My Mountain page

Update - Monday 24th August 2009

Sorry for the distinct lack of posts on here recently,but things seemed to overtake me recently. Work has been really busy over the last few weeks and things at home haven’t been much better. Well the good news is that I’m all packed now for the trip out to Nepal, can’t wait to get on the plane. It’s going to be a long journey out there, probably 36 hours door to door for me. It’s going to be loads of sitting around in airports between all of the flights. But I want to allow plenty of time to make the connections to allow for ‘the uncertainties’ which could arise. If all goes to plan I should meet up with the rest of my team late Saturday night in Kathmandu. Fingers crossed I’m hoping to get a few update on my progress posted on here. I know there are a couple of stops along the valley where its possible to get some internet access. Yeah don’t tell me, I’m going out ot the deepest darkest corners of the Himalaya’s and still looking to log onto the net!!!!

Well the day is getting closer to when I fly out to Nepal. I had planned to do all sorts of updates on the blog and web site as to how my ‘training’ was going. Well I think the ‘training’ went out of the window fairly quickly, and planned activity seemed to stop after a couple of weeks. I didn’t deliberately mean to do this, other things just seemed to crop up which quickly put paid to my plans. I’ve done several long mountain walks over the last few months, and I can feel my ‘mountain fitness’ level has increased an awful lot. So I’m not that concerned about my overall fitness for the trip, I think I should be able to manage the trekking. The one doubt that I still have in my mind is how the altitude and lack of oxygen will affect me. This I won’t know until I get there and see how I acclimatise to the conditions. I have got some ‘Diamox’ to take with me, but planning not to use it unless I really need to.
I was at the doctors on Monday night having the first of my rabies vaccinations. I have to have another injection next Tuesday, with the final one in the middle of August, along with the final Hep B one. The only things that I’ve not had vaccinations for are Malaria and Yellow Fever, as the area I’m going to is outside the danger areas. I decided that if there was any risk of getting something while I was over there I would have the vaccination. We are going to be away from immediate medical care for several days, so any thing I can do to protect myself I will.
I’m just about sorted with all of my gear for the trek, and currently putting together a kit list which I will put onto the web site, along with a full list of all the vaccinations I’ve had. This might be useful to anyone else planning to head over to Nepal in the future.

We’ve just got back from the Lakes after spending a few days in the remote Eskdale valley. This was our first ‘proper’ visit to this part of the Lakes; we did drive along the valley on a wet grey day last March but didn’t stop. We were amazed at how unspoilt and quiet the valley was; out of the three days that we walked in the valley we hardly saw a sole. The area around the camp site in Boot, where we stayed, was relatively busy, not surprising due to the proximity of the railway station brining visitors up from Ravenglass. I can imagine that the rest of the Lakes may have been like this many years ago. Now it seems to have become a victim of its own success, this year especially, as everywhere, including both the fells and villages, seem very crowded. Maybe more people are taking holidays in the UK this year?
We camped on the Hollins Farm camp site in Boot, a lovely site, with great facilities, but a little on the pricy side as it belongs to the Caravan and Camping Club. The weather was warm and sunny all weekend, with a few brief showers on Saturday and Sunday evenings. It was very humid though, making it really uncomfortable for walking. Tim suffers badly when the weather like that, he’s got a really thick coat and needs lots of water to cool off. So we always plan our walks around this during the warmer summer months. Saying that we still managed to get some really nice walks done, and the bonus was they were in areas new to us. This meant actually having to get a map out to check we were heading in the right direction and also to identify some of the summits which weren’t familiar to us.
Friday afternoon after putting the tent up we had a stroll to Burnmoor Tarn and the Wainwright Outlying Fell of Boat How. Saturday saw us tackling Green Crag, it didn’t look too bad from the valley, and however, it was a lot rougher than expected. We were pleased to ‘tick’ that Wainwright summit off though, as it was probably the most difficult for us to get to for a day walk. On Sunday we had planned to do Sca Fell but the weather was really hot and humid and we only made it as far as Lingcove Bridge. We ended up spending a couple of hours lounging around and swimming in the river, it turned out to be a great way to spend the afternoon, and too make things even better we never saw a sole the whole time we were there!
The weather was just has hot on Monday so after we had packed up the camping gear we drove round to Buttermere. Tim loves the walk around the lake, means he can play in the water most of the way round the shore. It was loads busier at Buttermere compared to Eskdale, which was a surprise as it was a Monday. At half ten when we arrived most of the parking spaces had gone, but we managed to find a spot in the NT car park just outside the village.
I’ve managed to sort out the details and photos from the walk up to Burnmoor Tarn that we did on Friday, and these are now on my web site. Hoping to get the remaining ones sorted out over the next few days before I head down to North Wales for another long weekend!

Sunday 21st June

The weather forecast for last Sunday was much better along the east coast than for the Lakes. So we paid a long overdue return visit to the North Yorkshire Moor’s. We were last over there in February on a very cold and frosty day playing in the snow on Roseberry Topping. The weather was a lot warmer on Sunday, it started off grey and overcast but by mid morning the sun broke through the clouds and it turned into a lovely summers day.
We repeated the route that we did last August around Bilsdale. Starting and finishing at the large car park at Clay Bank on the summit of the Stokesley to Helmsley road. The first half of the walk followed an ancient earthwork south along the eastern side of Bilsdale to reach the small hamlet of Seave Green. Here we crossed to the other side the valley, climbing up onto the long ridge of Cold Moor, which we followed northwards to the summit. The final section followed the Cleveland Way path eastwards over Hasty Bank, and rocky outcrops of The Wainstones, back to the car park.
The North Yorkshire Moors can be very muddy after heavy rain and walking can be hard work because of the clay soils that predominate on the moors. The heavy rain from the previous day hadn’t quite turned the tracks into a mud bath, but there were loads of puddles left where the water hadn’t soaked in the dry soils. This was much to Tim’s liking and he made sure he paddled through just about every single one.
Until we reached the summit of Cold Moor, about two thirds the way round the walk, and joined The Cleveland Way path we had only met two other people. It was great having the moorland to ourselves, the views where stunning and the only sounds where the wind rustling through the coarse moorland grasses and heather, punctuated by the occasional cry of the lapwings. The heather was just starting to come into flower, the Bell Heather is usually the first, and in another few weeks the whole of the moorland will be a sea of vivid purples as far as the eye can see.
The section of The Cleveland Way between Clay Bank and Carlton Bank is very popular. Lots of people wander along the paved path over the summits of Cringle Moor, Cold Moor and Hasty Bank and back. The rocky outcrops of The Wainstones are a magnet for local climbers on nice day as well as those just wanting to chill out. So for the final part of the walk over Hasty Bank we joined the hoards of people heading back towards Clay Bank.
We do really neglect this area as it is really great for getting out and stretching the legs. The ascents are never really steep and there are miles of moorland track to follow. It’s also really easy to get away from the crowds if you want to. We are going to try and make a big effort to do some more walking on the moors over the next few months, especially when the heather is in full bloom.

Friday 12th June ….

Friday was one of the days that I’d arranged to be off work to try and do a ‘training walk’ for my trip to Everest. My planned route was to park up at Cow Bridge, near to Hartsop, in Patterdale, and head up onto Red Screes and then along the ridge to Hart Crag. From the parking area its short stroll to reach the small lake of Brotherswater, there was hardly a ripple on the surface so I stopped to get a few nice reflection shots. Well I should say that I did after I managed to bribe Tim with part of one of my sandwiches not to go into the water. The weather was really lovely, blue skies, warm sun and a gentle breeze, a perfect day for been out on the fells. It was far too nice not to enjoy the day, so I decided to scrap the plan to do Red Screes and have a wander up to Angle Tarn instead. This is my favourite of all the Lakeland tarns and there are some great views across the valley of Fairfield and Helvellyn. So after I’d finished taking the photos and allowing Tim a good splash around in the water, I turned round headed towards the tarn. As I walked back towards the car park I past a few folks heading along the lane, I just hoped that they weren’t banking on getting any nice reflection shots of the lake, as Tim had created lots of ripples that would take several minutes to dissipate!
My route up to the tarn was through Hartsop village and along the track to Hayeswater reservoir. From there I cut across the steeper slope on the side of the Knott to meet the C2C footpath near to Satura Crag. Rather than following this all the way to the tarn I made the diversion across to the summit of Brock Crags, which is often neglected by people who visit the tarn. I think this is shame as the views of Brotherswater and Dove Crag are just stunning and well worth the short detour.
There were a few other people enjoying the warm sunshine at the tarn when we got there, but there were plenty of free rocks for me to choose a nice spot for my lunch. Surprisingly, Tim wasn’t interested in the remainder of my sandwiches, I think he was suffering with the warm conditions; he went on laid done in the shallows to cool off. I could have sat there all day, it was really peaceful sitting there, and the views across to Helvellyn were just stunning as the visibility was excellent.
Eventually I had to head back down to the car, but I wanted to get a nice panoramic shot of the tarn before I left. So that the sun would be behind me I climbed up onto the higher ground to the east of the tarn to take it, this also gave me an excellent view down into the remote valley of Bannerdale. I thought I may have seen some Red Deer, from the Sanctuary, but there were none to be seen. After taking the photo’s I decided to stay on the high ground and head over Angletarn Pikes to get to Boredale Hause. Again the views from the summit are great, but in my opinion not as good as those from Brock Crags.

Apologies for the lack of recent updates on the blog since I got back from Skye, but things have been rather busy over the last couple of weeks, and I’ve just not had much time. We’ve still managed to get some walking done, recent trips have seen me doing the ‘Deepdale Horseshoe’ with a friend on holiday from Austria. We also had our first ‘wild camp’ of the year at the end of last month in the far eastern fells. I plan to do some write up’s on these trips over the next few weeks, along with those still outstanding from the Skye trip!
Last Saturday we had an invitation to my nephews wedding so we were unable to join some of the other members of the Online Fell Walking Club on their annual trip to Swaledale. In one way we were probably lucky that we couldn’t join them as the weather wasn’t very pleasant, cold wet and windy. The previous evening we’d had some sleet showers at the village, and the temperature had dropped to 5 ºC. What has happened to the lovely warm sunny weather from the previous couple of weeks, I hope that wasn’t our summer?
Not to miss paying a visit to the lovely Swaledale meadows we decided that we would go up to Muker on Sunday for a walk. We decided to do the reverse of the walk that we did at the beginning April, the reasoning behind this was the weather forecast was better for the afternoon. So I hoped that the sun would break through by the time we got back to the riverside meadows.
After all of the rain of the previous couple of days I was surprised at how low the river level was, I would have said it was about normal for this time of the year. Obviously the Swale was living up to its reputation of rapidly changes in water levels. The other thing that surprised me was the lack of people out and about, the car parks were full, but we saw relatively few people, especially back along the riverside paths. Normally the route between Muker and Keld is extremely busy, can only assume that people were walking elsewhere in the valley?
The meadows were just stunning, a mass of yellow Buttercups, pink Red Clover and white from the Cow Parsley. I can’t remember seeing the meadows with so many flowers in them, I could have spent all day just sitting there taking in the beauty of it all. However, The Farmers Arms was calling us for a well earned lunch of cheese and ham buns with a basket of chips!!!
It was a lovely evening on Monday so we decided to go for a little wander along the river after work. Rather than doing one of our normal ‘dog walks’ around the village and river we drove up the valley to High Force. We normally park up at Bowlees and walk along the river, but when we got there it was obvious that they were still working on the ‘new’ path down to the river so we drove a little further and parked up at The High Force Hotel instead.
The Pennine Way path along the southern bank of the river had been closed for several weeks to allow path repairs to be carried out. We hoped that these had been completed so we could pay a visit to Low Force as well. It was a short stroll through the woods and across a field to reach the footbridge which gives access to the Pennine Way, and we were happy to find all of the closure notices had been removed. The repair work was very obvious, the old muddy path had been replaced with a new crushed stone path, and the stiles had been taken out and new gates installed. It all looked very new, hopefully time and nature will mellow the works and it will look a little more natural. Also hope that this new path stands up to the heavy traffic that it gets each year, only time will tell.
The waterfalls were a delight as always, I will never tire of visiting them, each time we go there’s always something that gives a different experience of been there. However, it wasn’t the waterfalls that were the highlight of this walk, it was the orchids. As we walked downstream towards Low Force the meadows were covered in orchids, I think they were Common Spotted ones. It was an amazing sight, there must have been thousands of them covering the meadows and on the river banks. Teesdale is a wonderful place for seeing wild flowers, I lost count of the number of different ones that we saw on the walk, Globe Flowers, Cranesbill, Bisort, Buttercups, Red Campion, Wild Pansies to name a few. If you plan at visit, and you don’t know your wild flowers, it’s well worth investing in a small pocket guide book.

We spent last week on Skye, it was our first visit to the island and if definitely won’t be our last one. Before we went we thought that the only part of the island worth going to were the Cullin’s. That impression changed as soon as we drove over the Skye Bridge, the views of the steep scree covered slopes ‘Red Cullin’ was very dramatic. The cottage we were staying in was located on the Trotternish Peninsula, in the north east of the island. It was about half way between the weird rock formations of The Storr and The Quiraing, infact we had a cracking view of The Storr from the front of the cottage.
The weather was brilliant, apart from the few showers we got on the Friday morning, we had blue skies and sunshine. I don’t think we could have been any luckier, compared to the weather that the rest of the country got.
We probably didn’t do as much walking as we would normally do, as we wanted to have a good explore of the island while we were there. Some of the days we a number of shorter walks and visited some of the visitor attractions.
I’ve already sorted out the photo’s and details from the first three walks we did, which are on my web site. I’ve got several ‘galleries’ to sort out as well and hope these will be on the site soon.
I kept a journal for the week, practice for when I go to Nepal, so I’m planning to do a few more blog entries about the holiday, once all of the other stuff is sorted out.

Finding complete solitude in the Lakes was going to be just about impossible on a fine and sunny Bank Holiday weekend. However, finding a bit of peace and quiet is much easier, even on Blencathra. We decided to start Saturdays walk from Mungrisdale village, as it’s very easy for us to get to, been just off the A66. In the past when we’ve done Blencathra from this side we’ve gone up Souther Fell or walked along the River Glenderamackin. So as a change we opted to go via Bowscale Fell, it’s a lovely ridge, but the start alongside Raven Crags is very steep up through the grouse bushes. We hardly saw a sole until we got to the steep climb up the scree path at the back of Atkinson Pike, but compared to Sharp Edge our path was deserted. The summit of Blencathra wasn’t as busy as we thought with around a dozen people milling around taking photo’s or having something to eat and drink. We’d planned to have something to eat on top but there was a really chilly wind blowing which took the edge off the temperature, so we headed down towards Scales Tarn to find some shelter. The tarn was even busier, it was like Styhead Tarn when we were there at Easter, there were probably around a hundred people having a break, many deciding whether to attempt Sharp Edge or to opt out and take the steep path, we’d just descended, onto Scales Fell. After we had eaten we headed down into Bannerdale to join the path along the River Glenderamackin, we met just as many people again heading for the tarn; the summit was going to rather busier later in the day! The walk back along the river was lovely in the warm midday sun, the path wasn’t as wet and muddy as it had been when we were last along there in October. One of the nice things about starting the walk in Mungrisdale means we can have a pint at The Mill Inn, probably our favourite pub in the Lakes, and Saturday was no exception!
The idea for Sunday’s walk had come from watching the C2C programme on TV, where Julia Bradbury had walked through Swaledale. It had reminded me of a walk I used to do several years ago around the old mine workings of Old Gang and Gunnerside Gill. Rather than starting the walk, as I used to, in Gunnerside village we parked up on the moors at Surrender Bridge, hoping it would be a bit quieter. The weather had taken a slight turn for the worse compared to Saturday, the wind had really picked up and the temperature had dropped. So it was on with the hats, gloves and windproof jackets as soon as we got out of the car. The walking was really easy for most of the day it was along good tracks and the gradients were nice and easy. The first section up onto the top of Melbecks Moor was made much harder though as it was all into the wind so we were really glad when we started dropping down into Gunnerside Gill as this meant the wind would be behind us. Walking along the gill is always a delight as there’s so much to look at with all the old mining remains, I nearly always spot something new. The main interest on Sunday wasn’t the views though, it was the wild flowers, I hadn’t expected them to be out so early, there were loads of Mountain Pansies and even some Early Purple Orchids. In the woods at the bottom of the gill the bank sides were covered in Primroses and Blue Bells. I’d not expected to see them, last year when we visited the gill on the same weekend there wasn’t a sign of them, so it was a big surprise to see so many.

Yesterdays weather forecast was a bit mixed, the Metoffice were predicting heavy showers in the morning with a slow improvement during the day, whilst MWIS were forecasting the reverse. We had an outline plan of doing Great Gable from Seatoller, but were prepared to change. As we drove over the A66 towards the Lakes the cloud was well down on the high tops and it looked as if it was raining. We decided therefore to switch to plan B and go to Buttermere and do Haystacks instead.
As we set off along the south side of the lake the skies were very dark and brooding, and we felt the odd spot or two of rain, but luckily it didn’t get any worse than that. The sun kept trying to break through the clouds at times as we climbed up to Scarth Gap, I was lucky to get some really nice shots of the rays of sunlight cast across the slopes of Fleetwith Pike. By the time we had finished scrambling up the rocks from Scarth Gap to Haystacks summit the weather seemed to be improving. The cloud base had lifted of the high tops and more blue sky was appearing, but there was a very cool SW breeze blowing which reminded us that it was still April.
We had our lunch sat down on the rocks beside Innominate Tarn, the final resting place of AW, I’m not sure what he would have thought about the constant stream of people walking past the tarn on their way to the summit of the fell he has made so famous?
Our descent route was via Dubs Quarry and then down the old mine track into Warnscale Bottom and then back along the northern shore of Buttermere. The mine track is very rough in places; it looks like lots of new loose stone has been washed down off the fells and across the path, probably in the big storms of last winter.
The final stretch of the walk along the lake was a pleasure the dark threatening clouds had disappeared and were replaced with blue skies and warm sunshine. When we got back into Buttermere village we stopped off at The Bridge hotel for some liquid refreshment before heading back to the car.

I have been having problems in creating ‘water movement’ in some of my photograph’s. I knew to get this effect the shutter speed needs to be slower than 1/30th of a second, but on bright sunny days my camera couldn’t achieve these speeds. The problem was that the smallest aperture on the camera is f8 and some days I was going to need ones much smaller than that, even altering the ISO settings made little difference. I had even thought about replacing my camera with a DSLR and buying lens that had smaller apertures, but the high price tag was really putting me off.
After a bit of digging around I came across an article in a magazine about using ‘neutral density’ filters, which reduce the amount of light getting into the camera without altering the colours. I thought this might solve the problem was having, but these still aren’t cheap, the latest Hoya filter was over £85. After a few weeks of deliberating I bit the bullet and bought one, mainly due to the fact I found one in a local camera shop for £30!
The first chance I got to use it was on the Society walk at Staveley a few weeks ago, not the ideal time to try something new when you are going out with a group. We walked past a weir on the River Kent on the way out of the village, it wasn’t the best subject matter and it was a really bright sunny morning. I took half a dozen quick shots, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could easily get the shutter speeds that I wanted by using the filter. The results were brilliant but it still proved to me that the filters worked and I wasn’t going to have to spend hundreds of pounds replacing the camera.
I’ve been playing around over the last few weeks with various combinations of filters and settings and have produced some very good images. The one thing that has become very obvious is the need to use a tripod. At slow shutter speeds hand holding the camera is very difficult without getting blurred images. Lots of the photographs I took were ‘fuzzy’, down to camera movement; some of the shutter speeds had been as long as a second.
Carrying a tripod on all of my walks isn’t going to be practical, well not with the one that I’ve got at the moment. I’m not sure that I need to carry one all the time, but I’m looking at replacing my walking poles with one that easily converts into a tripod, more on that later.

This is a photograph of East Stonedale Falls in Swaledale, I used a ND8 neutral density and polarising filters and hand held the camera, which accounts for the slight blurring in the photo. The EXIF data is 1/3 second, f4 and ISO100, I’ve tweaked the colour curve and levels in Photoshop slightly.I’ve also cropped the original image by about 60% to frame the waterfall better.