Category Archives: walking

Summer 2020

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What with one thing and another we haven’t been blogging recently, but we’re now trying to get up to date before this summer’s big van trip. Obviously we haven’t been anywhere exciting so it shouldn’t take too many posts…

In the brief period between lockdowns in the summer of 2020 we managed two short trips away, to Bearsden and Kendal. It turns out we weren’t particularly good at taking comprehensive photos. Here are a few anyway.

Bearsden was somewhat damp. We avoided big hills and instead cycled to Kirkintilloch, charioted around Mugdock country park, and explored the local streets and playgrounds and the coast and hillsides around Helensburgh. Jess also enjoyed helping Grandad in the garden while her parents were having a rest.

Toddling around Geilston Gardens near Helensburgh. We liked it here so much we visited twice
Bush peekaboo
Bridge and stream
Hiding under the huge leaves
The best way to play on a slide
Ardmore peninsula near Helensburgh
Puddles!

We managed to time our Kendal trip with some hot and sunny weather.  We largely stayed out of the Lakes except one great excursion from Ullswater, but found plenty to do and plenty of people to socialise with (outside and from a 2 m distance) locally.

Exciting evening stroll around Natland to meet the friendly animal neighbours
Ephemeral lake
Striding home
“Interesting” walk on Hutton Roof with Ellen, Ian and Emma
Paddlie in Potter Tarn (followed by a swim)
Morecambe Bay at Silverdale – a pleasant but hot cycle from Natland. Jess was unimpressed with the mud!
Aira Force
Someone had fun walking up all the steps
Gowbarrow Fell
Descent and traverse through the heather
Perfect summer day
Surveying the view
Ice cream and cuddles at Low Sizergh Barn

Easter 2021

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Having acquired a baby during the post-Christmas lockdown, we made the most of our support bubble by heading to the Peak District for a week of the Easter holidays. It felt somewhat like being let out of prison. We probably tried to do too much in our excitement and didn’t come home any less tired than we went, but it was fun…

  • Setting off on the Bradwell Edge loop, having completely misjudged the temperature
  • Bradwell and cement works
  • Sunny but cold at the playground (diversion on the way home)
  • Somehow managed to get a parking space at the Surprise View car park on Easter Sunday and enjoyed scrambling over gritstone boulders on the way to Mother Cap.
  • Snack time
  • Back through the woods
  • Grandma and Jess being aeroplanes
  • Millstones at Lawrencefield
  • Beautiful woodland
  • Slide at Hathersage playground. We did about 30 consecutive loops on this…
  • A rare picture of 2-month old Claire being peacefully awake
  • Fun in the leaves and logs at chilly Longshaw
  • Jess had a morning out with her grandparents while Dave and I took Claire up Win Hill (her first trig point)
  • A few snatched summit photos before our phones died in the bitter cold!

After a rather slippy gritstone scrambling experience, we bought Jess some grippier trainers. She tried them out at Bradgate Park…

Refilling the Lakes

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A half term trip to the Lakes, during which the weather decided to ensure the country was super hydrated.

We walked up Brant Fell, around Elterwater, took a stream train, got diverted by a flood on a walk near Rydal Water, got blown off a 200 m hill (School Knott), but mostly relaxed by the fire.

Holiday toddler club
Flooding started just outside the gate
Cheerful walk up a hill
Maximising (why is everyone following me off the path?)
Fun on the direct route
Assessing our options for further fun
Someone found a huge puddle
Hmmm, lunch
After too much time in the rucksack, time to run around
Two little hillwalkers
Chilling on a bridge watching the water flow by…
Enjoying hiding from the hail
Winter light above Rydal Water
Still walking!
Rydal Water
PUDDLES!

New Year 2018/19

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Back to business as usual this year (Scotland), only with a still-quite-new baby in tow. Which we thought would change everything, and it did in some ways. But there were still friends and family, tea and mince pies, amazing New Year’s Eve curry feast and silly games, and fickle Scottish weather. Oh, and it turns out you can bag three new Munros in winter with a 12-week-old, if conditions are perfect…

Thanks to David, Ruth and possibly some other people for a few of the NYE/Munro photos I’ve nicked (for the purposes of more complete documentation)!

We spent a few days in Blairgowrie. There was a good track beside the River Ericht
Jess enjoyed being out!
Off-road section over local hill, the Knockie
Evening fun
We took the chariot up Mount Blair. The track was rougher and steeper than expected, so much so that we took Jess out shortly after this
So Dave heroically pushed it (with all our kit) to the top anyway!
Brief, windy summit photo
Great views on the run down
More evening fun
Windy walk to Findgask Loch
Bluebell Wood
We then transferred to Crianlarich. Cloudy but dry walk around the community woodland, Drovrers Loop and River Fillan
New Year’s Eve: Jess meets Ellen!
Jess gets lots of attention from everyone
New Year’s Day: sunny, no wind. Persuaded, aided and abetted by Pettits, we went up Beinn Ime
The Cobbler looking amazing (with baby)
Getting higher
Warm work carrying Jess
She made it!
Views from the summit
After that, we decided that Beinn Ghlas and Ben Lawers (higher, but actually shorter and less ascent) would actually be fairly sensible
My turn to carry this time
Heading from Beinn Ghlas to Lawers
Jess’s first snow!
“Is this her first Munro?” “No, it’s her third actually”
Feeding faff (who doesn’t want their lunch at the highest point of the day?)
More community woodlands: Tyndrum this time, and lunch at the very baby-friendly Artisan Cafe in an old chapel
Cuddles with Daddy
On the old railway above Lochearnhead
Scary encounter (who for?!)
I think we know where she got her hair from.

Alps 2018

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Finally getting around to updating the blog….

Over the summer, we headed to the Alps. Dave headed up some peaks, while Jo did some lower level walking, cable car riding and intensive resting in the campsite.  It was the first time we’d taken the van to the Alps in summer since the rather soggy Saas trip of 2014, and we were relieved that this one didn’t follow suit (although our expectations have probably evolved somewhat in the intervening years).

We were based initially in Bormio, Italy, where summits reached included Monte Cevedale and Punta San Matteo.  We also drove up and down the Stelvio Pass a silly number of times, explored the WW2 front line, and can highly recommend the pizza and gelato at the campsite.

We then transferred over the border to Morteratsch near Pontresina in the Engadine, Switzerland.  The highlight from here was Piz Palu (just sub-4000m), and we also made friends with the marmots around Piz Languard, were introduced to Megacremeschnitte (Dave promised to recreate these at home, but for some reason hasn’t got round to it yet) and did some valley climbing.

A mainly (upward) traversing warm-up walk from Bormio 2000 lift station
Valle di Sobretta
Back in the high alps
Refugio
Monte Cevedale
Alpine start views
From Cevedale, looking back towards Gran Zebru
Approaching the summit
From Monte Cevedale, first look at the ridge to come
It was a straightforward (but rarely done) ridge across over Monte Rosole to Palon de la Mare
Looking back over Monte Rosole to Monte Cevedale
Palon de la mare summit
Views across the Ghiacciaio dei Forni
Descending the interesting glacier to finish our one way alpine day with minimal guidebook instruction – success!
Meanwhile, Jo went for a wander up the valley and round some alpine forests
Only got a bit lost with Italian maps and their lack of resemblance to reality
A mainly (downward) traversing walk taking in Monte Scorluzzo. Leaving the ski areas behind
Views from Monte Scorluzzo 1
Views from Monte Scorluzzo 2 (and the ridge ahead)
Views from Monte Scorluzzo 3
Down scrambling (don’t think this is in any list of approved pregnancy activities, oh well)
Filone del Mot, a most enjoyable ridge
Military village
The van got a flat tyre. There was a garage at the bottom of the campsite hill. The other residents were bemused
A one day attempt on a peak (Punta San Matteo)
First issue – river crossing. It’s not meant to rain later is it?
Summit reached, just as the snow starts
Descending the narrow ridge with care, before a snow/hail storm with lightening too close for comfort engulfs us. Some inspired navigation meant that only a few feet went into crevasses and we appeared at the bottom of the glacier wet but safe.
Starting to dry out, having had an ‘interesting’ river crossing
Sunshine meant I had dried out by the end of the walk, despite not having waterproofs….
A misty Piz Languard
Clearing up on the descent
Marmots!
Wandering around Alp Languard
Megacremeschnitte!
Evening view of Piz Palu and friends from the Diavolezza hut/hotel (the others having gone to bed while it was all still cloud-covered)
Piz Palu has one of the more crevasses and serac-y glaciers I’ve travelled across
Tricky finding the right path through the seracs, but great views
Exciting, but the glacier thoughtfully had easier points around every hour to allow for short breaks.
Zig zagging through the many massive crevasses that protect the col
Simon emerging from a successful Bergschund crossing
We had managed to stay near the front of all the groups on the mountain, giving us relative quiet.
The summit! Only stayed here for seconds as we needed to get down the narrow summit ridge before other parties came up – passing places didn’t exist
Just starting the narrowest section.
An attempt to give a sense of the narrowness and exposure – the right hand snow field dropped away steeply for many hundreds of metres
Picture of the summit of Piz Palu. Some Swiss mountaineers assumed we hadn’t done this as we didn’t have a guide…
Surveying the slighly less narrow, but still interesting section
Waiting at a passing place
Off down the glacier again
Soon after this photo, we took a ‘short cut’ and ended up lowering/downclimbing into/across crevasses. Fun was not had by all during this.
A look at Piz Palu, with the three summits. One of the best glacier/snow alpine days.
Piz Palu at breakfast time (there might be some specks on the summit…)
View from Sass Queder (waiting for the mountaineers to return)
On the way to some crags below the Morteratsch glacier
Valley climbing
Friendly dog wants porridge
Mainly (downward) traversing walk from the Julierpass to St Moritz
St Moritzersee

Merryton Low (and other adventures)

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Too busy to go far afield for the late August bank holiday, we decided to do a little exploring on our (new) doorstep instead.  After dropping into Nottingham to top up Dave’s collection of “smart casual” wear (essential for evening duties and the like), we headed for the most southerly crag in Eastern Grit, Black Rocks near Wirksworth.  It sounded like a good bet: “a fine cliff” with a large number of routes in the low grades, including some stars and some long(ish) routes.  But we should have paid more attention to the warning signs (“some routes are not climbed that often”; “tends to be green after poor weather”…)

In fact it looked like no-one had climbed there for years, which was unsurprising when we discovered how much broken glass there was around the belay spots, and we quickly abandoned the idea of doing any serious climbing.  We did manage to salvage the visit by soloing two Mods, and having a nice potter around Cromford Moor.  We’d only really gone there as it was on route to the Roaches, where we’d agreed to meet David for a walk the next day, so we didn’t mind too much, and continued happily on our way.

Displaying his usual impeccable Google Earth skills, Dave had found a fantastic van spot on the high road near Merryton Low, where there somehow seemed to be extensive vistas in every direction.  We had a little wander around, spotting Parkhouse and Chrome Hills, Shutlingsloe, Shining Tor and even the Wrekin (mostly retrospectively when we asked David about them the next day).  Then we found an inviting-looking pool and couldn’t resist an evening swim.  It was relatively warm (or maybe we were just hardened by our Baltic dipping), so we enjoyed a few laps with views of the Roaches bathed in evening light.

Sunday was perfect bank holiday weather, sunny and warm.  We reminded ourselves how nice the Roaches are, explored the Dane Valley, and after emerging onto the upper slopes of Gun from a flourishing jungle of stinging nettles, brambles and thistles, Jo remembered why shorts are not usually advisable in the Peak District.  We then made our way back to van via New Zealand, Frith Bottom and Windygates, feeling rather more tired than we felt was deserved!

For some reason I only took pictures of the Merryton Low bit, but they are quite nice! This from the actual summit
Hen Cloud and the Roaches
Sunset
The view north
The view south
Blake Mere
Breakfast with a view

Long weekend in Müllheim

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We finally got round to visiting Alex and Ausma in southern Germany. Em and Bernhard joined us from Zurich for an excellent weekend of wining, dining and walking…

We had wonderful weather – though the vines were suffering from some recent frost damage
Woods (well, we were on the edge of the Black Forest)
The Blauen, which we went up without really planning to
More snow on the north face than expected
View from the top
Cafe at the top, where we thoroughly confused the staff by ordering five Aperol spritzes and a tea
More views
Making friends with the locals
Bertie vs Bernhard
Feldburg
More sunshine
Lunch!
In a very pleasant garden
Basel (with cathedral) on the way home
The Rhine

Spring catch-up

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A selection of goings-on from the last few months, none of which seemed deserving of its own post!  But I have photos and nowhere else to put them, so here they are.

First, our annual New Year trip to Scotland, this time to Mull.  Staying right on the shore, we enjoyed spotting otters, sea eagles and the Northern Lights, plus a Corbett, some Grahams, a cave, some pottering and a great sunny/snowy mountaineering day out on Ben More.  Unfortunately I’d forgotten to charge my camera battery and didn’t have a spare…

On the track at the start of the way up Dun da Ghaoithe
Beach at Lochbuie

Next, I joined an Eagle Ski Club off-piste skiing course taught by the highly recommended Alison Culshaw, based in Chamonix.  It was the coldest week of the winter (-20), but sunny and very profitable from a learning-to-ski-properly point of view.

Tricky snow
Wearing everything
Regular hot drinks definitely required
Grand Montets
Guided day touring from Les Contamines with Jonny Baird and Dave Rudkin
Kick turns with springs…

Dave was feeling left out, so we planned a weekend in Scotland at the end of January to try some Scottish skiing.  But we didn’t think there was enough snow, and reverted to Plan B (some efficient bagging of the Lawers Munros on foot).  However, the van had other ideas when the alternator packed up on Friday night in Glenogle between Lochearnhead and Killin.  Having spent the night there we visited the local garage, who couldn’t fix us and advised that we “enjoy our holiday” and get the AA to tow us home on Sunday.  By now having wasted half the day and being stuck in Killin in steadily falling (slightly solid) rain, Lawers was out the question.  Instead: brunch, then a walk back up Glenogle and a consolation Graham, Meall Buidhe.  We spent all of Sunday getting home…

On the trail of some mad cyclists
At Meall Buidhe summit, following some excellent navigation practice
Not quite sure what we had to look so happy about
Slightly improving weather!

My birthday fell on a Saturday this year, so we invited the local duffers for a walk round the Langdale Pikes (really just an excuse for a get-together).

Stickle Ghyll
Harrison Stickle
We did more talking than walking…

David came to visit us for a weekend to tick off some of our local Marilyns.  We’d been up Sharp Haw on the Skipton skyline before, but our route this time (from Flasby) was much nicer, and this time we visited neighbouring Rough Haw too.  As that was a short morning’s work, we headed to Ilkley in the afternoon to explore its famous Moor (it was too cold for any baht ‘at nonsense, mind you).  On Sunday we visited Brontë country for a slightly grim circuit of Boulsworth Hill, Top Withens and the Walshaw Dean Reservoirs.  The mist didn’t lift all day, hence no pictures…

Sharp Haw
Exploring the Cow and Calf, with Ilkley beyond

At the start of March we visited Eleri in St Andrews.  Rain and mist confined us a walk along the Fife coast path on Saturday, from which the sea was only visible when we were actually on the beach.  On Sunday, we did a pleasant loop from Auchtermuchty around Pitmedden Forest.  Highlights were the nice woodland, views of the Firth of Tay, a deer farm and the slightly incongruous hot tub business.

A proper forest…not too many trees
Firth of Tay