Sunday 30th June 2013, Midlands Magic

Anyone who enjoys the great outdoors doesn’t need telling of it’s spirit-enhancing powers. Having had a particularly crappy couple of weeks I felt the need to ‘get out there’.
Ideas for a long trip are now being put together, but in the meantime a shorter, single day walk was needed as a matter of urgency.
Today’s little jaunt was c/o Outdoors Magic, a fine bunch of folks who inhabit t’interweb, hilly bits of countryside….and the odd pub. Or two.
Simon was the main instigator, and being as wot he lives in Leek a wander around The Roaches was deemed appropriate. Since the idea was first mooted, the list of those wishing to attend just growed and growed. Eventually eleven bodies (well it was eleven if you include the three doggies) assembled in the car park of the Three Horseshoes pub at Blackshaw Moor. The sun was shining a bit and my choice of shorts had proved to be a good ‘un – although my white and pimply legs stood out against the muscly, tanned legs of the other OMers.
It was good to catch up with Skip, The Teesdale Viking, and Ella – her doggy. The rest of the group were strangers to me – but there did seem to be a lot of Mikes in attendance.

First up of the day

The Roaches, Hen Cloud and Ramshaw Rocks are a rocky escarpment formed from gritstone and their appearance is quite spectacular. The area is very popular with rock-climbers, indeed we saw a goodly number out today.

First stop of the day, Simon (our glorious leader on the Left)

Up and down we went. Then up and down again. To be honest I’m not at all sure where were went. I spent a good half-hour looking at my map this evening, and apart from picking out a few features that I knew we visited I just can’t be sure of the route. What I can say about the route with absolute certainty is that is was a bit good – not the usual trade-route along the Roaches to Lud’s Church and back.

So, anyway, I’ll just write less about the route – and put up some nice photos.

Posing on top of the escarpment

There are plenty of wonderfully-shaped tors and other rock formations in the area, imagination can run riot when looking at some of them:

 A face?

 Reptile Head

 

He’s got more bottle than me!

Crag rats

Even more Crag Rats

 

The Queen’s Chair

Although why the Queen’s Chair is so named is a bit of a mystery – especially as the spot was visited by the Prince and Princess of Teck a bit back:

I tink Teck is German or perhaps has some German connection. I dunno. I shall have to ask 'er indoors – she knows everything.

More views over the surrounding (and some quite distant) countryside:

Alderley Edge

The pimple on the skyline is The Matterhorn Shutlingsloe

After not a lot of time we dropped into Lud’s Church, which isn’t a church – but a cave. and not really a cave because it’s not go a lid on it. It’s really just a deep and rocky gully. Because it’s so deep there are lots of ferns and probably a few rare plants down there, the conditions are moist and quite stable.

 The remains of a very rare money tree

Here’s a map with Lud’s Church on – highlighted with a little red flag:

It’ll give you some idea of the terrain but it won’t show the mud in Lud’s church.

Lud’s Church behind we sort-of turned back, south-eastish through Forest Wood (isn’t that a bit like saying Wood Wood….or Tree Forest?) that followed the valley of Black Brook. A bit of a tug up to Roach End – and an ice-cream van. Well it would have been rude not to. So I wasn’t, and after parting with £2 I was presented with an enormous and delicious ice-cream. And it was none of yer Mr Whipee crap. Oh no, this was REAL ice-cream. Yum!

Some of our party chose to walk along the top of The Roaches, whilst others (me included)followed the very pleasant road back. There was very little difference, timewise – we were all back at the car-park within a few minutes of each other.

‘Twas a good day out, just what the doctor ordered. Thanks to the entire party for letting me come along, for sharing, for putting up with me – especially Meravingian for making it happen.

I think we ended up doing around 13.5 miles and we seemed to visit Hen Cloud, Ramshaw Rocks, Roaches Ridge and Lud’s Church – although we missed out the spectacular Hanging Rock. I’ve been to Hanging Rock loads of times, but it still takes my breath away from the top!  Hopefully some kind soul will tell be where we actually went today so I can put up a route map.

More pics, including some really interesting shots of the rock formations.

Friday 16th May, TGOC2014 Day 8

Derry Lodge to Braemar

This was planned as an easy-peasy day, and so it was.

Derry Lodge. And some trees. 

The weather was good – our tents were dry so there minimal faffing before setting off to our first destination of the day – Mar Lodge.

With leaving Glen Derry behind came the realisation that we were also bidding farewell to the real rufty-tufty wilderness. Apart from the Fife of course!

 

No biscuits!

Image c/o McVitie’s

In recent years Mar Lodge has been a very welcome port of call for passing Challengers, offering refreshments and even accommodation to those in the know. I’d told Alan all about the legendary welcome offered here and he was looking forward to his visit as much as I was. Imagine our horror, sadness, disappointment even, to find that this year Mar Lodge wasn’t providing biscuits.

Other Challengers were clearly equally shocked by this revelation. The usual banter was noticeably absent – we were dumbstruck. It can only have been down to the recession. It’s the cutbacks y’see.

We had a quick explore before heading off to Braemar:

Spectacularly horrific. There must be 700-800 trophies hanging here.

Alan hadn’t yet experienced the excruciatingly boring road walk into Braemar, and well, I didn’t want him to miss out on what has become a Challenge rite-of-passage. So that’s the way we went.

  Alan on Victoria Bridge

Looking back over the River Dee

 Braemar wildlife

We stayed at Kate’s very excellent Rucksacks Braemar bunkhouse. We were beginning to feel almost human after cleansing showers, washing our kit through and excellent grub at The Old Bakery (purveyors of very fine meals to Challengers). This eatery has become something of a focal point for Challengers in recent years, deservedly so.

Braemar has become popular with motorcyclists and there were some fine examples of British stuff:

 Two Norton Commandos

Triumph Bonneville 750

Both the Triumph and the Nortons represent the death-throes of the British motorcycle industry. Both engines are OLD and developed well beyond their capabilities. The Triumph’s 55bhp engine, for example, is a development of a 27bhp engine designed by Edward Turner in 1937.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around in a decadent and rather lazy manner (nice!): eating, drinking, socialising…..the things a couple of chaps need to do. It was great to catch up with other Challengers. It was quite busy in the Fife even though we were a day ahead of the main wave of Challengers.

We had an early night. It hadn’t been a long day but relaxing is a tiring business.

Wot we did: 14km with 200m ascent…but 290m DESCENT!

If you study the map you may notice that this wasn’t actually the route we took – Alan needed to do that tarmac into Braemar. Just so he’d know how boring it is.

Thursday 15th May, TGOC2014 Day 7

Aviemore to Derry Lodge via Cafe Akto (Cairngorm Club Footbridge branch). Not.

We did a bit of shopping in down-town Aviemore: lunch for Viv’s long train journey home, odds and sods for Alan and I. Leaving Viv to find her way to the railway station, Alan and I set off in an Easterly direction (East is good…..etc) to meet up with Cafe Akto (Cairngorm Club Footbridge branch) for bacon butties and coffee.

We missed the turn-off from the road and ended up taking the Loch Morlich / Rothiemurchus Lodge footpath to the Lairig Ghru instead. This meant we missed Cafe Akto. A bit of a faff but I suppose our waistlines were safer for the lack of bacon butties.

The start of the climb up through the Lairig Ghru – and Alan in the distance

The Lairig Ghru isn’t a hard climb in decent weather, it’s just a slog. It got quite breezy on the top and there was a goodly amount of hard, frozen snow around – much of it covering the horrible rock-fall bits on the top. As long a care was taken, it made for a much easier traverse than without the snow.

Dedicated to the memory of Col. Angus Sinclair, died 1954 on the slopes of Cairn Gorm. And that’s Alan disappearing into the distance.

Un-snow covered rocks. Horrible to cross

Looking back at Aviemore. Honest. 

Snow sculpture

The wonderfully crystal-clear Pools of Dee

Soon after the Pools of Dee we began to descend. Up until this point the streamlets were shrinking in size the higher we got. Less water flowing y’see.

Over the watershed and water flowing t’other way, the watercourses gradually grew in size. It was still a long way to our destination – and I was quite knackered.

Walking south, descending the Lairig Ghru 

I caught Alan up close to Corrour, he was chatting to Ian (can’t remember his surname I’m afraid) who had a really nice pitch close to the path whilst far enough away from the bothy. We really didn’t want to stop at Corrour Bothy, it’s not the nicest place to spend the night and we were quite determined to push on to Derry Lodge.

At around 8 – 8.15pm we rolled up at Derry Lodge, more than a bit tired. A few tents were pitched around 100 yards away, not Challengers though.

Breezy pitch at Derry Lodge

The clear waters of the Dee 

Once our tents were up and we’d eaten, other than using the en-suite, I don’t think either of us left our tents that night.

I slept well.

This is where we went: 19 miles / 2600’ of ascent

25th June 2014, Does size matter?

Time for a changNow that the nights are closing in I’ve been spending time doing other stuff in the long and dark evenings. Like thinking about things.

One of the things that has been bouncing around my little brain is size. Well not particularly size per se, but the units of measurement used to specify size – length and height in particular.
I’m thinking more of the units of measurement I use when describing a route that I’ve walked or cycled.
Should I use good old imperial feet and inches, or the new-fangled SI, metric system?
‘Imperial’ does sound rather superior though. On the other hand it’s much easier to calculate in units of 10 rather that 12, 25.4, 36, 1760 etc.
Kilometres fly by so much more quickly than miles – but there’s always more of them to cover. Ascent in metres is a whole different ball game when measured in feet. It’s a perception thing.
It’s a tough one.
These things are important. In 1999 NASA lost the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter because an outsourced engineering team used imperial units of measurement whilst the NASA team used the metric system for a particular spacecraft operation.
From the ever informative wired.com:

Metric Math(s) Mistake Muffed Mars Meteorology Mission

Thoughts anybody?

Wednesday 14th May, TGOC2014 Day 6

Cafe Akto to Aviemore

A clear (=cold) night had the Saunders Spacepacker Plus tent a little bit icy in the morning – it took a bit for the sun to make it’s presence felt so I thought it would be rude not to take advantage of Cafe Akto.

 Cafe Akto Proprietor, Chef, Barman and all round good egg….Mr Pie, preparing brekky

A splendid bacon butty and a mug of rather nice coffee later and the tent was defrosted – and so was I.

Orf we jolly-well went, trying very hard to follow the recommended route past Glenmazeran Lodge but before we knew it we were on exactly the wrong path. Oh well, I don’t think anyone was at home.

Glenmazeran Lodge’s wood store

Glenmazeran Lodge

Crossing the River Findhorn

Our route took us across the River Findhorn at Dalmigavie Lodge and then a steep LRT climb up the side of An Socach. I’ve followed this route a couple of times before and I’ve really enjoyed it. Today’s walk was equally enjoyable: great company, a great route – and the sun was shining. What’s not to like?

The route passes a couple of lunch huts used by the (wealthy) hunting fraternity and (probably) not quite as wealthy TGO Challengers. Our first hut was the venue for our first lunch stop of the day.

L-R, Croydon & Alan

Fed and watered, Viv, Alan and Croydon ready to leave the Wendy hut

Looking back at the Wendy Hut 

As you can see from the photographs, the weather was dry and bright – warm even. Sometimes. When the wind wasn’t blowing anyway.

 Croydon, Viv & Alan

A couple of minor navigational faffs delayed our arrival at Red Bothy, venue of our second lunch of the day. On my Challenge two years ago, the last time I was here, the weather was somewhat different – sleet and snow, which made progress difficult and unpleasant.

Appetites satisfied we followed the Burma Road to our end point of the day, Aviemore. It’s a boring but very simple route to follow, even in bad weather – but it’s a bit of a slog.

Burma Road towards Aviemore

I’m curious to know the history behind the name of the Burma Road – can anybody out there in the blogosphere enlighten me? The most common story I’ve heard is that the road was built by WW2 prisoners of war but I’m not at all convinced.

Tired and hungry, we arrived at the bunkhouse which was our accommodation for the night. We’ve stayed here before and it’s good. And it’s next door to a pub, the Old Bridge Inn. The pub provided superb but expensive food, it appears to be morphing into more of a restaurant these days. The beer was okay but should have been better, it wasn’t particularly well-kept.

We’d had a long day and were ready for our beds. It was Viv’s last day of walking with us, she had far more important things to do. Like going home to sleep in a proper bed.

Anyway, this is where we went: around 17 miles with 3000’ of up.