Training Woes

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Training: Upping the Game

Unprepared, unfit and cramps setting in by the time the pull back up the hill was attempted. This does not bode well for iROC. 

Small but fully formed

Compact but deadly

So now I'm the proud owner of a new camera, a Canon G10. It's a compact but has all the bells an whistles that I need, RAW; manual; big aperture f2.8; zoom lens - wide angle 28mm equivalent and up to telephoto at 140mm. No it's not another SLR but that's kind of the point.

I've been struck recently that carrying around the Canon 400D SLR has been a bit of a chore. Yes it does take great photos but the size of it makes it difficult to use. I have found myself taking many more shots with the phone. OK that's partly because of the blogging issue. It's really convenient to grab a shot then email it directly here or to one of my friends immediately and that's likely to continue. However some shots have just been taken on the spur of the moment, while the sun shone, while the light was right, when it was safe to do so, and dragging the SLR out of it's case, often from the depths of the rucksack, well sometimes it didn't happen. The ice and snow slope on Wherneside last weekend was just a case in point.

So this compact,for which I still need to get a case for will sit close by me, attached to my belt perhaps, always at the ready, like a gun slung low and loose.

I'll let you know how we get on...

Three of a Kind

Round the Yorkshire 3 Peaks, 9 hours, 25 miles.

The view out of the window at 7:00 in the morning was not at all promising and when combined with the events and advice from the previous evening the prospects for success were not looking good.

The evening we arrived at The Station Inn at Ribblehead there were Cave and Fell Rescue folk all over Whernside and a Sea King helicopter in the field all trying to evacuate a couple of walkers from below the summit. The two of them had fallen over 300ft on the ice and one was quite badly injured but alive.

The initial part of the route takes a path below the famous viaduct, a spectacular sight or so I'm lead to believe but in today's weather it's a mere shadow in the fog and I can't even get a photograph.

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Ice Cold : On the Edge

The Icy Adventures of Gripp Type-Thinne II

"The best snow and ice conditions in 20 years", that's what the man promised and that's what we got. Well pretty much. It was a little misty and the view was restricted later in the day but the conditions underfoot were solid hard neve and just fantastic walking and climbing.

The path up from Patterdale, very familiar now, takes no time at all and stopping only to take the odd photograph the top of the ridge is reached at the Hole in the Wall within the hour. The hole is nowhere to be seen, it's under about 10ft of had packed snow and only the very top of the ladder stile is to be seen.
We stop to put crampons on, Gripp looking very pleased he'd brought them this time. I swapped windproof fleece for another base layer and windproof jacket expecting the wind on the ridge itself to be bighting.

The conditions were fantastic, firm ice and snow making foot placements solid and confidence building, the wind not distracting at all except in one or two places. I even had time to stop and take photos of the mele along the ridge, for it had become obvious that there was quite a number of folk determined to take advantage of these conditions.

The last step down at the end of the ridge required some care, holds and ledges packed hard with ice and then the final pull up to the summit, seeking out steeper ice along the face to make it more interesting.

After a brief stop at the "shelter" made even more tenuous in that regard since all the snow packed into each and every corner had reduced it's meagre effectiveness even further, we set off over the actual summit of Helvellyn to the cairn above Swirral Edge. The steep ice was firm enough to walk down a seemingly impossible slope to the easier ground along the ridge itself. This is no where near the edge that it's bigger brother demonstrates at the other side of the corrie.

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Madness

Committed, we should be

I have signed up, along with a couple of friends and colleagues from work, to do Race 1 at this event in April. Although it's only an 8 mile race (13Km) it does include 900m of climb. I've worked out that is equivalent to doing 4 HHRa on the trot. This may be a challenge too far. We are all amateurs, never run in an event like this before and other than Mark, haven't done any endurance events at all. Mark plays rugby for Ponteland RFC and trains most days of the week.

There is a facebook group called iROC Adventure Race Weekend and looking at the other competitors we are going to be last of that there is no doubt. Never mind it's the taking part that counts isn't it?

Windward Ho!

The Coledale Round Extreme

The forecast was for extremely windy weather, 60mph + and was described by the MWIS as

South or south-easterly in the range 35-40mph, but on higher summits 45mph, gusts locally in excess of 60mph Will continue to make for very difficult walking on exposed higher areas - with any mobility difficult on highest summits and ridges. Severe wind chill.

I can vouch for the accuracy of this prediction. At one point in the walk I literally had to crouch down and clamber up the path almost on all fours in order not to get blown over the edge. Most of the time I was leaning with a 30 ~ 40° list into the wind in order to stay upright.

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There was a point when I sat down at the summit of Hobcarton Pike, or Hopegill Head if you prefer, when the coffee flew sideways and not into the mug, when the rucksack moved 3' to the left in an instant, when a fellow walker passing by was blown onto all fours, that I nearly decided to go down via Coledale Hause and back along the valley. However foolishness got the better of me and I continued up Eel Crag and along the ridge, Sail and Causey Pike, stepping back along the ridge a while before dropping down to Barrow Door and along Barrow Gill and back to the car at Braithwaite.

The header photo for this entry is taken looking south from the summit of Eel Crag more towards Pillar rather than Scafell group, some of the other shots on Flickr do take in the whole vista.