Epic climb and Epic read.

Ennerdale....not Emmerdale....heathens!!!

Words and Pictures from the Northern Rock lickers!!

Ennerdale is a fabulous valley separated from Styehead Tarn by a feature known as Windy Gap.....and yes, it is! It can be accessed by a longish walk in from the Ennerdale Water end or more directly via Scarth Gap from Gatesgarth Farm, which takes you up along side Haystacks and then back down into the valley, about 450 metres of ascent, with 350 metres of descent (that's right, the valley is higher on the Ennerdale side). Not having been for a proper rock climb for some time, Ian and I decided we would combine an overnight wild camp in Ennerdale, not far from the most remote YH in the country , with a revisit to one of our previous expeditions to Pillar Rock. Saturday morning, my phone alarm doing its best to wake me up at half past five, and it suddenly struck me that going for a few pints the night before probably wasn't my best move. Still, I was up, and I had packed my gear on Thursday (missing out some fairly important items as it happens, more of that later). A bit of stumbling around, breakfast, tripped over the cats a few times and eventually got my self out and across to Ian's for seven. A bit more bumbling around and we were off. Two hours later we parked up in a farmers camp site field, geared up, and after a bit of a chin wag with a holidaying Scouser, we were on our way.

Ennerdale Camp.

We were both carrying about 17kg, with the majority of mine being the tent and climbing rack, and Ian's being the food, cooking clobber and the rope. Of course, on top of that, we were both carrying sleeping bags, sleeping mats, water proofs, climbing shoes and harness, drinks and scoff for the days adventure. The walk up to the gap is quite steep in places, and with the intense mid morning sun and the substantial loads, it was heavy going. I must confess, it was quite a relief to find ourselves finally on the top of the gap with the knee crunching and thigh stretching descent between us and the valley below. Over the last few years I have been trying to use my walking poles less and less in an effort to increase my leg strength, and I think this has been successful to some degree. However, on this occasion I was only too willing to take all the help I could get, and shamefully employed my poles with gusto, allowing me to float up, then down, on wings of gossamer and helium...... and Slipknot are known for their cello recitals. The walk down into the valley isn't too bad really, and is improved by the views of Pillar on the opposite side about 5 km to the south west, this being our ultimate goal for the day. So, soaking wet with sweat, we walked past the Black Sail youth hostel and on towards a small footbridge crossing the inviting, crystal clear water of the River Liza (I only know that because I just checked the map!). Another five minutes and we reached our camp site on the opposite bank to the hostel. I suppose you can guess the level of relief you feel when you first drop your rucksack after a heavy weight amble? If you can't, you have never lived! Within the hour the tent was up, bait had been scoffed, and my 55 litre rucksack was repacked with the climbing essentials, more scoff and the standard outdoors clobber. We had decided that for this part of the trip we would take it in turns to carry either the rucksack or the rope and swap regularly. ONWARDS! The initial ascent follows a water course called Sail Beck, which is the result of mountain water run off from Kirk Fell. It's a real slog, but gets you up to 600 metres fairly quickly.

The path to Scarth Gap.

 From this point forward we walked parallel to the valley floor along the high level traverse for about 4km until the path starts to descend back down to 500 metres and brings you round to the buttress known as Pillar Rock, standing apart from Pillar itself. Deftly (i.e., didn't fall over too often) we moved with purpose (i.e., stumbled) up the scree gulley to the climb starting point. Big boots off and in the rucksack, climbing shoes and harness on, the ensemble completed by festooning ourselves with Dyneema slings, carabiners, quick draws, cams, nuts on wires, belay devices .....errrm,.......oh yeah, and the rope of course. As previously mentioned, we had done this route before, but as a trio with another climbing chum, and in that configuration whoever goes first (leads) has to stay at the front. At the time I didn't clock that one until I was on the second pitch of the climb and ended up having to lead the whole climb. I never said I was bright. This time though, Ian was going to lead and I would "second" carrying the rucksack. Rock Climbing 101: Usually you climb as a pair. Both tied in to opposite ends of the rope. The leader climbs first putting in protection such as nuts, cams, hexes, slings on projections or threads, and attaches these to "runners" (quick draws, which are a pair of spring gated carabiners connected by either a nylon or Dyneema sling, protection in one end and the rope clipped through the other). As the leader ascends, the rope travels with him, and if he falls, the second can stop the rope paying out, braking with the belay device. As long as the protection holds, everyone is happy..... So, assuming the leader hasn't taken a fall, he gets to a suitable point in the climb where he can make a nice secure anchored position, then covers the ascent of the second climber using his own belay device. As the second ascends, he takes the protection back out again. This is classed as multi pitch climbing, and in this way you can climb routes hundreds of metres long with a 50 metre rope. But, I digress. Ian is off like a rocket, hurtling up the vertical face like he's out for a jog (this is nothing new by the way), stopping occasionally to slot a cam into a deep enough gap or dropping a sling over a robust rock spike. All was going well for the first three pitches, with me safely tucked up in the bottom of a chimney, anchored in on an absolutely bomb proof chock stone thread, and Ian mooching around above me pushing the envelope. And then I noticed that Ian had disappeared out of the chimney, not that I was worried, the rope was still paying out, he was still making progress..... Now, as I recalled, the route went straight up from this point and I fully expected to be able to see Ian most of the way up on the last two remaining pitches....And the rope was still paying out.... and there was only 3 metres left. "Ian"' I shouted, "3 metres left". The distant response of "Oh, bugger" drifted down to me from high on my right as I faced into the chimney. Everything seemed to stop for a while, clearly there was something going off I didn't understand and my last shouted communication with Ian did not bode well. "Oh, bugger" I repeated Ian's mantra to myself, starting to feel a bit alone. Fear is a funny thing, you keep telling yourself that all is well, that you are within 50 metres of the top, that you are so well secured there is nothing to fret about, that the Mountain Rescue Team are really a jolly bunch of chaps whom you will never need to make the acquaintance of, and then, inexplicably, your mouth does an impersonation of Death Valley... And then Ian shouts for you to take in the slack, which means he is moving again, just in the wrong direction. Anyway, whatever the problem was (I will find out later), he confirms that he is safe, and that I can take him off belay. He takes in the slack then gives me a call of "climb when ready", to which I respond with "climbing" as I take out the thread anchor, and I'm off. And then it starts to become clear. The chimney above is soaking wet, so Ian had traversed off to the right around three vertical ribs of rock with small grassy ledges between each one.

                                                               Climbing Pillar Rock


 You can't see around the ribs, you can only feel for the holds, its like trying to find a light switch on the other side of the door frame while standing on roller skates, and with the rucksack dragging me off balance, it would be fair to say it played with my confidence a teensy weensy little bit. And that was with a rope on me, so it was probably even less pleasant for Ian, because if he had taken a fall, the last bit of protection was about 10 metres back, and it would have resulted in a long pendulum swing. And he would have been only too aware of this. As I finally swung around the final rib, with the weight of my rucksack adding to my momentum, Ian's big cheesey grin came into view. "Exciting, eh? Wasn't sure if you would make it around the traverse!". He wasn't the only one. I re-anchored on a wicked big sling and spike arrangement, passed on the protection gear that I had retrieved and he was off again on the last pitch. And the scarey traverse was worth the effort, the last pitch was glorious, near vertical, huge drops wherever you looked, nothing except fresh air under your heels, excellent grippy rock, and surprisingly easy climbing straight up. On the top of High Man, a 5 minute breather while we pack up our gear and change into our boots. Oh, the relief, climbing shoes are the most unnatural, uncomfortable bits of leather and rubber you can cram your tootsies into. Try it sometime, you will not be disappointed. All secured, we follow the classic scramble route of Notch and Slab off the top (very steep and exposed, and all down climbing, did I mention I hate down climbing?), then on to the path that takes you to the top of Pillar itself. Another half hour of upward slog and there is the deserted trig point. Hurrah. Views? Yes, there were some of those.

Back down the Gap

.
 You could even just about see the Youth Hostel close to where we had camped back down on the valley floor. As our friend Bazz once aptly commented, "it looks so impossibly far away". After a half a Mars bar each, we set off on our return leg, which follows a particularly good path right across the top, losing 300 metres height over 4km until we finally pick up the 600 metre direct descent route back to the valley floor. And the tent was still there, BONUS! I think by now it was getting on for just after 17:00, so a quick splash around in the river, then Ian started making our evening meal. For starters, spicey Butternut Squash soup followed by Spinach and Ricotta pasta with a pokey sauce. Then Ian pulls out two small bottles of red wine to go with the pasta, an excellent and most welcome surprise. It was at this point I realised I had forgotten to bring my camping plate, mug and cutlery, but never fear, I just scoffed mine straight out of the pan (scruffy bugger that I am). Bit of a tidy up, and while Ian got a proper camp fire going I sorted out and repacked the climbing gear. The rest of the night we sat around the fire drinking hot chocolate with brandy - mine out of a pan of course -(about 50/50 the way I felt the following morning) yakking about our glorious conquest, although it may as well have been the north face of The Eiger by the time the brandy was finished. I think I was spark out before 22:00, and before I knew it, it was 07:00 and the camp site was being investigated by a pair of large, intimidating and inquisitive bulls. Fortunately, after realising that all the brandy had gone, they decided to look elsewhere. Just over an hour later, everything was back in the rucksacks and we were on our way, full of great ideas about doing Scafell Pike via Wasdale before going home. By the time we got to the top of Scarth Gap this had changed to breakfast at the cafe in the George Fischer outdoors shop in Keswick with potential for spending money in other establishments of daylight robbery that abound in the same town. An uneventful but tiring descent, passing lots of people moving in the opposite direction and we were back to the car. A short drive in to Keswick and breakfast shortly followed. Revived to some degree by excellent coffee and toasted tea cakes, a short wander around the purveyors Event and Gortex ensued. It was here that Ian found and purchased his new foldaway baseball hat, of such ingenious design that the architect of said item must have been on for a Nobel Prize (according to Ian). We then hobbled back to the car (well, I hobbled, Ian strode with great purpose, wondering why no one was paying any attention to his new hat), made our excuses to no one in particular, and I drove us home using a clever arrangement of broom handles and string to operate the pedals (damn those climbing shoes). Overall, a fantastic weekend of high adventure, punctuated by moments of alcoholic indifference, raging camp fires, nosey bulls and consumerism of the worst kind. It could not have been any better really....... could it? Nah, not a chance!


Robin ( with all the hard work done by Ian).

Olympics.

I thought that it might be worth a few minutes to mention the Olympics that most of the world has just witnessed, staged in our backyard as it were.
Most of the media had set the whole thing up to be a complete disaster with traffic chaos, strikes, security lapses etc, I thought the UK pulled it out the bag and set the bar quite high for future events. The opening ceremony highlight for me was Her Majesty and Bond, I'm assuming that everyone in the stadium was instructed not to look up as Queenie descended with her dress billowing in the wind....Royal protocol and all that. Nice tribute to the NHS, if only they had that many beds, get your finger out Cameron and fund it properly.

From what I read in the early days of events, it appears that the French were gloating how they had turned up in the UK to win our medals. Needless to say they weren't gloating for long, in fact they turned to accusing us of using 'magic wheels' in the cycling. The irony of that is, that the wheels were made in France. It's not how you start Frenchie, it's how you finish.
I must admit to being apathetic to the Olympics during the long drawn out build up. How many products can you advertise with a tenuous link associated to the most celebrated festival of games. One that sticks in my mind (so you could say that they did their job) is Fairy dishwasher tablets, how can they link that to the Olympics I hear you say, easy.....mothers, have kids, kids grow up, they need feeding, food needs cutlery, plates etc and they need washing.....see simple. I'm surprised Andrex didn't go one further with that.
On to the games themselves, the pressure was on from the start for Team GB to claim their first medal, this didn't happen for a few days, but when it did, I think there was a collective sigh of relief throughout the country. That was it, apart from a few days we carried on winning medals and far exceeding the 19 golds in Bejing with a total of 29.
Big shout outs to all of Team GB who's pride and passion was there for all to see and backed by the vocal support of a nation became the feel good factor of the summer. Praise to should go to the organisers, volunteers and the Armed Forces who all drew praise from around the world for their efforts.

A couple of down sides as I see them, Security services provided by a well known company, hang your heads in shame you money grabbing failures. The other one, the Men's football team, rubbish. Over paid primadonnas, who think they can just turn up, get a grip, you are playing for your nation's pride and the chance of a medal.....if you had an ounce of  Sir Chris Hoy's passion and will to win, you'd be world beaters.

Let's hope we can build on this and take a leaf out of the cycling teams ethos, marginal gains.

So that was a small detour from the main event of this year, nothing will compare to the epic battle to conquer the three highest peaks on the UK mainland all in 24 hours. These guys have trained
intensely for at least a couple of weeks, some longer and by the time of the day in question they will be.....knackered probably.


Chris

Dam fine weather.

Oh the British summer, one minute glorious sunshine, next a torrential downpour. The forecast was for a warm, dry day, so with waterproofs packed we headed off to Ladybower Reservoir. Matt had planned a route, which he kept fairly quiet until we got there. I must say that I was expecting a fairly flat walk around the sides of the reservoirs.....wrong!! We parked up just prior to the visitors centre at the water side and proceeded to walk in the direction from where we had just come, then it was uphill and boy was it uphill, several short breaks and we were at the top near Hagg farm. Looking back in the direction of the reservoir we could see nothing but trees which was disappointing as I was expecting grand views over the waters. A few steps later and the view of Mam Tor, Back Tor, Kinder Scout and Hope came into view, which more than made up for the lack of reservoir panoramics.

Hope, Back Tor and Mam Tor from Open Hagg.

From Hagg Farm we started descending until we came to the Snake Pass (A57) which we crossed until we looped back across at Alport Bridge. From here we carried on towards Alport farm and it was here that we saw the climb in front of us up to Alport Castles. It was tough going and after a few minor deviations and 'bloody hell I'm dying' stops we made it to the top. The view back was excellent and well worth the struggle (in places) and this was the highest we'd climb today.

View from Birchin Hat

The weather so far had be warm with sunny intervals, so the views over the surrounding areas were impressive. For those of you that read our tales of walking on a regular basis (you poor twisted people), you may recall my recent yarn about blisters, no, well read the story below! To prepare for this walk, I'd bought some different liner socks, two pairs in fact, in the hope that these would resolve my little problem. I'd estimated that after about 10km of walking was when I was most susceptible to the little blighters showing themselves. To keep track of our progress, I use an app called Endomondo (other apps are available) which uses GPS to keep an eye on time/distance/height etc and every kilometre or mile you progress a strange female voice announces your distance, amongst other things. At 10km we joked that it was 'blister time'.....shouldn't really take the piss out of my blisters, because it must of upset them.

Howden Reservoir.

We walked across the grouse shooting moor and decided to wait until we reached Howden Reservoir before we had something to eat. My feet felt fine, no rubbing, chafing etc until we stopped, I took off my boots and socks to find blisters on both feet, same places as before. They didn't hurt, but they were there.....again. So it's looking like I'm going to have to tape my feet in future to prevent this happening. Bugger!!

After eating, we followed the path at the side of the road along first Howden Reservoir, then Derwent Reservoir and finally Ladybower Reservoir. The weather had been excellent, the views stunning and apart from my dodgy feet it was an excellent day out.

Derwent Dam.

The more observant of you will notice that the stats in the picture below aren't quite right, not sure what happened with the usually reliable ENDOMONDOOOO (I like to say it like that, only because I'm strange), but it seemed to lose it's marbles, because as much as I'd like to claim an average walking speed of 17.75mph, it's just not true.

Chris

The old enemy......blisters!

Now, I know everyone is different, height, weight, colour, creed, sex, physical ability and what's good for one person is not necessarily good for another. This is born out from looking into a prevention method from getting blisters on my feet. There are many videos on YouTube from people who have their own tried and trusted methods in the prevention, management and cure of the dreaded blister. There are many forums, some serious, some less so, which also offer advice to the poor victim of these inflictions.
It appears that the main foot blister that people suffer from is on the heel which is caused by friction rubs from ill fitting boots, trust me to be different and continually get blisters on the ball of my foot, or to be more accurate, both feet. Now my boots fit quite snugly, no heel rub, no chafing so it can only be friction from movement between the ball of my foot, the sock and the inner of the boot. So, on seeing a lining sock that offered two layers of material 'to prevent friction' and guaranteed a blister free walking experience, I hastily handed over the best part of £10. Well, I've worn them twice and both times I've got blisters.
This led me to search the Internet to see if there was another way of preventing the aforementioned balls of pus. These were many and varied, one in particular I found on an Army forum which suggested that you should pee in your boots to soften them up, not sure if that's while you're walking in them, or just in general, needless to say, I won't be trying that one.
Going to try a different lining sock on the next walk to see how that goes and change them about halfway round with another pair of the same type, but dryer, as a wet sock can cause friction too.
In my case, I think that the skin on the soles of my feet needs toughening up too and it was suggested that white spirit rubbed on the affected area daily will dry the skin and make them tougher. Again, think I'll give that a miss too. I'll give the new socks a couple of go's and see how they go. As a last resort on days of long walks and even on the day of our challenge, I'll tape my feet with Zinc Oxide tape or duct tape.

I'm not going to be beaten by a few blisters.........or am I?

Chris

Kinder Surprise.

From the deep and distant past I seem to remember being here before. All I recall is a strange landscape that I wasn’t expecting at the top of a steep climb, not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

Wednesday 25th July 2012.

The new Sat Nav app on the phone got us straight to Edale in Derbyshire without a single wrong turning, which is good for me as I have a habit of….let’s call it…’a momentary loss of direction’, it’s not lost, just a temporary state of not being where you should be. More of that later.

Adrian was already in the car park when Matt and I arrived and after a quick drive around Edale (it was quick) we decided to use the first car park we met in as there seemed to be a distinct lack of car parking anywhere else! Everyone had remembered to bring boots this time. So we set off through Edale and past the Old Nag’s Head pub which is considered to be the start of the Pennine Way and on our way to Grindsbrook. Weather wise, we were in the middle of summer…..an English summer, so anything from a full blown blizzard to glorious sunshine could be expected. The forecast said 18 degrees max with potential light showers in the afternoon, so we packed suntan lotion and waterproofs.

The ascent was quite varied with fairly level paths leading to steep scrambles over rocks and boulders nearer the top, we followed the Grinds Brook until we arrived at the top. It took a while, with a few…can…I….get….my….breath……back stops we made it, that should be the hardest climb out of the way and it was.

Looking back over Grinds brook.

Getting nearer the top of Grinds brook.

Weather watch so far, sunny with cloudy bits. The higher we got the clouds looked more threatening, or was that just closer! After a brief rest, we set off in the direction of Crowden Tower which was along the edge of Kinder Scout so we were greeted with excellent views over the High Peak district. As we arrived at Crowden Tower, Adrian asked Matt to show him how to walk on a compass bearing. ‘Why do you want to know that now?’ asked Matt. ‘In case the cloud comes down and we can’t see anything’ replied Adrian. Reasonable request we thought, so Matt showed him and then we carried on walking over the plateau of Kinder Scout towards Kinder Downfall. Now either Adrian had inside information, or he has ‘magical powers’, but the cloud came down rapidly until we could only see about 15-20 yards in front of us.

Now, those of you that have had the pleasure of being on the top of Kinder Scout will know that it is a large plateau covered with peat. When the rain comes down areas of the peat become boggy, almost liquid in places, so walking across in low visibility (on a compass bearing) was always going to be fun. And it was. There were several areas where access was blocked by deep looking boggy areas, so we would go around and try to stay on the compass bearing, but being mature adults we spent most of the time curled up laughing as each other sank into different depths of the bog. Adrian surpassed our feeble efforts by managing to get stuck up to his knees as he jumped across an innocent looking section of peat. So, with the many diversions, distractions and dunkings it took a while to get back on ‘solid’ land. We picked up the river leading to Kinder Downfall.

It was the peat on Kinder that I remembered from years ago and how it just looked surreal against some of the rock outcrops. I’m sure it’s amazing when covered in snow.

Sheep lie in wait for their next victim with Kinder Reservoir in the background.

We arrived at Kinder Downfall at around 12.30, so we decided to stop for something to eat and dry our boots, feet, knees !! The cloud cover had now lifted and it was a glorious site looking over Kinder reservoir and the surrounding countryside. During our break, I noticed that there was another side to the peat, it stinks. I couldn’t make out where the smell was coming from, or who, but I kept getting wiffs of it. Could have been the stuff caked around my boots or the lovely black stuff dripping from Adrian’s legs, maybe even the large smelly looking sheep who were beginning to assemble (do they hunt in packs?).

Moving on, we headed on the Pennine Way towards Jacob’s Ladder, stopping off at the Trig point at 633metres. Now, as I mentioned earlier about having ‘a momentary loss of direction’, all was going well so far, until we left the Trig point. We followed the path and for some reason we ended up in a place that we hadn’t intended to be in. Some people might call that lost, but they’d be wrong. Following us down what seemed the steepest staircase in the world was the Kinder Mountain rescue boys. When I say boys I really mean elder statesmen. Not wanting to sound as though we were temporarily in the wrong location, certain subtle questions were asked, like ‘where are you going?’ and ‘where’s Edale?’ After a bit of bluffing that we knew what we doing we headed off in the direction of Edale. A slight miscalculation had added another 5km onto the journey, not the end of the world, but probably the beginning of some blisters (I’ll leave that for another blog).

After a while we picked up the Pennine Way again and arrived at Jacob’s Ladder. This had a significance to me as it is the title of a Rush track (my fave band) on the album Permanent Waves and I had the tune in my head from there until Edale. Jacob’s ladder was a bit of a slog and I was glad that I was going down, as opposed to the poor souls struggling their way up.

Following the Pennine Way we made our way to Upper Booth and then onwards towards Edale. The weather had been excellent, with Matt and myself suffering a bit of sunburn and Adrian using peat to prevent his legs from burning. It was a very varied walk with many different terrains to tackle and one I’d like to do again, maybe in winter.

Chris.