and the ridge in the wet can be tricky as the rock is slate like and very slippy. The best route to follow is definately to stick to the crest of the ridge, the seemingly attractive path to the left is neither fun or less dangerous.
Very pleased with progress up the hill, no-stop ascent, except to take photos and completed in just over 1.5 hrs. That's not quite good enough yet for 2 miles and about 2,400' of ascent, will need to do better than that. Descended via Doddick Fell running down the easy sections, slipped on aformentioned wet slate and fell on arse. Back down, in the car and home by 12:00. Now looking forward to watching rugby and Ponteland Rugby BBQ later.
The map below is a plot of actual track data from my GPS data logger.

Looking up Hall's Fell at the start of the rocky section

Foule Crag and Sharp Edge from Doddick Fell

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Training: it's progress Jim but not as we know it!

Training the Horsley Hell Run

A second run down the hill and back. This time made it all the way to the bottom fence before McGookin and without stopping in the pouring rain. However, stopped several times on the way back up, still not counting the time, too embarrasing.

THE TILING PROJECT

THE TILING PROJECT, originally uploaded by rantoutloud.

Alex and Doug's kitchen in Liverpool.

Variations on a theme

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Variations on the theme

the discussion now seems to be whether or not to use any form of transport around the road sections of the walk. The sane amongst my friends suggest that road sections should be done by car, enlisting drivers and helpers to do the ferrying. The slightly mad would swap the cars for bicycles, I'm still thinking the challenge has to be all on foot.
46 miles in 24hrs remember so this means that the road sections will have to be jogged at least for the majority of the way and I've never been a distance runner. So I've started training.
Day 1: route from office is down hill towards the Tyne for 3/4 of a mile, then back, average incline : 20deg average state of legs afterwards : rubbery.
The immediate target is two of these a week.

The Lakes 3000'

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The Challenge

A friend of mine recently said 'set yourself a real challenge', (you know who you are now see what you've made me do!). Well I did, the trip up Scafell Pike from Langdale was challenging for a first day on the fells for over a year. Having now completed that I think I need another, The Lakes 3000ft Peaks in 24hrs sounds about enough. According to Ken Wilson's book 'The Big Walks' thats 16 to 20 hours and 46 miles and includes 11,000ft of ascent.
According to friends I'm Mad, but I'll give myself enough time to train and set a target of completing the round before this time next year.
What then....'The Bob Graham Round?'

Sheep

Sheep, originally uploaded by rantoutloud.

These was some discussion regarding the lack of dry-stone walls in the Lakes compared to the Yorkshire Dales. I believed that it's partly due to the Cumbrian Sheep and their territorial nature, so called 'Heaft' or heafting, a process which effectivly ties the sheep to a specific fell by instinct.

Red Tarn and Catstyecam

Red Tarn and Catstyecam, originally uploaded by rantoutloud.

A retutn visit to Helvellyn with a friend last Saturday (26th July). We expected the weather to be hot and sunny, it was everywhere else, but we walked up in this mist. It was still very hot and it was more like a steam bath than anything else.