FEBRUARY- Darryl Wilkinson's wedding in Edinburgh. No hills
whatsoever.
FEBRUARY- Darryl Wilkinson's wedding in Edinburgh. No hills
whatsoever.
MARCH - Ben Dorain - Glorious sunshine on Friday, hard snow; axe & crampons a must, stupendous views. Mr Storer, Mrs Linda Smith and myself thoroughly enjoyed phoning our respective offices from the summit to lament their absence.
The Cobbler- Glorious sunshine eventually. A cracking hill in the snow. This was the first time I had ever seen it. Steve Davies & I ran around it on a Karrimor Mountain Marathon and it was immersed in a black cloud for the whole weekend.
APRIL 6th –13 th Javier, Spain. Much time spent gazing at wonderful
hills & contemplating a return with some walking / climbing gear.
27th/28th Tryfan with a painful badminton induced achilles
injury. Andy Langley & Brian did Bristly Ridge; 
I did some minor lump to the east which was boggy / springy & very
easy on the injury!
MAY Bron-y-Gader. Saturday - Milestone Buttress Direct (Diff) in the rain with Andy Smith. A fantastic route but a minor epic abseiling down the wet descent gully. We couldn't get the rope down so I had to climb back up to release it & carefully come down again. An enjoyable experience in hindsight, brightened particularly for me in the knowledge that Andy was using my spare helmet, in which I had found a hibernating hedgehog on Friday. Sunday- Attempted to take a grumpy Sam on a walk with the Peaklets. Turned back after half a mile & met everybody a few hours later to watch schoolchildren being thrown into a river!
JUNE - 2 weeks in Cornwall. Glorious weather
for the first week in a tent on The Lizard. Climbed an extremely minor
pinnacle at Kynance Cove &
built mountains of sand for Adam & Sam. The
second week was spent in a wonderful mansion above Mousehole with 2
other families with 2 kids each. The weather was lousy & the
proposed 1 day climbing expedition with Andy failed to
materialise.
JULY Climbed a big gasholder in Birmingham and walked across the crown made of riveted one eighth inch steel plate. An unnerving bouncy walk on something built pre 1900!
AUG 2 weeks in France. We were originally going to meet Sue & Roland and Nick & Sarah at Mother Ivey's Bay campsite in Cornwall, but after the aforementioned wet week we decided to improve our chances of seeing the sun. The west coast of France circa La Rochelle was flat as a pancake with huge sun drenched beaches. Hope the weather was as good in Cornwall for S&R, N&S and the children.
Darryl rings to announce the birth of his daughter. CONGRATULATIONS mate!! I am embarrassed to admit that I can't remember her name. Please forgive me, my memory has always been appalling. His wife's name is Sue, however!!.
SEPT 28th-29th With ex Leeds uni housemates and Andy Langley. "Lads" weekend on a campsite in the White Peak with it's own pub & bar football game. Hills and dales climbed both days in wonderful Indian Summer Weather. The PPMC must find a hut here or preferably organise a camping weekend on the aforementioned campsite.....babysitters welcome!!
That's all for now, see you at Seathwaite?
Paul
Techies do get out into the big room with the blue ceiling on occasions. These have been rather far apart this year -- I have climbed the grand total of two mountains: Smorgasbordsfjell( Shurely shome Mishtake? - ed.) in southern Norway, and Bear Peak, near Boulder, Colorado.
Boulder is right on the edge of the Rockies, where thousands of miles of flat fields give way very suddenly to hundreds of miles of vast mountains. There are two real reasons to go to Boulder: Atmospheric physics and mountain sports. I was really there for the first reason, but the fact that we flew in over the weekend to get the cheap air fare meant that we had a spare day.
Bear Peak is to Boulder as the Old Man is
to Coniston. It looms over the town to the south of the spectacular
"flatiron" crags (pic on right) and is the obvious tourist mountain to
climb. The summit is over 8500 feet high, but Boulder is at 5000 feet
so as a climb it is no bigger than Bowfell. The Boss was determined to
stay in his room and work, so I dragged the New Team Member (a
New-Zealander called Cory) off hillwards. A few minutes in the car
took us to the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) carpark
-- a popular jumping-off point for walks. Undeterred by the bear
warnings, we headed off the mesa on which NCAR stands and into the
hills proper. As usual, the navigationally hard bit was the first bit
as the hillside is a maze of trails. It is very popular with the
locals and must be like Piccadilly Circus on a nice Saturday, but on a
beautiful hot Monday the whole hillside was deserted. Guided by the
map we had fortuitously remembered to buy, we found our way onto the
direct tourist route to the summit, which leads up Fern Canyon. If
this were in the Lakes it would be called Fern Gill and have a decent
beck in it, but water is scarce in the Colorado Rockies in
September.
We had done a good half of the ascent by the time we
reached the top of the canyon, finding ourselves at a saddle point
with a spectacular view over the other side. It seemed odd to still be
in the trees at this height, but they reach almost to the summit. We
headed that way, up the obvious ridge, rather glad of the shade that
the trees provided. It seemed a long haul, and we were glad to reach
the top: a small rocky crag requiring a few yards of scrambling (pic
on left). The view was stunning and we stayed a good while to look at
it. A vulture passed by to look at us but decided that we were
not dead and flew away again. We eventually left the summit, avoiding
the Fern Canyon trail and heading down the western spur of the
mountain. This takes one along a pleasant ridge and down to the bottom
of a steep wooded valley called Bear Canyon. Here we found the first
running water of the entire walk -- it sure is dry country. The canyon
winds back around the foot of Bear Peak, returning us after a mile or
two to the trail on which we had left NCAR. Not a long hike, really,
but I was shattered! I'm out of practice -- I really must get out
more. Here's hoping that the ceiling of the blue room is just as blue
at Seathwaite, even if it is colder!
Please note that the presidential email address has changed. The correct address will go into the printed and emailed versions of the newsletter -- I'll avoid putting it here to protect Paul from a deluge of porno spam. The techie has non-working email addresses for the several people (possibly due to his own incompetence), so if you know their real email address, do please send it to the usual email address. It helps if you send a copy to hcp@met.ed.ac.uk. The uncontactables are: Roland and Sue, Mike and Jackie Bottomley, Frank Clarke. (Also David and Bethan, but they had given up on email when I spoke to them last.) Oh, and does anyone know where Graeme Armstrong lives?
Please return the slip below to Paul and Sarah Gardiner, together with your deposit, before the end of October, if you want to go to Borrowdale
I wish to attend Seathwaite 6-8 December 2002
Name(s)....................................................
I enclose a deposit of £10 per person.