flight of the bumblie

the north face tent mule III down slippers

2012-01-16T16:03:00.001Z

I tend to run cold, and my feet are a major point of sufferance at this time of year, which is why I was disproportionately ecstatic to be sent a pair of North Face down slippers to test this winter.

I’ve had a set of cheap down booties for a while that I bought in Aviemore one particularly cold winter climbing season when I was staying up in one of the SMC mountain club huts – the kitchen was so cold at times we found that opening the fridge actually started to warm the place! Hence I’m well aware that down footware is utterly fabulous.

The biggest disadvantage that my old booties had, was that due to the cheap quality of the down and the fabric construction, walking around used to leave a light trail of feathers everywhere, and occasionally you’d end up poked in the foot by the sharp end of a small feather or two. Quite irritating I must say.

The North Face Women’s NSE Tent Mule II Down Slippers (what a mouthful!) are incredibly well constructed though, and in a good couple of months of wearing them pretty much everyday in the incredibly poorly heated ‘shed’ we call home in deepest, darkest, rural mid-Wales, I’ve not had one tiny bit of down escapage, not seen any holes start to appear (that’s even despite multiple small kitten attacks!) and still love wearing them when I want nice comfy feet!

Claire was inspecting the Tent Mules – think she was relieved to be let off the hook for my ‘kittens for slippers’ campaign…

Ok, here’s what Webtogs say about these little foot-shaped bundles of joy:

The North Face Women's NSE Tent Mule III is a women's specific down slipper designed to keep your feet warm, comfortable and dry after a hard or easy day, these Tent Mule's are like sliding your feet into two clouds - that's the only valid comparison that I can think of to do them justice.
However on the other hand the North Face Women's NSE Tent Mule III slippers are pretty hard core with a toughened upper to prevent any damage if you do have to go scrambling around your log shed or skidding across the ice to grab the post. The tent mule's are water resistant and highly durable with a grippy sole to stop you slipping on any polished surfaces and tent floors.

Durable, water resistant, element shedding 100% recycled PET upper
450 fill power down and feather insulation
Die-cut EVA sock line
Highly durable nylon mesh base with rubber fine mould traction lugs
Weight: 96g (I would assume this is per slipper)

Blue! Shiny, shiny lovely blueness! They do come in a range of other lovely colours, and men’s varieties too.

I’d just like to say, having spent a deal of time with my head, feet, and indeed my entire body up in the clouds at all manner of angles and speeds (remember of course I’m an aerobatic pilot as well as a mountaineer), that putting these slippers on is in fact nothing like ‘sliding your feet into two clouds’ – it is in fact a far warmer, drier and altogether more pleasurable experience!

Size-wise, I wear a UK size 4 in most shoes, and the XS slippers are perfect for me – so I’d suggest that the size guide is about right on the Webtogs site (3 – 4.5 go XS. 5 – 6.5 go S, 7 – 8 go M).

I can confirm that the bottoms of these do have some surprisingly grippy little lug things that have not as yet seen me face or butt first onto the slippery kitchen floor or icy patio, nor have the bottoms ripped or sustained any damage more than now being a touch mucky, despite me being less than careful running around outside up and down the muddy lane outside on occasion. I’m sure the postman thinks I’m a lunatic by now – this mad woman running up and down the lane wearing a big baggy jumper and bright blue down slippers! Still, appearances can be deceptive eh?

So what do I really think of these? Well of course, I love them. They’re light enough and squish down small enough to constitute a justifiable camp or hut luxury in the colder weather, are well-built and hard wearing enough to take extended and constant abuse, come in a funky selection of colours, look cool and above all keep your feet comfy warm! I would advise wearing socks inside them whenever you can though – otherwise you will end up with a bit of skanky, sweaty feet syndrome, so avoid the pong by lining your feet with some snuggly socks.

They could be considered a touch on the expensive side for general purpose slipper use (currently £26.90 from webtogs), but when you consider that these are in fact really nicely made pieces of tough, down-filled outdoors worthy kit, I wouldn’t begrudge the price one little bit. Honest.

Links:

My blue slippers: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/The_North_Face_Womens_NSE_Tent_Mule_III_Down_Slippers_103011-24896.html

Lots more down foot-shaped goodness: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Down_Slippers/

a life of adventure

2012-01-08T18:51:00.001Z

I’ve been extremely busy of late, working hard over on the Aerobatic Project website and Facebook page – it’s all going fantastically well, and I’d love to just link you guys all into two of the most exciting developments.

Firstly, I’m in the local newspaper talking about avalanches, mountain rescue and a little bit of flying:

And secondly, a rather wonderful blogger, Karlene Petitt, has just published a blog article on me and my project. It’s honestly one of the most amazing things I’ve read about what I’m trying to do – far better than anything I’ve written myself. Please head over and have a read, here.

stuff and nonsense

2011-12-30T02:01:00.001Z

It has come to mind of late, that I may well have been losing touch of some of the things that are most important in my life. This flying business has been taking over so much of my time that most everything else has been put on hold or neglected in some way, this blog being no exception.

I’ve had very little time in the hills, virtually no time climbing and minimal time on the mountain bike over the past couple of months, and it became very apparent to me on Tuesday, just how much I’ve been missing it all, even if I’ve failed to realise it at the time. On Tuesday I met up with my old friend Adam for a blast out on the mountain bikes over on the Long Mynd.

I love the Mynd, it’s just a beautiful part of the world, the views of Shropshire and across the borders into my home county of Powys are truly gorgeous, and the geography of the whole thing is wonderful and makes for some cracking walking and/or biking.

It had been a good month since I’d last had the bike out, a fact of which I was all to well aware on the first bit of ascent. The pain in my legs and lungs was almost entirely quashed by the simple joy in my heart at being out, up there, breathing the fresh air with the wind in my face and a good friend by my side.

The joy did rather change to fear and cramp in my hands and feet as our descent of Minton Batch under what can only be described as ‘rather muddy’ conditions very quickly revealed just how poorly my tyres grip in slippy, gloopy Shropshire muck (my tight-fisted desire to not spend any more money on bike parts may have now developed a tyre buying exception clause). A major sidewinder moment left me wondering exactly how I’d managed to not end up on my face in a pile of sheep droppings as I heard the never to be forgotten cry of “there’s a puddle in my gusset!” from a rather amused, if damp Adam riding behind me.

Wet it was. Muddy it will probably remain for the rest of the winter, and a joy it will always be. I love Minton Batch, I love the Long Mynd and I love being out in the hills.

Roll on the winter and some more soul clarifying days and nights into 2012. I’ll be back to re-sample my sanity out there as soon as I can.

neglect…

2011-12-03T01:03:00.001Z

I apologise, I’ve been shockingly neglectful over here of late, but for good reason, I promise!

Bumblie is now returning to it’s routes as an outdoor/gear/adventure blog, with the occasional bit of aviation and aerobatic related nattering, but the vast majority of the flying writing will now be happening over on The Aerobatic Project site. I have a gear review coming up on here, and a few mountain biking and winter posts in the pipeline, so don’t you worry, things will soon start getting interesting again, I promise.

Meanwhile, please do head on over and have a look at the new site, a whole lot of work has gone into it and will continue going into it from now on.

In fact, I’ll post the latest piece of video goodness up here too – this is the kind of thing the Project is going to be featuring much more of in the future, not that I’m at all excited!

the aerobatic project

2011-11-26T23:57:00.001Z

Well this is it, it’s up, the site is live!

New blog, news page, photographs and videos. Wander over and have a look, please!

www.theaerobaticproject.com

Let me know what you all think. Thank you.

biking on empty

2011-11-23T23:55:00.001Z

Just lately I’ve been suffering. Illness is the curse of the common masses, especially at this time of year and doubly so when you’re running yourself down by working all hours of the day and not getting to bed until gone 1am each night. So yes, I caught the annual cold. It’ll be nice if I don’t catch another for a while, because to be honest, spending two weeks barely able to focus let alone do anything, really isn’t helpful or motivating in any way. Sorry to moan.

This weekend just gone I was still coughing and croaking, but having begun to feel as though I had at least started to partially resemble a human being again (so long as you didn’t look too closely), it was time to get out and do something. The plan had been for Matt and myself to head down to South Wales to spend the weekend mountain biking at Afan. I’ve been wanting to head down and check out the trails there for goodness knows how long, and this weekend was meant to be it – we were going. Anyway, predictably we didn’t go – me having barely (i.e. not) recovered from my cold and Matt becoming seemingly more and more convinced that his last ‘off’ at Penmachno may actually have done some real damage to his wrist (bud, if you read this, go get an x-ray ok?). With the two day epic postponed, we did decide we’d at least get the bikes out for a run on the Saturday, and having heard that a new section of black graded trail had recently been opened up at Llandegla, and neither of us having ridden said new section of trails, off we went.

Of course no trip to Llandegla would be complete without an hour or two’s procrastination in the cafe over a cuppa and a bacon sandwich/slice of cake (depending on what type of mood you’re in – both are really good). Eventually we were also joined by Adam of www.elitemountainsupplies.co.uk fame, who had decided to come up and join us to test out his new BB and cranks, and then we were off. Out into the mizzle and mist we charged, wheezing and whinging our way up the fireroad to the top of the hill (yes, ok, it was just me wheezing, but I’m proud to say it wasn’t actually me that did all of the whinging), whizzing our way down the initial few km of red graded trail until we were off onto the black.

For anyone that hasn’t ridden at Llandegla before, the black trails aren’t really black. They’re red. There’s very little full on technicality and the severity only really becomes apparent when you ride at some considerable speed. The singletrack is smooth, flowing and littered with jumps, berms and the occasional small drop. The steep climbing switchbacks and the intimidating looking boardwalk are also for me minor highlights (am I odd for enjoying the climbs?) and the whole thing has always been just really rather enjoyable fun, until you get to the end of the fun stuff and are faced with a few km of dull, tedious, flat track back to the car park…or at least that’s how it used to be.

The new section of trail, for those that know the forest and the old trails, has been built starting just before ‘The Twins’ on the red trail (so you’ve already ridden the old black trail and have re-joined the red again). It’s after the run off into ‘JJ’s jumps’ and is blindingly obvious as it starts with an epic long section of fast, undulating built up boardwalk.

I should admit here and now that the one and only part of the trail I did not ride was the initial rock drop onto the new boardwalk – I was being a coward, I hold my hands up to it. The rest of the trail was just fantastic fun, with long fast descents strewn with jumps that just beg you to carry enough speed through them to let them just fling you skyward with virtually no effort whatsoever, interspersed with some brutal, hell climbs (ok so these were by this stage in the day for me quite unpleasant as my sub-optimal health levels were catching up with me). I won’t say any more actually, just that the new section of trail really makes the venue fully worthwhile now – I always enjoyed riding there before, but now it really is something quite fabulous. There’s still no real technicality, but the grin factor when you just let go and let the trail carry you is immense.

The sunday did in the end also yield some mountain bike action, with all three of us returning (after a bit of an issue with a certain party member’s van that had to be left in the car park overnight), just having a play on the jumps in the skills area in between eating cake and drinking hot chocolate. Adam and I also decided to have a crack at the blue trail once it had gotten dark – I have some new lighting combinations I was wanting to try out. Unfortunately by the time we’d wombled our way back to the top of the forest we were in such thick fog that neither of us could even see the obstacles we were riding over. Sheer sensibility dictated that we simply rode back down the forest tracks to the car park rather than stumbling on with our eyes unfocussed in the thick foggy gloop. A good call me thinks.

The lights did work incredibly well in the clear, and at some point in the not too distant future I have every intention of writing a post detailing my setup and talking about how and why I think things do and don’t work for night riding, not just from a rider’s point of view, but from an electronic engineer’s too (for that is actually what I am in case you were unaware of my professional background).

Anyway, to cut a long, rambling story short, the new sections of trail at Coed Llandegla are well worth a ride if you enjoy fast, flowing, jumpy trails (and the cafe is still fantastic), and my fitness levels are still remarkably good considering how ill and lazy I’ve been lately, which is nice.

long time coming

2011-11-15T01:27:00.001Z

The last thing I posted up here was a bit of a look at who I am – the person with whom you are sharing this relationship. I believe there is definitely a relationship between writer and reader, even if the two have never met and are never likely to, the relationship still exists. On here I share a great deal of myself at times – the real ‘who I am’ if you like. My last post described parts of my actual life that many of you may not have known about, but really, it’s in these late night outpourings that you get a closer glimpse of the type of person I really am.

I don’t mind sharing, I’ve always been keen to give of myself, whether it be as a shoulder to a friend in need, a listening ear to someone just needing to vent, or as a willing volunteer in a team out on a hillside somewhere in the middle of a dark, rainy night answering a call for help.

On these pages sometimes I give a little bit more of myself than I’m necessarily comfortable with, not that you, as the readers, would ever realise (unless I actually told you at the time). My writings aren’t always aimed to please or inform, sometimes they are simply a form of release for my over-active mind, my emotions or just a way of attempting to win the battle with insomnia. A few of these blog entries are entirely selfish in their writing, and yet I’m aware that sometimes it is these entries that many of you find the most moving or inspirational.

This blog has been running as a project of mine for a few years now. It started life as a means of staving off the boredom of days spent in an office with no work to do (at the time I was a field engineer and as such my actual ‘work’ was usually out on site somewhere). I never actually intended for any of my writings to necessarily become part of a public forum – they were just for me, as a means of maintaining the creativity that I’d had cultivated as a child. After a while it became apparent though, that people were actually reading what I was writing, and my approach changed. I suppose the ‘diary’ eventually became a real blog, with postings that were meant to be read and enjoyed.

I enjoy the blogging process immensely and find watching the ‘stats’ is a simple yet effective pleasure – I love seeing the numbers gradually change because each incremental increase means that something else that I’ve written or photographed or shared has been looked at by another human being. We all like to communicate and most of us like to share – it’s a big part of what makes us who we are. Every person that reads my blog or my Facebook or Twitter feed gains another fragmentary insight into me as a person, and as I’ve already stated, I do like to share.

So where is it that I’m going with all of this? Lately much of my time has been taken up with working on the biggest project of my life – one that I’ve alluded to in previous postings. My fight to become a top class aerobatic pilot has begun, and whilst I’m very much at the ‘beginner’ stage right now, I’m working hard to make sure that I will actually have the opportunity to push myself onward to bigger and bigger things. It isn’t easy.

The project at the moment is focused around the new website that I’m working on – the site that will be showcasing not just who I am and what I am trying to achieve for myself, but will also be aimed at sharing my inspiration, motivation and enthusiasm with as many other people as possible.

What I’m trying to achieve is nothing short of extraordinary, and I know that. In order to achieve something extraordinary you have to become extraordinary yourself, and in my mind anyone who has the desire to do so also has the capability – often all people need is a little bit of encouragement in order to start to achieve their potential. I’ve had a great deal of encouragement from a great number of people, many of whom I’ve not yet met. My humble beginnings (for I am not rich, in fact far from it – affording to fly is something I simply am not able to do, and yet somehow I make it happen…) are not something that I have ever allowed to hold me back – if I’ve wanted to do something I’ve found a way to work and make it happen. Anyone can do this, anyone can find ways to reach their potential and achieve their goals if they are willing to commit to what it takes – and this is what “The Aerobatic Project” is about. It’s not just about me, it’s not just about flying, it’s about a person becoming something, it’s about believing in yourself and making what some may say is ‘impossible’ actually something to fight for.

So yes, it has been a long time coming – the realisation that I’m capable of becoming somebody, that I have no reason not to believe in myself. The knowledge that one day I’ll be able to look back and know, that no matter what the outcome, the effort I put in was total, the way I fought was with passion and genuine commitment. Even if for some reason I don’t manage to reach the places I’m aiming for, I know I’ll be able to look back and feel truly proud because everything I did was everything I was capable of. There will be no regrets.

The website isn’t live yet – I’ll let you know when it is and you can all head over and lend your support through those lovely little statistical numbers. I’ll appreciate it more than you realise.

If any of you feel you’d like to offer any direct support, be it through sponsorship of the project (which is going to be a big battle), through taking photographs or assisting with the videos, introducing me to like-minded individuals and pilots, by offering articles (oh yes, I’ll be keen to feature more than just my own writings with this one), by sharing my links on your own sites or featuring the project in other media, or even just by saying hello and offering a kind word, then please drop me a line! I’m always super keen to receive feedback of any sort so please do let me know what you’re thinking, either in the comments box here, on the site when it goes live, or by contacting me through Twitter/Facebook/Youtube or via email: all my links are now here: http://about.me/lauren_richardson

Oh, and thank you for reading :)

L.x

who am I?

2011-11-04T16:12:00.001Z

It’s about time I posted up a bit more of a profile, so for those of you curious to know a bit more about the girl behind the blog, here you go!

Name: Lauren Richardson
Age: 24
Location: Mid-Wales (almost North Wales)
Main occupation: Radio Transmission Engineer. I also dabble in Technical Training.
Other occupations: Blogging, Gear Reviewing, Writing
Hobbies: Climbing (trad, sport, bouldering, Scottish winter, ice, Alpine – pretty much the full spectrum), Mountaineering (all mountain craft – walking, navigating, wild camping, scrambling etc), Mountain Biking, Mountain Rescue (yes, it’s a hobby!), Flying and Aerobatics.

So those are the basics, but I want to talk about two particular aspects of my life that are probably the most important and basically sum up who I really am:

Mountain Rescue: I’m a full member of the NEWSAR, the Mountain Rescue and SaR team that covers the ‘North East Wales’ area (which is huge – we cover all the way from the north coast down to Welshpool/Newtown and right across to the M6). I’m also the ‘Comms Officer’ for the team, which basically means I spend vast amounts of time behind the scenes dealing with team radios, laptops, mapping software and all other things tech – people don’t realise just how much technology is used by teams nowadays, it’s rather impressive let me tell you. The crux of the Mountain Rescue thing though, is giving back something to the outdoor community – I’ve always wanted to help people and joining a team seemed like a great way to give of myself, my knowledge and my experience. The bonus is we save lives – it doesn’t get much cooler than that.
Aerobatics: I’m a private pilot. I adore flying, and this year I finally fulfilled my wish to have a go flying a Pitts Special – the trouble was it didn’t stop there. After my first ever go at aerobatics I was completely hooked, and a few months of training later I went to my first competition…and won. Ok, so it was only the Beginners class, but I still won and for me this has probably been one of my proudest achievements to date. Since then I’ve qualified to fly in the next category up (Standard class) for the next year’s season, and over the winter my aims are to train myself to a high enough standard to be able to have a good crack at winning something next year. I’m also in the process of building a new website with lots of cool pictures and video to publicise my flying and hopefully inspire others to look into the world of aerobatics and realise that you don’t have to be rich in order to experience what has been for me, something truly incredible and life-changing.

So who am I? Just a girl who likes to enjoy life and is willing to work hard at anything and everything that’s important.

aerobatics–my first video

2011-11-02T23:41:00.001Z

Here we go, my first experimental in-flight video, hope you enjoy it!

‘not for girls’ the deuter race x air 14l pack

2011-10-24T17:44:00.001+01:00

Wow I’m such a slacker! I’ve had this bag for ages now and am only just getting round to writing the review. Slap my wrists Webtogs!

Anyway, what do we have this time? Basically having run out of things I really wanted to try out camping/walking/climbing wise, my mind was instinctively drawn to kit that could be used for my other main outdoor hobby (no, not aerobatics) – mountain biking.

The Deuter Race X Air is a lovely looking piece of kit – a very simple, 14l hydration system compatible rucksack, designed primarily with cyclists in mind. Idea for longer days out on the mountain bike where you want to carry a waterproof and some sandwiches in addition to all the regular kit you carry on a short trail centre blast. In fact Deuter say this:

The Deuter Race X Air 14 L Backpack is a compact and sleek bike pack for fast and light tours.

The proven Aircomfort-System with mesh shoulder keeps your back cooler and drier.

Features

Front pocket with stowaway helmet holder
Interior valuables pocket
3M reflector and attachment loop for the optional Safety Blink
Hydration system compatible
Mesh pockets
Weight 940 g
Capacity 14 L
Dimensions (H x W X D) 47 x 22 x 15 cm”

Looks nice no? I was really pleased with this pack when I first received it, although a couple of things niggled right from the off – firstly, it’s not actually that light despite being marketed as a ‘fast and light’ style bag. Over 900g for a 14l sack isn’t what I’d consider all that lightweight really, especially when you open the bag up to find that it has nothing in the way of organisational pockets or the like, despite its weight. Now, I also do like my biking packs to have stash holes for things like pumps and multi-tools, so I wasn’t overly pleased to find this minimalist open void that just swallows everything you throw at it – however I was impressed at just how large this thing does seem to be inside and how much kit I managed to fill it with – it’s certainly big enough for a summer day-ride, although you might want something bigger in winter if you’re carrying insulation layers and the like.

Secondly, despite often being marketed as a hydration pack, this bag does not come with a hydro pouch. This wasn’t a big problem for me as I already have several, but if you’re looking for a full hydration pack system bear in mind this one doesn’t come supplied with a pouch. (I tested both a 2l Source roll-top pouch in this and a Nalgene 2l screw-cap pouch, both of which fitted fine – I also don’t see that there would be any issue using a larger 3l pouch if you wanted to).

Thirdly, it seemed to ride up my back somewhat when I rode with it – walking or even running with it were mostly ok, with the large gap in the vented back system meaning this was the only bag I’d ever used that hadn’t made my back sweat. Sadly none of the niceness of having a sweat free back actually matters when you find yourself hurtling downhill and unable to move your head back properly to see because your bag has ridden up and the stiff back system is now digging into the back of your neck…

It was after that little ‘incident’ that I swapped bags with my riding partner Matt and swore (quite profusely) that I never wanted to see the Deuter again. A shame really, but for me a biking pack that interferes with your head movement is an absolute no no. Don’t necessarily let this put you off though – please read on.

Matt (aka @carriedcarpet for all you Twitter types), being a different shape to me (I am an ‘average’ slim woman, he is a slightly taller, trim but athletic male) seemed to have none of the back issues I did, and hence the next glowing part of the review is from him:

“Not for Girls.

Some people spend their weekends with their girlfriends or their wives, visiting national trust properties, cafes and random events or beer festivals. I spend my weekends with Ingrid, a feisty German girl who is super quick, but also rather unforgiving. Ingrid is my cross country hardtail and before you all feel sorry for me I have to say that I see myself as one of the lucky ones, my bike doesn’t bestow me with in laws and though she throws me off at the slightest sign of cockiness, lack of commitment or skill, she rewards my passion and effort with the pure thrill of speed . The sheer concentration of a long technical downhill gives an almost meditative effect, removing the strain and tension of a hard week at work (that is, when I don’t fall off her in which case I often end up face down in a stream...)

So to the matter at hand, Laurens Deuter Race X Air running and biking pack. I usually use another brand of biking/hydration pack (think humps and deserts) so I was keen to do a swap on a ride around the black run at Llandegla Forest (which it should also be noted is the home of one of the best bacon sandwiches in Wales.) From the off the mesh back system fitted well - this isn’t a new thing and has been around for at least ten years, however Deuter have made something lightweight [ed. – see my earlier comments about weight] which also seems to fit my rather scrawny/athletic physique really well. As a bike pack it’s fairly minimal, with external mesh side pockets for jelly babies (or if you’re posh energy gel), a zipped front pocket and an internal divider in the main compartment to separate out your hydration pouch from the rest of your stuff. If bells and whistles are what you are after this probably isn’t the pack for you, however to my mind less is definitely more, and what this pack does is provide something simple but in a really well tailored and designed package. I took the pack running round the Ironbridge Gorge and this seemed to be where the pack really came into its own - the back system was really secure, even with 5kg of weight in it, none of the normal annoying bouncing up and down and the waist belt didn’t cause my top to ride up, luckily preventing too many tourists on Ironbridge being shocked by my bare mid riff. Some people baulk at the idea of a built in rain cover, thinking it’s best to keep essentials in dry bags, but for this type of bag it is a great feature. Having still not quite got used to people trying to run me over when running at night, pulling out the hi-vis raincover means I have an extra chance of survival when out in the dark. The other bonus is that on the rare occasions I bike to work I can transform my muddy pack into something a bit more smart and socially acceptable.

My only real niggles with the pack was that there weren’t enough clips to stop spare straps flapping around, something common to most packs and easily sorted with some elastic or duct tape. I also had a bit of a hang up about the mesh shoulder straps, they worked brilliantly and were really comfortable, but somehow they made me think about tights. However Ingrid didn’t share my hang ups, she really liked the bag and I wouldn’t dare argue with her!”

Matt and Ingrid pack testing at Llandegla, after my tantrum

So there we have it – two rather different opinions on the same pack. I didn’t find it fitted me terribly well, which wasn’t a problem whilst walking (my first excursion out with it had been a day’s bog slog in the Berwyns and I found no fault with it whatsoever, in fact I rather enjoyed using this pack as a walking day bag – however my primary use for it was meant to be as a mountain biking pack and for this it simply didn’t suit me). Matt found the bag actually fitted him really well and enjoys using it for biking, running and walking on regular occasions.

The link bit: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Deuter/

catalysts

2011-10-20T00:28:00.001+01:00

Every so often in life, you come across something or someone who changes everything. Sometimes it’s just a simple thought process or a question that inspires you or plants a seed. Sometimes it’s an act or an experience that immerses you so completely that you know in an instant that the course of your life has been irreversibly altered.

I love life. I love living, I love feeling. Simple things like sitting down and enjoying a meal with a friend – simple pleasures and moments savouring tastes, smells and company. Talking, laughing, joking, sharing opinions and ideas. These simple moments are sometimes all we need to grow, to start to realise that aspects of our lives work while others need to be worked on.

Very rarely some people find focus in a singular activity. I suspect many people may never experience the pleasure of this kind of clarity in focus. I must be lucky – I know what I want, I know who I am and who I want to be.

Finding ways to make things happen may be hard and sometimes I sit here and worry. I find myself seriously wondering if I’m making a big mistake in trying – is it all pointless? Am I wasting my time? Can I do this? Can I make this happen? Do I have the fight in me? Do I have the focus and the ability?

None of these doubts actually matter – I know what I want and what needs to be done, I can see the barriers and the obstacles and deep down I know I’m capable of entering the fight. Whether I will win is never going to be certain, but isn’t life all about the journey rather than the outcome?

I’ve spent much of my life feeling like an underachiever, when the reality is I have been achieving things many people consider to be amazing. I guess I’m growing mentally, I can now meet people, make friends, talk and realise that even though they may not really know me, they believe in me. Suddenly I’m finding that I actually believe in myself too.

Sometimes it takes big things to make us realise the small ones, and sometimes it’s the small things that have the biggest effect.

To all of those people in my life who have ever believed in me, said a nice word, done a nice thing or simply wished me well – thank you. You are all catalysts.

rainbows

2011-10-10T22:14:00.001+01:00

Up there we had been dodging rainbows, skimming and skipping over the clouds. I giggled as I realised I didn’t know how to do what was being asked of me, but there was no frustration, no embarrassment, just pure exhilaration. I felt like a small child who’d been handed a gift – grinning with sheer, unbridled joy as I ripped open the wrapping paper.

Playing with the clouds, chasing railway lines through my up-turned canopy. I must be the luckiest person in the world to be able to see and feel life this way.

cli-machx

2011-10-02T23:19:00.001+01:00

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve been doing very little in the way of exercise just lately, due to the fact that my ankle injury has led to a recurrence of an old chronic knee injury. I’ve been desperately trying to rest it all to allow time to re-hab and heal, but for an active person like me, this has been agony, which is why, today I risked it and went over to Machynlleth with Matt and our mountain bikes.

I’m not going to say too much, nor am I going to post up any nice pictures (I did take the camera with the intention of getting a couple of snaps, but somehow the urge to keep riding and riding just meant I never stopped long enough to take any). Basically, getting out on the bike was the tonic I’ve been sorely craving. My injuries held up fine, my fitness levels were no-where near as bad as I’d feared they would be (they were bad, just not as bad as I’d resigned myself to!), and the trail was one of the best man-made trails I think I’ve ever ridden.

My short conclusion is, to anyone riding mountain bikes in Wales, who hasn’t yet ridden the Cli-MachX trail just outside Corris, near Machynlleth – get over there. It is awesome, especially the black graded final descent (apparently the longest in Wales). Go go go!

http://www.dyfimountainbiking.org.uk/Dyfi_MTB/ClimachX.html

back to school…

2011-09-24T02:11:00.001+01:00

…or at least that was what it felt like in one critical respect: that old familiar dread. Getting up in the morning, having breakfast and putting the uniform on knowing that in half an hour I’d be back in class sitting there feeling a deep seated, dark, black dread…

It’s not that I’m a stupid person. I always did quite well at school as it happens. My dread always came as a result of my slightly psychotic nature and a constant (if misplaced) fear of failure and humiliation. Basically I hated school, I hated being there, being asked questions, having to speak, having to be someone. All I ever really wanted to do was fade into the background and be forgotten, left to my own devices, in my own little world. To an extent my personality hasn’t changed all that much since my school days: I’m still shy, I’m still terrified of failing and am constantly worried that people will think badly of me or that I’m about to make myself look like an idiot. Of course I am a fair bit older now, more mature and have spent several years learning how to cope and survive in the real world – nowadays my shyness is hidden under a veneer of enthusiasm and implied self-confidence. Sometimes the confidence is even real and I can live life genuinely believing that I am someone and can be someone…

When it comes to flying I have a love/hate relationship with the learning process. On the one hand I love to learn, I always have. On the other hand I hate to feel like an idiot, and despise making myself feel like I’ve made someone think I’m stupid. Aerobatics is great – I came into it completely green, with no knowledge, no skill and no pre-conceptions. I knew I knew nothing and was utterly content to be guided and taught with no fear of sounding stupid, because after all you can’t be ignorant about something you’re truly ignorant of.

I have a pilot’s license. I went through the pain of learning to fly, of being taught, of sitting the exams and having someone watch me and question me and work out whether or not I knew what I was doing or if I’m actually an idiot. I’ve been through all that and have no desire to go through it all again just now thank you, just like I have no desire to go back to school to sit at the back of the class praying that the teacher won’t ask me any questions. Having to ‘re-learn’ everything in the Pitts was not something I wanted at all, to such an extent that I’d been putting off doing any real circuit work and actually learning to fly and land the aeroplane as much as I possibly could. It was daft really, my own bizarre mis-conception that because I could fly a ‘conventional’ aeroplane, I should be able to fly a Pitts Special without too much effort…

A Pitts Special is an incredible aeroplane, and at no point is she to be underestimated. Treat her right and she’ll let you play with her, treat her badly or arrogantly and you’ll soon learn your place. SKNT and I have been flying together for a while now, and I’ve been quite happy to just play with her in the upper air, letting my mentor and teacher take control to get us back down, but of course it was essential that sooner or later I’d be able to take her out by myself, and as such I’d have to learn to actually fly and land her…

Landing is an interesting matter. It’s quite well known that Pitts Specials can be a bit of a handful and a challenge to learn to land, and it’s certainly been my experience that good landings are more of an art-form rather than a science. Learning to land was the part I’d really not been looking forward to – it should be easy, it shouldn’t be hard to learn, I should be able to pick it up really quickly…every bounce, every go-around, every fluffed approach were all things I knew I’d hate myself for because of course I would be making myself look like a useless idiot, and of course Paul was going to judge me for that wasn’t he…

Paul is a great instructor, ok yes, he has his faults as we all do, and at times I find myself feeing frustrated and even aggravated with him (bear in mind we’ve spent a fair amount of time in each other’s company now, and I’m not the most patient of people), but at the end of the day if anyone asked me what I thought of him as an instructor, I’d tell them I think he has a way with being everything he needs to be exactly when he needs to be in order to help someone progress. That, to me, is the essence of a good instructor and teacher…And so it was, after I’d finally swallowed my pride and accepted that my only option was to accept that I was going to be useless, and that it didn’t matter, I started flying circuits with Paul.

It has come to mind recently that an aeroplane isn’t simply a tool or a machine, but that it has a soul. SKNT certainly does, and a character to match. Simply controlling an aeroplane isn’t really flying. Confidence is needed alongside huge amounts of respect and humility, but once you get the balance right (or more to the point, once I had started getting the balance right), and you accept and listen to the guidance you are given, everything will start to settle into the right places. And so it is, that after a few hours of flying round and round and round and round in circles, occasionally landing but more often bouncing, whacking the power on and going around (or just going around after a truly terrible attempt at a side-slipped approach), of swearing to myself, hearing Paul saying the same things over and over again until they finally went in, of forgetting where to turn, of fidgeting in my harness, of wishing my seat was more comfortable or that I was on the beach in the Bahamas instead, of wondering when it would all end, of wishing I was a better pilot, of more swearing at myself, and of finally realising that I am a better pilot, of flying perfect and near-perfect approaches, of landing and stopping and backtracking and flying again, of smiling and realising that every bit of hardship and pain is worth it, of sitting and thinking that I’m madly in love with this type of flying and this type of aeroplane, of realising and knowing that I can do this, of still stuffing it up and swearing at myself occasionally, of going out and flying and relaxing and breathing and focussing: I have finally learned to land.

And so it went, that last Thursday Paul got out of SKNT and sent me off for the first time without him. After a shaky start and one of the most incredible pieces of decision making I’ve ever witnessed from anyone (I made a fairly major mistake and landed horribly shaken and prepared to walk away), I flew a few circuits and landed a few times, and left the airfield as a Pitts pilot, no longer just a student any more.

If it isn’t hard, it’s probably not worth doing!

belief

2011-09-19T00:20:00.001+01:00

Terrified. Unsure. Alone and trembling, breathing deeply trying to gain composure…

That’s how I sat, in the back seat of a two seater Pitts Special, alone with nothing but the wind and my own thoughts for company.

Sherbern-in-Elmet, Yorkshire. The Tiger Trophy competition. Paul and I had headed up, he flying the Pitts and me driving my new second home (the van). This was quite a big one – all classes competing, from the Beginners (just me as it happened), all the way up to Unlimited. Lots of pilots, lots of banter, lots of flying. The whole thing was a fantastic experience for me, being only the second aerobatic competition I’d ever attended. I managed to fly my Beginners sequence on Friday, admittedly not as well as I was really capable of, but in all honesty I hadn’t prepared all that well and hadn’t really been overly concerned with the sequence – immediately before flying it and being judged I’d been practicing a sequence for the next class up (Standard). Being the only entrant I’m loathe to consider that I won (can you win a competition if there are no other competitors? I don’t really think so…), but despite my woeful lack of preparation and my somewhat distracted state, flying in some thick miserable haze of poor visibility, I still managed to be awarded a respectable 70.7% on my scoresheet.

Saturday’s competition was great. I’d hoped to be able to compete in the Standard class, but paperwork and my lack of endorsement precluded that happening. That’s not to say I didn’t fly, but I’ll get to that in a bit. The competition in itself was for me a wonderful and eye-opening experience – I got to watch some fantastic flying and meet a wide range of amazing and friendly people, pilots, judges, partners – all people enthused about aerobatics and the life that surrounds it (to any of you that were there and kind enough to talk to and make a young, shy pilot feel welcome, thank you!).

Two days previously, I’d spent the day at Shobdon flying circuits with Paul, gradually feeling more and more confident that I actually was starting to get the hang of landing at last. The good landings had continued all day until a moment of insanity clearly struck my normally sane instructor – he got out of the aeroplane and sent me off alone for the first time. (Quite how wise a decision this had been on his part came rapidly into question as I had a rather shocking near crash experience on my first landing, but that’s another story – ever cool, calm and collected, Paul managed to talk some sense into me and sent me back out to make less of a hash of things and as a result salvaged a good chunk of my confidence and esteem, and as such I left the airfield having been signed off to fly the Pitts solo, albeit by the skin of my tightly clenched teeth…). Anyway, my point here is that on Thursday I’d managed to achieve my aim for the winter, somewhat sooner than anticipated, and had solo’d the aeroplane.

Preparation is quite important to me in life. I like to know, as far as possible, what is expected of me and what I have to do, so at the end of the day hearing Paul ask me if I’d consider flying my ‘proficiency endorsement’ flight solo in the competition box, instead of with an examiner in the front seat acting as safety pilot (as I’d been led to believe would happen), I spent a good few minutes stunned and wondering whether this was genuinely the most ridiculous idea I’d ever heard, or if his belief in me was justified (could I really do this? Was I really capable? Could I really be ready for this?).

Terrified. Unsure. Alone and trembling, breathing deeply trying to gain composure…

That’s how I sat, in the back seat of a two seater Pitts Special, alone with nothing but the wind and my own thoughts for company.

After a good deal of procrastination and thinking, I eventually swallowed my lack of self-confidence and listened to the voices of the pilots willing me on, and the voice of the man that really knew what I was capable of. Paul and Ron saw me to the aeroplane and then headed to what had been the judging line earlier in the day, off to watch me fly the 2011 Standard Known sequence to prove that I was capable of safely flying and competing at this level. This was my first ever solo aerobatic flight…

Take-off scares me. A 200hp Lycoming engine attached to a big propeller on the front of a relatively light-weight aeroplane with only me in it is not something to be underestimated. Rudder inputs to compensate for the gyroscopic effect of such a big propeller on such a short fuselage, changing as I change my attitude to lift the tail to allow myself to see the runway ahead of me, lumps in the grass throwing and bouncing us around as we rapidly accelerate – it’s a relief when I can finally pull her up and take flight. I start to breathe again.

It’s only relatively recently that I’ve caught the aerobatics bug, but caught it I have and I doubt I’ll ever be cured – not that I want to be. Flight is something special, and aerobatic flight seems to me to be the embodiment of the focus and freedom I’ve spent my life searching for. The mountains are the only other place I’ve ever found such clarity of thought through sheer necessary focus, and only then for an instant at a time. In the air the challenges aerobatic flight presents me are everything I crave – clarity, focus and emotion all folded into one.

The Standard Known Sequence for 2011 – my first solo aerobatic foray

“The box, just find the box. Get higher, just relax, get it done.” My thoughts are my own, my emotions personal and private, but in the following moments they are nothing but crisp, logical necessity.

“Shit, there’s cloud. Ok just keep circling outside the box and wait for it to shift, it’s only momentary…”

Nothing went exactly to plan. My mind was full to beyond capacity, I couldn’t remember the sequence, everything happened too quickly. All I knew was I had to stay in the box, maintain the heights I’d calculated for each manoeuvre and fly everything safely. It all happened in such a blur I barely had time to realise what I was doing and that in those moments everything I’d been striving for over the past year of flying were suddenly being realised…

Landing at a strange airfield is always something that I find mildly traumatic, and being in a high-performance biplane that I’d only solo’d once before wasn’t something that was particularly helpful to my already broken nerves. Yes, my nerves were broken, but clearly not yet shattered as my eventual landing was as perfect as I could ever have hoped for – not so much as a skip, just a nice settled gentle touch down allowing me to roll the nose forward and see where I had to put my feet to keep myself in line. The relief was immense but very quickly replaced by the horrible knowledge that I’d landed on a runway from which I had no clue of where to taxi. Having to ask stupid questions over the radio is something I suspect I’ll get used to doing, but at the time I found myself chattering away to myself in private in between said stupid questions, just to maintain some semblance of sanity as I meandered my way back across the airfield, parking and shutting down my engine.

A few questions later, Ron told me he was happy and that he’d sign me off. Next year I’ll be flying alone and competing with the others at the Standard level.

Still terrified, but now sure. Standing alone and trembling with excitement, I have composure. I am an aerobatic pilot.

alcohol, tents and bog-trotting

2011-09-11T20:44:00.001+01:00

Picture the scene – I’m at Shobdon airfield having just landed the Pitts for the nth time (I’m on the circuits at the moment trying to make my landings more consistent before Paul lets me loose on my own) and have a somewhat mad rush home because we’ve run late due to the rainy weather.

I rush back, to discover that the chap I was supposed to be meeting at my house, was in fact not at my house despite the message he’d sent saying that he thought he was…cue a short search and phonecalls to reveal that he’d made the mistake I’d told him he would, and had ended up at the house the sat nav will have you believe is ours (when in fact it is not).

Five minutes later and a certain Mr Phil Sorrell (aka DaylightGambler) had arrived on my driveway along with his dog, Angel, and a big bag full of alcohol.

This was to be the beginning of a slightly unconventional weekend for me – firstly because a trade deal of cider in exchange for a home baked toffee apple cake meant that on Friday night I ended up insanely drunk on a combination of the aforementioned cider and several different single malt whiskies, secondly because on Saturday I spent the entire day wishing I was dead. The hangover caused by Friday night’s excesses (actually, we were still drinking at 5am Saturday so I really do have no-one to blame but myself) was truly horrific and as a result we did nothing but sit, lay down, sit, grumble, eat bacon sandwiches, drink coke and finally bake the promised cake.

Eventually the pair of us (aided by my long-suffering legend of a husband) gathered ourselves together enough to head out onto the hills on the estate out back with our tents, for a surprisingly lovely ‘wild’ camp. There’s something about walking up into the hills by the brilliance of a near full moon that’s truly special.

Phil admiring the view (yes, this is indeed where I live, and I most certainly do know how lucky I am)

Upon waking up on Sunday morning after said camp, the view was stunning. The bad weather had cleared for a few minutes and we sat and just drank it all in for a while, braced by a clear wind and with eyes set upon a life-affirming landscape vista.

Our tranquillity was broken a short while after we’d managed to brew the all important cuppa, by the grim greyness that we’d been expecting and so we set upon striking camp with a deal of haste before we got drenched.

After a breakfast omelette back at home we eventually settled on doing a simple walk at Lake Vyrnwy and heading up along the line of the waterfalls on the northern side. At least, it was meant to be simple…

Lots of water!

Personally, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of bog-trotting and marsh wandering, and so the next few hours were not necessarily my idea of heaven – it looked on the map like we were heading for a nice simple circular route up following the stream until we reached an old dwelling with a track leading back down through the forest to the road…The distinct lack of paths on the map were a clue to the nature of what was to come – the Berwyns are an area reasonably famous for their bogs and peat hags.

It may LOOK lovely, but the next part was really rather cack

Ok, so at the time I didn’t really enjoy having my boots fill with stream or my trousers absorbing several gallons of boggy poo water, but it’s always a good laugh afterwards, and this walk was no exception, and the area is undoubtedly a beautiful wild place and somewhere I truly feel at home.

Phil has been excellent company, and I look forward to sharing a few more days in the hills with him (assuming he’s not decided I’m some mad woman he never wants to be involved with ever again), although perhaps will less whisky next time…

filler in

2011-09-05T21:25:00.001+01:00

So what have I been up to of late? Just general life business I suppose, you know, van building (I have a transit I’m converting into a ‘stealth camper’ of sorts), aerobatic flying and general Pitts Special flying, mountain biking, looking for work…

Yes, I did say looking for work. Depressing as it is, the only way I’m going to be able to keep up the flying and attempt this mad career change thing (which, incidentally is still a notion open to options…current thinking is centring around possibly trying to get a commercial license and flight instructor rating, although I’m investigating everything else I can think of too), is to get more engineering work. More contract days would be ideal and we shall see what happens.

If anyone knows of anybody in need of a Radio Engineer, then let me know, please!

Also partially related to the career change and flying thing, is my latest major acquisition – the ex-police Ford Transit I’ve just had a bed built into the back of. It’s fabulous! I’ve always wanted a van camper, ever since I can remember seeing one a few years ago on a climbing trip. All hardcore outdoorsy people seem to have them – climbers, bikers, guides etc. Up until now I’ve never been able to justify the extra cost of owning and running one (over the cost of running the estate car), but with plans afoot to do more consecutive flying days, it makes no sense to be driving backwards and forwards to the airfield everyday (a 2.5 – 3hour round trip), and hence the van has become a hugely sensible option. It will also give me somewhere to chill out before and in between aerobatic flights AND somewhere to cook dinner/brew tea etc, thereby also saving on the amount I spend in the cafe. It all makes sense, honest!

The current build project, now that the bed is mostly done, is the ‘mountain bike quick access storage’ thing. I have some cunning ideas in the pipeline and some interesting bits of hardware on order, so hopefully in a week or so it’ll all be sorted and I’ll be posting up a complete set of ‘pimp my ride’ style photos for you all to yawn at.

Speaking of mountain bikes, this weekend just gone Matt, Philip and I finally managed to get over to Bwlch Nant yr Arian (near Aberystwyth) to try out some of the trails there, and I must say we were mightily impressed. Stunning views, a great little cafe, brilliantly fun sections of fast, technical singletrack, scary exposure and relatively sociable fire-road climbs all made for a fantastic day out. We will be going back I’m sure!

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/bwlchnantyrarian

Fantastic view from the cafe deck. The Red Kites are great to watch too.

Somehow, despite deliberately taking the camera with us, we failed to get any good photos on the trails, but the big grins on our faces here tell the story – a truly fabulous day out on the Pendam and Summit Trails

Oh yes, and I probably should just mention that flying-wise, plans are afoot for me to be competing at the Tiger Trophy up at Sherbern-in-Elmet (near Leeds) on the 16th and 17th of September. Hopes are that I’ll be able to enter the Beginners category again on the Friday, and also enter the Standard on the Saturday. So right now I’m studying like mad to make the very most of my flight time in training over the next couple of weeks. I love it.

aerobatics–some people say nice things!

2011-08-30T16:00:00.001+01:00

I’ve recently been pointed toward the British Aerobatic Association website and their write-up of the Gunpowder Trophy event, and I was delighted to read this:

“A very stylish and assured performance from Lauren Richardson secured her the Beginners Plaque”.

There are also a couple of nice photographs to look at (including a rare one of me that I actually really rather like!), so if you are so inclined have a click here:

http://www.aerobatics.org.uk/results/2011/Gunpowder/CD%20Report%20and%20Results.htm

support me, please!

2011-08-22T19:11:00.001+01:00

My last posting about my experiences (and win) at the Leicester aerobatic competition happily coincided with being my 200th posting here on Flight of the Bumblie. I’d been hoping for something decent to write so that worked out well!

Anyway, this post is a little bit different, as for the first time I’m trying to kick off the self-publicity engine. I have to admit that this isn’t something that comes naturally to me, and in all honesty I’m not a big fan of people who try to make themselves out to be some kind of big deal…BUT, I’d really like to start pulling in more readers and gaining more exposure for the site here, even if many of my writings are nothing more than ramblings (loads of them are going to be good though, I promise)…

Hence, we now have a nice little logo (look left) – 100% inspired by the wonderful Pitts Special S2A, G-SKNT, who also happens to be the image in the site banner (look up) It’s also 100% hand drawn and graphically converted by yours truly. I have every intention of drawing up a few more graphics in the near future – some nice little aerobatic sequences could look awesome I think.

Anyway, if you click on the logo, you’ll be taken to another site where you’ll see a variety of T-shirts, mugs and hoodies available to buy with the logo on. I don’t make much on the sales of these items (actually, insanely little), but that’s not my aim – I’ll be wearing a Flight of the Bumblie hoody when I’m out and about and bumming around the airfield etc, simply in the hope of attracting some attention and hopefully some more people to come over and view the site.

So, any of you who feel generous and would be keen to help me out and support my ongoing endeavours in the world of aerobatics, and of course in my outdoor and rescue life, please consider buying something and wearing it out and about!

http://www.streetshirts.co.uk/bumblie

it’s the taking part that counts…the Gunpowder Trophy, Leicester (beginner aerobatics, part 2)

2011-08-21T19:33:00.001+01:00

Well that was fun. Yesterday was the big day – Paul and I headed over to Leicester for the Gunpowder Trophy Aerobatics event in G-SKNT. This was to be my first foray into competition aerobatics, and not only was I over to watch Paul compete, but I was entering the Beginner’s category myself alongside Rob, another of Paul’s students and two others.

Being woken at 6am isn’t exactly my idea of a good start to a day, especially when I’ve failed to actually get to sleep until about 4am (was it nerves? Being in a strange place? Maybe I shouldn’t have had that Gin & Tonic?), but fortunately I think Paul is beginning to get to know how is best to handle me – being woken at 6am to be handed a freshly brewed cup of tea is about as good as it gets! Frustratingly we arrived at the airfield at about 7am be greeted by a steely grey sheet of low cloud and drizzle…

Sitting around at airfields is an integral part of the flying experience, and actually in this case despite the fact that we were meant to be at Leicester for an 8am briefing, being forced to relax for a few hours while the weather cleared may well have been a blessing in disguise. It gave me time to get rid of the “oh my god can’t I just go home and not do this??” butterflies, AND I was even bought breakfast when the cafe opened at 9am…I’m really not sure quite what had gotten into Paul…

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff, eventually we crawled into G-SKNT and made our way across country beneath the grey gloom to Leicester, where we were met by a somewhat mad rush as Paul was asked if he could fly straight away to get his first sequence done before they started on the Beginners. Frustratingly I missed his flight as I was busy being briefed by the organisers, but I’m led to believe that despite the rush and lack of ‘chill out time’, he flew quite well…

The whole experience was all quite alien to me but I found myself made to feel incredibly welcome – the organisers clearly keen to encourage and include us newbies. I’m not sure if I made a bit of a pain of myself, but no-one seemed to mind all the stupid questions I was asking, in fact I think they rather enjoyed it – I was keen to find out as much as I could about the whole thing and how it all works, and what better way than to ask the people involved?!

I was also joined by Phil and Adam, who made the whole day even more enjoyable by just being there and having a good laugh – thanks guys.

The mad rush continued as the Beginner’s event kicked off – I managed to watch two of the other three competitors, (including Rob who had a great crack at it but unfortunately had a bit of a “bollocks!” moment flying his Half Cuban), making mental notes to myself about how the crosswind seemed to be affecting them, and just basically making sure the sequence was totally clear in my mind. All credit to Paul – the poor sod was overloaded to begin with by firstly flying us in, then immediately having to fly his first sequence, then upon landing having to go straight back up with Rob and then me once again straight after…hectic.

Strapping in…not nervous at all here…

Ok, I admit, I was terrified. I knew exactly what I needed to do, what I needed to fly, how I needed to fly it and what I had to avoid doing. I also for once felt it was all pretty clear in my mind – I knew where the ‘box’ was, I knew what the wind was doing, I knew where my decision points were going to be and what my decisions would need to include. I’ve always worked well under pressure, and happily it seems that yesterday was no exception.

Once we were airborne the tasks were simple – get the aeroplane trimmed, get to the side of the box, fly through it and do the warm-up manoeuvre…

This was probably the part that made me the most nervous – on the first pass through the box I needed to fly a roll in two halves – flying inverted for a few seconds checking everything was all ready for the sequence to be flown. Frustratingly, I’ve had a mental block on rolling back upright from inverted, always managing to stuff something up so rather than being all in balance and flying a nice straight half roll, it usually all goes a bit squidgy and feels horrible. My ‘midnight’ reading during my insomnia of the night before may have paid off though, as this time it all felt pretty good and I switched into business mode…

Apparently I ‘wasn’t hanging about’ as I flew my sequence, and this was no bad thing. In my mind it all happened in a nicely paced, controlled manner, and for once I actually flew the way I was meant to – everything clicked, it all worked. Of course their were mistakes and things I should have done better, but this time I just flew, I didn’t dwell on the mistakes, and I just did what needed to be done; remaining aware of where I was in the box, where the wind was taking me and making the decisions that needed to be made with time to spare. Nothing was rushed, and I enjoyed every second of it, every sensation and every movement.

Yellow is the best colour

Once we’d got back down my mission was to find a drink and to find the toilet, whilst indulging in a mode of ‘super faff’ in between, all of which meant that by the time I went down to the registration office to find my score sheet, I was being accosted by all manner of people asking '”was that you flying the last one?”, or simply saying “congratulations!”. My responses were all along the lines of “Huh? What?” until I was told that I’d just won my category…

The rest of the day was spent watching the pilots in the Standard and Intermediate categories, which in itself was an enjoyable and really informative experience, especially as I had the chance to watch Paul pull out a performance good enough to win him the silver medal in Standard (well done mate, it was really inspiring to watch you fly like that, even if I didn’t tell you at the time).

Before the rather lovely transit flight back home, there was to be one more painful part to the day however. The award ceremony. I hadn’t realised that as I’d won a category I’d have to go through the trauma of being presented a prize and having my photograph taken several times. Yes, I am quite dense sometimes.

I think Paul (seated on the left) may actually be smiling here, I did have to zoom in and check though as it came as a bit of a surprise

“What?! Drape myself over the plane here? But I’ll get covered in oil!” (Genuine conversation)

God I hope the photos going onto the British Aerobatics website don’t actually include the ones like this.

All in all the day was a fantastic experience, and one that I’ve learned a whole load from. I’m super keen to train more and start competing in the Standard Category next year and just have a great time with some more great people. Thanks everyone, the event was ace!

Special thanks must go to Paul Stanley of Altered Attitude Aerobatics, firstly for flying with me, secondly for putting up with me and all my nonsense, and thirdly for being a fantastic and inspirational instructor. I can only encourage anyone who fancies seeing what it’s like to look at the world through different eyes, to check out his website and consider coming over to Shobdon and having a go – you’d never forget it.

http://www.alteredattitude.co.uk/ and for all you Facebook users check out (and ‘like’) G-SKNT here: http://www.facebook.com/GSKNT

aerobatics, the beginner’s perspective (part 1)

2011-08-16T00:11:00.001+01:00

2011 has been a bit of a strange year for me all told. Several events have led to major changes in life, lifestyle and perspective – the most significant of course being our catastrophic house fire back in January. Nothing I’ve experienced works quite as effectively to focus the mind on what is actually important, than losing all your possessions (although I can’t say I recommend it to anyone). The events following the fire also served to change a few of my views on life – living in a borrowed caravan on my own driveway for instance, led to me realising that actually houses and home comforts, whilst being nice, aren’t actually really necessary. Being seven months on from the fire and having still not had all of the [frankly piffling amount of] insurance money we are owed has taught me that insurance companies are generally pretty damned useless and should not be relied upon (and also that having a nice comfy sofa to sit on is something we all tend to take for granted). The list goes on and on and on, but at the end of the day, no matter how negative the events of life, all of them can be used to have a positive effect on your perspective if you allow it. All of them.

So, here we go, perspective. It’s all too easy to get bogged down and focussed on little things and miss out on the bigger picture – losing perspective. This applies to pretty much any aspect of life (as well as life itself of course), and flying aerobatics is no exception. The biggest learning curve I am currently going through is very definitely one of perspective, or perhaps perspectives [plural]. Let me explain:

Flying itself is a fairly complex pastime to take up – you have all sorts of things to learn and think about and eventually you kind of have to do them all at the same time. The controlling the aeroplane bit is actually a relatively small part of what it is to fly – you have to navigate, talk to people on the radio, maintain heights and headings, listen to people on the radio, look out for other aeroplanes, keep track of how much fuel you’re using, keep an eye on how the engine is performing and a good number of other things, and all of that is just in straight and level flight. It sounds like a lot doesn’t it? When you’re first starting out learning to fly (actually, no matter how experienced you are this all still applies) it can all seem quite overwhelming, to the point where the big picture can end up blurred or lost as you fixate on perhaps just one or two things at a time – for instance concentrating on maintaining an altitude and spending far too much time looking at the altimeter and trying to make micro-adjustments can all to often mean you fail to spot that other aircraft heading toward you…

Learning to fly aerobatics is something that gives me immense amounts of satisfaction, primarily because it presents such huge challenges – learning how to handle a high performance aeroplane with precision and accuracy is enormously difficult and as a result incredibly rewarding. It can also be hugely frustrating at times, and sometimes it’s easy to get bogged down by this and lose sight of the sheer joy of it all.

I’ve always been a perfectionist in everything I’ve ever done, and to me mistakes are the enemy, things to be analysed and understood so that in future the causes can be resolved and the consequences eliminated. This is at once a really good way to approach aerobatic flying, and also a really bad one because I often end up fixated on what I’ve just done wrong in a manoeuvre in the middle of a sequence rather than focussing on what should be coming next (which as you can probably imagine then usually leads into a spiral of more and more mistakes and frustration). The big picture in this case is really quite simple – what does it look like? I need to be thinking “what is it looking like to the judges on the ground?”, and if I’ve screwed something up, “ok, what can I do to minimise the impact of my mistake on the rest of my sequence?”. I should NOT be thinking “bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, arse, that was shit…oh crap I can’t remember what’s next”.

Next weekend I’m heading to Leicester to be judged in my first aerobatic competition. This will be the first time anyone will have told me what my flying looks like – the first time anyone will have told me their perspective on my big picture. I’m excited.

Recently I’ve been doing some fairly complex flying, learning manoeuvres and sequences that are far beyond any that will be expected of me in the beginner’s (or basic) category. Hopefully this will mean that I’ll have a good chance of not screwing things up too badly. In the next category up (the Standard category), the sequences are about 10 manoeuvres long, including one that is “Known” and one or two “Unknown” that are given to you on the day to be learned and memorised. Next year I will be entering the Standard category and hoping to do quite well, but right now the single, 5 manoeuvre “Known” sequence of the Beginner’s class is feeling daunting enough…

The 2011 Beginner’s Known Sequence, the Beginner’s Perspective

The diagram above is the sequence I will be flying, with some of my ‘notes to self’ included. Allow me to attempt to explain:

The whole thing will start at an altitude we’ve worked out taking into account all the height gains and losses of the manoeuvres to come. We’ll be flying parallel to some form of line feature (probably the airfield runway at Leicester) – this will be what I use to make sure we’re not changing heading during the manoeuvres. Three distinct wing rocks (dipping one wing to one side) then herald the start of the sequence – the first wing rock being just before we start to dive to gain airspeed, the final two being carried out during the dive. At approximately 160mph we will pull to straight and level for a moment or two before we pull into the first manoeuvre: the Loop.

Pulling sharply at first to begin the climb, I’ll be looking out to each wingtip to make sure we’re pulling up straight. I’ll relax the pressure a tiny bit and allow the aeroplane to pull upwards through the vertical, pulling slightly harder to gain the second, slower part of the circle. At this point I’ll be looking up through the canopy watching the horizon come into view. I’ll be making sure our wings are level as I’m also really relaxing the pressure to allow her to float gently over the top and begin her descent. We’ll drop gracefully downwards through the vertical, gaining speed, tracking parallel to our line feature. A sharper pull out during the fast bottom section will bring us back to straight and level flight after we’ve hopefully drawn a perfect circle.
Next, the Half Cuban (half Cuban 8) starts exactly the same as the simple loop we just flew. I’ll pull until we’re floating over the top, but then, just as begin our descent I’ll push the stick forward and arrest our loop so that we’re end up flying downwards at 45degrees, inverted. At this point, I’ll have been looking at the sighting frame (a piece of metalwork that lets us judge angles against the horizon) on the left wing to know where to stop, and looking up through the canopy I will see the ground below us with our line feature running parallel to us. We’ll pause at this descent attitude for a moment before a sharp roll to the left will swap our horizon back to normality (blue up, green down) and we pause again, now in a 45degree [upright] descent. After another pause we’ll pull back to straight and level flight and will hopefully now be flying in the exact opposite direction to which we started (still watching that line feature).
Next, we have yet another looping manoeuvre, but this time with a twist (quite literally). The Quarter Clover starts just the same as our other loops have, still making sure we’re not going all egg shaped by pulling too hard over the top, but this time as we’re pulling through and diving downwards, I’ll start a slow roll to the left, very carefully watching my line feature – I will be stopping the roll when we are at a 90degree angle (perpendicular) to this feature, at the same time still pulling out of the loop. This is a difficult one to explain, but basically we should have done a loop, but ended up flying out on a different (90degree) heading – we’ll be flying towards the [runway] line feature at the end of this, once again perfectly straight and level.
We’ll be coming out of the last manoeuvre quite fast, which is good because the next part of the sequence is the energy sapping and somewhat intimidating Stall Turn. A very sharp pull back on the stick will see us pulling about 5g until I arrest the movement with the sighting frame showing me that we are flying vertically upwards. Its important that we are actually vertical and not slightly over on our back here (an accidental inverted spin is very easy to get into in this one). Taking a look at both wing tips, I need to make sure we aren’t yawing (nose dropping to one side) or rolling off heading – as the aircraft slows I’ll be needing to input a bit of right rudder to stop the yaw, and some right aileron to stop us rolling left due to the engine torque effect (this becomes greater the slower we are flying). Flying straight up means we slow down pretty quickly, and just before our wings stall I’ll kick in full left rudder to make the aeroplane seemingly pivot around the left wingtip. Well, this is the plan – if I get the speed wrong it’ll look a bit weird. Immediately after I’ve kicked the rudder left, I’ll need to push in full right aileron to stop us rolling in the turn, and push the elevator forward. Once we’re round, I have to make sure we fly a perfectly vertical down line for a few seconds (the ground will start coming up to meet us pretty fast as we accelerate), before pulling out sharply to straight and level again. The pull will be quite high ‘g’ again and I’ll need to make sure I’m using my core muscles to make sure I don’t grey out too badly. We should also end up heading straight away from our reference feature.
Assuming I haven’t screwed everything up, the final manoeuvre in the sequence is one that I regularly manage to fluff up in isolation, although oddly when I’m not over analysing what I’m trying to do, my Slow (aileron) roll technique is often pretty much spot on. I guess the trick is to just fly this one and not think about it too much!

This type of roll isn’t as simple as you might think – unlike a ‘ballistic’ style of roll, you can’t just pull the nose up, whack the stick to the left and let the aeroplane do it’s thing in a nice ballistic zero-g arc (this is the simplest type of roll and one of the first things you learn when you start flying aerobatics). No, this type of roll requires that you remain straight and level and just roll round the longitudinal (nose to tail) axis of the aeroplane, which means that you need to use the rudder to offset the differing amounts and directions of lift that the wings are giving you at the different points of the roll…yeah, I’m struggling to explain this…

Ok, try to picture an aeroplane as it’s momentarily flying in a ‘knife-edge’ attitude – say with the right wing pointing vertically up and the left wing down toward the ground. At this attitude the wings aren’t producing lift, and in fact the most lift is being produced across the fuselage of the plane (yeah, that one was a revelation to me too). At this point the weight of the engine will be pulling the nose of the aeroplane downwards because of the reduction in lift. The way to stop the nose dropping earthwards (which will actually be to your left as you sit in the plane), is by putting in some right rudder. Of course as the roll progresses, the wings are constantly changing angle, and as such the elevator and rudder inputs also need to change to maintain that straight line…so yeah, it’s one of those things that feels utterly impossible until it clicks and starts to just work by instinct – I still tend to balls these up when I’m trying them in isolation and thinking too much!

So there we have it, that was the sequence I’ll be flying next weekend. Hopefully I won’t get too bogged down by details, and perfectionism, or fear or stress, and will be able to simply enjoy the dream of flight. Wish me luck.

momentary

2011-08-09T15:26:00.002+01:00

I live for moments, for brief encounters and fleeting glimpses - those moments that linger in my mind despite sometimes never really existing. Fantastic ideas, wishes and desires, held deep inside a fervid imagination, all were and are triggered by moments.

If this is not a basic element of human nature, then it is certainly an elemental part of who I am. My mind likes to wander to places that I can never really reach...if I could reach them then where would be the fantasy?

Moments come and go, some lasting for more than a simple flash or glimmer - these are grasped and held tightly, being built up from imagination and fantasy, into dreams and aspirations, they become my desires. Many other moments have been lost before I had even realised they were happening - they linger with me as either haunting questions that sink, heavy, into my soul, or as the occasional warm grin that I fail to control.

Life is momentary.

swedish summer, part 1

2011-08-08T13:34:00.001+01:00

Phil and I have just arrived back home after spending a week in Sweden with my good friend Anders (http://www.ichimusai.org/). Anders is an ex-colleague of mine from back in the ‘bad old days’ of fantastical engineering projects that were mismanaged into a burning hellfire from which a few of us managed to emerge only mildly singed (yes, there are some bad memories, but they were fun to re-visit over a few drinks – once you’re out of the hell you can look back and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all).

Anyway, we’ve stayed in touch, and finally this year I managed to get out and take him up on the offer of a visit and a few days hiking in the wilderness. We were also joined by another old colleague of ours, Torbjorn, meaning that we were four out in the wilds. A good number I think.

The trip was a bit different from any I’ve done before, being that as I was still nursing a sprained ankle, and that the primary focus was not on peak bagging or distance covered, but just on being ‘out there’ and enjoying the wilds and cooking good food! Oh yes, this was not to be a ‘lightweight’ trip – carrying several kilos of meat and baking products was never going to be a lightweight option, and frankly I’m glad! There’s something wonderful about spending hours walking and then stopping to cook something properly whilst having a good old natter, none of this dehydrated mush nonsense.

Today I’m feeling a little odd and can’t quite get myself together enough to write what I want to about the trip, so forgive me but this posting is just going to be one showcasing a few of the photographs I took – I hope they give you a taste of what we saw and where we experienced, I will write more soon I promise.

In Sweden, there are many ‘refuges’ and huts with emergency VHF radio-phones on the trails, always with a water source nearby. This one was where we chose to make camp on the first night.

This is my lovely little tent (still adore the Vango Apex), pitched on a rocky hell platform. So, so uncomfortable – seems that this place wasn’t such a great pitch!

One of the amazing boardwalk sections. Here you can also see one of the ‘red crosses’ marking the trail – I will say more about these in another posting.

The view from the boardwalk, yes, this was one huge bog – there were many of these to cross

At this point I decided I needed to raise my pulse a bit, so I hacked on ahead and waited for the others to join me at a more leisurely pace.

If it weren’t for the trail markers, this would truly have been wilderness (actually it was, even with the marks!)

One of the glorious forest sections. I love this photo.

And finally, the ‘guidebook’ photo – the longest boardwalk I have ever seen, across some kilometer of deep bog. This was utterly hilarious as many of the board sections were underwater and near invisible, oh, and rotten!

More to come, watch this space!

nemo zor ‘hyperlight’ mat

2011-07-24T22:55:00.002+01:00

Warning: those of a sensitive nature, and those who don’t appreciate my occasionally rather crude sense of humour, are probably best off skipping down to the first sub heading. You have been warned.

Never have I ever found writing a review of a piece of outdoor kit so difficult. And it’s not that I’ve been lacking in opportunities to test this damned thing – I’ve slept on the Nemo Zor mat on the patio outside, in a tent on rocky ground, in a tent on grassy ground, in a tent on tussocky ground, in a bivi bag and in the house (ok I haven’t actually slept on it in the house, that would be silly, but I did spend a while laying on it).

My first Zor arrived in the post and thus I dutifully unwrapped it, keen to see what all the fuss was about. For a self-inflating mat the Zor certainly is light and it really does pack down incredibly small – so far so good, this was exactly what I was wanting…

I unrolled the bright yellow coil of mat onto the kitchen floor, taking note of the neat little stuff bag and the even neater velcro strap that Nemo supply for storing it (the strap is an especially nice and useful touch), I also laid aside the little packet of repair patches…

“Great! It’s huge!” I thought to myself as I admired my latest sleeping partner lying flaccid at my feet. Unfortunately I was to be bitterly disappointed a short while after I started to blow…

I really like the valve that Nemo are using – it’s a little bit like those child-proof lids you get on bottles of medicine, in that you have to push to unscrew or screw the thing up tight, but this cunningly means that you can simply push the valve closed between breaths, without having to tighten it up. A nice touch I thought.

“Mmm, it’s firming up nicely now”, was my next thought as I gently blew, my lips tightly sealed around the reassuringly solid valve stem. I decided to keep going, pumping until it felt really hard between my fingertips…

I like to think I’m a pretty accommodating sort of girl, willing to put in a degree of effort in order to see results. Unfortunately, no matter how strong the desire, sometimes things just don’t work out. Sometimes you will get let down…Basically, whilst inflating the mat out of the packet for the first time, one of the sections where there is a cutout in the insulating foam had allowed the two halves of the outer layer to stick together (being vacuum packed probably hadn’t helped). After I’d inflated the mat and proddled the stuck-together part, the dissolution of the union had lead to a tiny tear forming in one side. I didn’t really notice this at first, but upon attempting to sleep on the thing outside that night, it became readily apparent that I was going to have to dump my latest partner – he was a complete let down in the [bivi] sack.

Ok, in all seriousness, I wasn’t mightily impressed to find a brand new product managed to damage itself like that when I inflated it. I would have happily stuck one of the supplied repair patches on and made do, but upon looking at the patch kit I realised there was no glue supplied (I’m not marking Nemo down for this mind), and I had nothing that would do the job, so the mat went back and was replaced with another identical Zor, which happily did not self-puncture itself (well done Webtogs, great service as usual!) and the proper testing could begin at last.

The Specs

The Zor is wonderfully light, in fact I believe it is actually the lightest mat of its type around at the moment – an impressively small 405g for a full-length self-inflating mattress. I believe it’s closest rival is the Therm-a-Rest Prolite which weighs in at 460g for the ‘regular’ size (183cm long, same as the Zor).

It also packs down pretty damn small – only fractionally bigger than my friend’s Neo Air (which is an entirely different type of mat altogether anyway, but I digress).

Yes, before you ask, the bottle of wine was indeed the best thing to use for a size comparison. Please note I’ve made no real effort to compress it here either – just rolled it up quickly and whacked the strap round, it will go smaller if you really try

Nemo also make a short version of the Zor, which is obviously considerably lighter again, at 285g for a mat length of 122cm (so between 1/2 and 3/4 length depending on how tall you are).

The Review

Is it light?
Does it pack down tight?
Did I sleep alright?
Did it set the tent alight?
Was the price right?

I’ve already mentioned that the Zor is impressively light for what it is and it packs down lovely and small – both elements that make it ideal for lightweight backpacking use, and also adventure racing type stuff (unless you’re super hardcore and use bubblewrap or something daft like that). I used the Zor in the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon a few weekends ago where I was really impressed at feeling able to carry a full length mat and be relatively comfortable, whilst still managing to remain within my own self-imposed pack weight and size limits.

That said, the ‘did I sleep alright’ element does need some discussion. No, I didn’t sleep alright during the SLMM, but that was nothing to do with the mat – my badly sprained ankle and seized up knee meant that I just couldn’t sleep because of the pain. The other times I’ve used the Zor have always been in a more relaxed ‘backpacking’ type environment, so either in a bivi bag or in a tent, and whilst it’s been ok and I have managed to sleep on it, I can’t say I’m in love with the Zor if I’m brutally honest. It’s just too thin – you have to inflate it to be really quite hard, otherwise you tend to bottom out through it, and the solidity required in order to not bottom out is almost as hard as the ground would be anyway. But of course you are being insulated, and on grass the discomfort levels are significantly reduced. It could just be that I’m getting soft – my lovely thick heavy duty therm-a-rest just feels so much more plush (but then it would do – it’s much thicker and much heavier).

Ok that was a load of waffle, I must apologise. I have mixed feelings about this mat – most of the time I’d like to be more comfortable and would probably choose to carry something thicker and heavier, BUT for the times when weight, and more importantly for me, pack size are critical, the Zor is actually fine – the only thing beating it being the ultra uncomfortable but effective custom cut down 3/4 length closed cell foam mat I use on Alpine climbs.

Did it set the tent alight? A bizarre question you might be thinking. ‘What on earth does she mean? Is this some kind of deep spiritual introspection or something?’. No. It is a very literal question, that has only been raised after an alarming incident in a tent on the summit of Cadair Berwyn…

Seeing your world suddenly lit up bright blue when you move any part of your sleeping bag across the surface of your camping mat, is a some what shocking experience (pun fully intended). I’ve never seen anything like it, honestly – it was mad! I could slide up and down (imagine rubbing a balloon on your jumper to make your hair stand on end), then move my fingers close to the mat’s surface and there would be huge bright blue sparks of static arcing everywhere! Super fun, but not a little disconcerting. Admittedly I haven’t recreated the experience yet – I’d been waiting and hoping to make a short video but haven’t quite gotten round to it. I just hope that you can’t set fire to a down sleeping bag using the static electricity generated between it and the mat…(I had been wondering where the name ‘Zor’ had come from, and I can’t help but think it’s quite apt considering the product’s electrifying nature).

(No, it didn’t actually set the tent alight, but it was certainly a bizarre sight.)

Finally, is the price right? Well that all depends on what you’re willing to pay for what is actually the lightest, full-length, self-inflating sleeping mat of this type available on the market. Frankly I think the price is fine and well in line with everything else out there (£79.99 at time of writing).

All in all the Zor is a great bit of kit, far more comfortable than a closed cell foam mat, light weight and packs down lovely and small; just don’t expect 5* luxury – at only 2cm thick there is a definite knack to getting the comfort level right, and some people may well find it just too thin to ever really get a comfortable night’s sleep. I like it though for the most part, and I will continue using it whenever I don’t want the extra weight, bulk and hassle of my old squidgy therm-a-rest.

The link bit

You can buy the Nemo Zor from Webtogs here: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Nemo_Zor_Hyperlight_Sleep_Mat_102969.html

You can browse other mats here: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Inflatable_Sleep_Mats/

slacker than slack

2011-07-10T19:07:00.001+01:00

I’ve just realised how long it’s been since my last entry here. Guess I’ve had a bit of a bloggage blockage. Admittedly I’m still nursing my ankle injury from the Saunders last weekend, and as such I’ve done nothing outdoorsy of merit. That said, there are some big changes afoot for me.

This week I’m going to be over in Llanberis with Phill George doing my Mountain Leader training (about bloody time too), with the hope of being able to get to assessment as soon as possible, my main thought being to have another potential source of the odd bit of pocket money. Let’s face it, when it comes to the whole outdoorsy thing I have been doing quite a lot for quite a long time. I hope to have some time to think and work on some strategies this week too. This isn’t the biggest news however.

The biggest news surrounds a huge decision I’ve been pondering for a while now – whether or not to commit to flying as a career. Now, I’m not talking about becoming an airborne bus driver (although that would be pretty cool), no. I’ve got my sights set on maintaining the narcotic rush I get from flying aerobatics, and finally, after much thought I’ve decided that the only hope for my sanity is to get off my backside and commit to giving everything I have to trying to make it work – I want to be an elite level aerobatic pilot.

Soon you’ll start seeing a new series of writings being added to Flight of the Bumblie as I train and flight for the Flight of the Aerobatic Bumblie. I’m not 100% sure what form these postings will take, but they will begin to form a catalogue of interesting perspectives, tips, tricks, photographs, videos and experiences of what it feels like and what it takes to devote your life to something completely improbable.

It has been said that I have a hint of insanity about me, and indeed I must do, but it’s this insanity and the drive that comes from it that is what my life is really all about. I need challenge, I need flight, I need improbability. I live to fight the odds, to push myself and my limits, and I don’t mind taking a few risks in order to do so.

I’d rather give everything in a gamble and lose, than to look back on my life regretting never trying.

the what and the why

2011-07-04T19:18:00.001+01:00

I’m sat here currently dosed up on anti-inflammatory pills, every now and again forgetting that I’ve sprained my ankle, only to stand up and be sharply reminded of said fact.

This weekend Matt and I headed up to the Lakes, as any regular readers will be well aware, to compete in the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon. Well, I say ‘compete’, but really our main aim was to have a good time, find out what Mountain Marathons are all about and of course, to finish. I guess two out of three ain’t bad!

To cut a long story short, I must offer my humble apologies to all those generous enough to donate as unfortunately we didn’t actually finish. I managed to roll my ankle very early on on Saturday (in fact, before we’d even reached the first of out seven checkpoints). Of course, anyone with any real sense would probably have turned around and bailed there and then. Predictably though, I chose the stubborn and mildly farcical option of using a short length of duct tape to strap up the afflicted ankle and after taking a large dose of painkillers decided to carry on. Some six hours later we made it into the remote camp after having successfully hit all of our checkpoints. Mind you I could barely walk by that point, and I was cursing my old shoes that were slightly too big, the many bogs we’d trogged through, the wet patch on my arse where I’d slipped over in the mud, the horrifically steep bracken covered slope that constituted the final main descent (the race organizers were clearly sadists), the old sunburn I’d had that was blistering badly, and the new sunburn I’d acquired on my legs, as well as the pains in my ankle and knee.

All in all I hated most of it. The pain, the navigational cock-ups meaning we managed to add a few additional km onto our route, the heat and the sheer torture of it all. Every now and again though, I’d managed to catch glimpses of magic through my pained haze.

Matt was loving the midges at basecamp

I’ve never been a big fan of the Lake District. Too many people, too many tourists and people with no real appreciation of our mountain environment. This event granted me a slightly different view though – a view of areas well off the beaten track, still with lots of people, but people all out there for the same mad reasons as we were – we’re all at home in the hills. The weather was incredible, visibility beyond comprehension, with clear cloudless skies. Running along the tops was at once hell in knee deep bog, and heaven in the brief glances at what surrounded us. Even through the pain I'd look up and shout at Matt to look behind us, to just stop and see why we were there. More than once the vista took our breath away (which in fairness wasn’t too helpful seeing as the whole running thing is quite breathing intensive).

On Sunday morning we awoke to another incredible day, but it was with a deal of sadness and despondency that I made the decision not to run. My ankle had swollen up badly overnight, and my previously injured knee that had spent all of Saturday compensating for my ankle, had kept me awake by stiffening up and shooting pains up and down my leg every time I’d moved. We managed to grab a lift back to the start/finish, laid in the sun for a while and then set about finishing up and heading home.

As I sit here, occasionally swearing as I manage to bang my ankle against the table leg, the fact that I didn’t finish the race niggles at me. There was no way I could have continued, but it still grates. That’ll be my competitive side showing through I guess. The Rab Mountain Marathon is going to be in North Wales in September this year, so it looks like I may well have to have another go…

don’t you just hate it when…

2011-06-27T21:24:00.001+01:00

http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/laurenrichardson

I hate asking people for money, I really do. Probably stems from the way I was brought up – part of a very poor family but with a whole lot of pride. Sure, we couldn’t afford any of the things other families could, like holidays abroad, fancy clothes or a big TV, but we did have pride – we were not charity cases and asking for money was very much frowned upon. Even as a teenager, if I wanted something, I had to find my own way to pay for it – asking mum or dad for money just wasn’t cool. Hence my getting into the world of engineering at the age of 16…but I digress.

Basically, this is a plea for help. Not for myself though - yes I’m critically skint, having lost most things I owned back in January’s house fire and now also having lost virtually all hope of any reasonable kind of insurance payout. We’ll just have to survive without a sofa or any chairs for a while longer (or until I find some more work!). This isn’t a plea for help for myself (cries of ‘but how can you afford to fly aerobatics if you’re struggling so much’ aren’t what I need right now – the answer to that question is actually really devastatingly simple: I can’t and my dreams are slowly dying as a result. But none of this is relevant and I’m not after sympathy). I don’t beg for money for myself, not for any reason, it’s just not my style.

I am however willing to beg for help on behalf of an organisation that has come to mean more to me than I’m likely to be able to express with any deal of eloquence.

Mountain Rescue Teams within the UK are groups of like-minded people, all willing and eager to give of themselves in order to help others. Now, whilst it may sound completely self-less, I can assure you it isn’t. The next time you meet a team member, ask them why they do it – there will be a whole plethora of reasons. Speaking for myself though, I choose to be a part of a team of people with whom I feel safe, that I trust and that I enjoy working and playing with. Life as a team member is a life of training and working, fighting energy reserves and pushing yourself to achieve things that feel worthwhile. In short it’s great.

Training for me has been eye-opening in many ways, getting to know so many different people with such varied skill sets – we have master navigators, climbers and rope work specialists, doctors, paramedics, police officers, dog handlers, carpenters, plumbers, outdoor instructors, teachers, athletes, engineers, IT workers…I could go on – each and every walk of life has elements that transfer across through people’s personalities into Search and Rescue work, and each and every person knows and does different things that we can all learn from at times. A team is a huge resource of skills and enthusiasm, and a truly fantastic environment to train and learn in.

Since joining I have learned to navigate properly, I’ve learned how to assemble and use a stretcher on a vertical crag face, I’ve learned how to take care of an injured casualty, how to search for someone missing from home, and how to remain positive in the face of extreme tiredness and adversity. For me joining a Mountain Rescue team was an entirely selfish thing to do – I thought I’d be able to get a whole lot out of it and become a more capable mountaineer, and I have!

We are volunteers. We fund-raise in order to remain operational. We pay to be a part of our own team.

We have a laugh and enjoy ourselves. We learn from each other and become better people for it. We do this as a hobby.

We go out in the middle of the night searching for people missing from home, people despondent and people lost on the hills. We recover the bodies of those who lose their lives in difficult places and situations. We head out in the middle of the working day to come to the aid of climbers and mountain bikers who fall and lay bleeding in need of help. We work with the RAF and the Air Ambulance to get people to help when they need it – and when things are too bad for the helicopters to do their work, we will be there to carry you. We are where the buck stops, and we love it.

So any of you reading this, I apologise for you being on the receiving end of ‘yet another link begging for sponsorship for yet another ‘good cause’. I realise that money is tight for everyone and that there are a million and one different charities all begging for cash and vying to be deemed worthy of a donation. However I don’t apologise for asking – please help keep my team operating this year, help us to remain there for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year whether you’re a climber, walker, biker or just someone living in our area.

Support us by supporting me as I’m stupid enough to be running this year in the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon next weekend – I’m not fit, I’m not a fell runner, but I am keen, stupid and willing to give everything I can for the North East Wales Search and Rescue team – both operationally and through participating in these mad events.

Donation link here (I will love you forever if you give a few quid!): http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/laurenrichardson

what it’s all about

2011-06-16T23:28:00.001+01:00

Helping people. That really is what it’s all about.

No-one has a ‘right to rescue’, and yet that’s what we do. It’s what we train for, week in, week out. It’s what we groan about when the texts come through, but once we’re out we just work. We go, we fight our own bodies heading onwards, moving upwards, moving, carrying, fighting the temperature and the terrain, finding ourselves exactly where we should be, where we’ve trained to be.

We laugh at each other, poking fun at one another over fitness, pack size, loads carried, complaints made, clothing worn, food eaten. We are a team. This is what we do.

Last night’s callout was the typical type of long-winded tough search that we as a team are so used to – acres of woodland, marsh, thick foliage and fallen trees. Hours of searching, focussing and hoping we’ll find something before dark. Of course darkness still comes, and out come the torches – each team member lit by headlamp and powerful hand held search torches, illuminating the same terrain, still tramping through the sort of woodland you only ever hear about in fantasy stories – woods and wasteground full of thick flesh ripping brambles, deep, stinking, boot sucking marsh, branches impaling us from the big knurled trees towering overhead – trees that are home to the night birds that startle and scream as we move beneath them, in turn startling us, granting us a new audible clarity of the pace of our own hearts.

Long hours spent in the field, constantly observing, shouting out for those for whom we are looking. Sounds occasionally fill the air – shouts for the missing person, radio chatter between callsigns I can never remember, banter and insults being thrown between comrades and the all important voices of concern calling out to make sure we’re all still together and won’t end up also hunting for one of our own.

Tonight’s callout was in stark contrast to that of the night before – a climber had fallen and was in need of rescue. A known quantity, someone needing to be helped. We are a team, this is what we do.

Hauling ourselves up the hillsides, helmets on as we traverse beneath loose crags and terraced scree slopes, carrying everything we need to care for and evacuate our casualty. You never hear a complaint when people are working – the banter stops, everyone does exactly what needs to be done. When it really matters we are seamless, we come together like clockwork. The casualty is laughing as we work around her, making sure everything is done right and that everyone is safe.

Smoke flares are lit and the helicopter circles then comes in. We all cower beneath the crags, a few members shielding the casualty as the downdraft sweeps over us, all of the equipment neatly piled out of the way. Eyes glance occasionally upwards through the hurricane as the big yellow beast hovers over us, the winchman heading down to begin the evacuation.

After a while they’re gone and everything is suddenly quiet. There is no helicopter, there is no casualty, it is just us. Still focussed we gather the equipment, each item silently taken up, and together we walk back to our normal lives.

Last night’s search: http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Community&F=1&id=21531

Pictures from tonight’s rescue: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gerald-davison/sets/72157626977583662/

We are volunteers. We receive no funding – everything it costs to keep our Rescue Team out on the hill, in the towns and on the moors, comes to us through our own efforts at fundraising. It isn’t easy. Our hardest days are often those days we spend out manning stalls, shaking buckets, talking to people and just trying to raise the awareness of the public that so often need us.

I spend my time with the team out on the hill on the ‘frontline’, working and battling to do what we do, the work that we train for, but I also work behind the scenes along with a good many of our members, simply helping to keep the team running every day. My role is minimal, I’m not going to pretend otherwise – I spend my time coordinating and working with, designing, testing, repairing and maintaining all things radio and communication related, because it’s what I’m paid to know and to do in my professional life. Our radios are critical to allowing us to work and communicate efficiently, safely and securely. My role just helps keep the lines of communication working for us as a live Rescue unit, and yet it involves many hours of work in the ‘downtime’ – and my hours are far, far less than those of the Team Leaders’, the Secretary, the Training and the Equipment Officer to name but a few. None of this is paid and yet it still costs.

I hate fundraising. I’d far rather be out on the hill for 12 hours than to spend 2 hours on the street with a bucket begging people for loose change – so I’m taking a slightly different approach. This year I’m hurting myself!

In October I will be running the Snowdonia Marathon in aid of NEWSAR, but in the meantime my major efforts are focussed on the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon, which is taking place on the first weekend of July. I will be running this with a very good friend of mine, Matt Knight, despite neither of us being fell runners.

We are both training hard, spending hours sweating, swearing and occasionally bleeding as we try to become fit enough to run our race. We’re also both spending wads of our own money on entry fees and equipment to allow us to compete (although our soul aim is simply not to finish last!).

This race for me is a personal challenge, but also a means to raise awareness and funds for the team with which I serve – please help us out and give a couple of quid via the link below and on the side of the page here – it really does all help.

http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/laurenrichardson

snug as a bug: the western mountaineering ultralite sleeping bag

2011-06-13T13:07:00.002+01:00

in a very expensive sleeping bag.

Normally, I’d resent the idea of having to pay for a product that someone is wanting me to go out of my way test and then spend hours writing a review of. In some cases however, chipping in toward being given something truly special really is worth it, even if you are as tight as I am (Scottish blood? Sorry Dad…)
Back before January’s life changing house fire, I had a choice of two sleeping bags that I could use – one a lovely Marmot Pinnacle, given to me by the man who designed it (it’s a long story that I’ll only tell if you manage to catch me in the pub and buy me a pint), and the other an Alpkit Pipedream 400 I’d bought to use on Alpine climbs because it was light and packed down tiny. I’ve also used all manner of cheapo Sleeping bags over the years, but absolutely nothing I’ve ever used has come close to comparing to the new love of my life – the Western Mountaineering Ultralite.
The quality of this bag really does merit a better testing than I can really give it at this time of year – it yearns to be taken out in the cold of the autumn and winter. Camping in the snow, all snuggled up inside, surrounded by a gorgeous cocoon of stupendously lofty down? Definitely what the Ultralite is begging me for. Unfortunately in that regard, we are currently in what counts as the British summer, but of course, being in Wales means that actually, the ‘summer’ weather can be pretty atrocious and at night it can still get pretty cold. The bag has now had what I consider to be a semi-reasonable testing in areas as varied as my attempt at riding the Trans-Cambrian way (where it sat taking up very little room in the bottom of my riding rucksack), to just sleeping outside the house in a bivi bag as I was watching the owl babies learning to fly, to tent camping on a very cold night near the summit of Cadair Berwyn, amongst others. I’d still like to come back to this review once the bag has seen some winter or Alpine action, but for now here is my review.
Spec list
Price
Currently (12/06/2011) £323.99 from Webtogs unless you’re a short-arse like me, in which case they will let you have one of the Short length ones for £314.99.
Features

454g of 850+ fill high loft down (425g in the Short one)
3D down baffle behind zip
Full down collar
5 inch loft from finest goose down filling

Tech Details

Short length weight: 790g
Standard length weight: 820g
Long length weight: 870g

Temperature Rating

20°F / -7°C Now, this is the controversial one, and I’ve simply quoted what W.M. have quoted on their website. I will comment later on about just how warm I think this thing really is and where/when I’d be most happy to use it (my own ‘real world’ opinion, as temperature ratings of sleeping bags really are pretty unhelpful in all honesty).

For a little background information, I actually spent last Friday up with the guys at Beyond Hope – the UK importer for Western Mountaineering (amongst other brands), admittedly on unrelated business, but, I did have the opportunity to have a proper discussion about W.M. bags, their construction techniques, the quality of the down they use, the testing they do, and why people rave about them. I’m not going to go into everything on here, but one thing I will mention is that the quoted 850+ fill-power down used in all of the W.M. bags, may actually be more like what we usually know as 900 fill-power – of the same quality as the very best stuff that manufacturers like PHD use (for anyone unfamiliar with the name PHD, go look them up – they are the home of UK made custom sleeping bags, jackets and other insulating products of the highest quality and practically much an institution in Climbing and Ultralight circles. My comparing W.M. with PHD is nothing but a massive compliment to both companies).

Field testing, always a hardship. Keep your eyes open for the review of the Nemo mat I’m lying on here later on too…

W.M. have produced a fantastic page on their website outlining the features of their sleeping bags that really deserve to be noticed, which makes my life easy as I can just direct you to the link and then simply comment on the elements that I really liked and feel I should draw attention to.

“You look like a worm! A giant, blue, poofy, snuggly worm!” I think I’ll take that as a compliment…

The important stuff and my opinions

Loft. The first thing you notice about the Ultralite, the moment you pull it out of it’s fluorescent green cotton storage bag (yes, I did say fluorescent green), is just how much it lofts, instantly. In all honesty I’ve never seen a bag quite like this, even after it had been crammed into a stuff bag for a couple of days, upon pulling it out in a matter of mere seconds it will have re-lofted back to being possibly the snuggliest thing I’ve ever seen.
Weight. It’s light. Really light. And it packs small. This bag is made from some of the highest quality down money can buy, and some of the lightest, most down-proof fabrics you can find. The warmth-to-weight ratio of this thing is simply phenomenal. If anyone can find me a bag to beat this in terms of warmth-to-weight, please let me know as I’d absolutely love to see it. This will be my go-to bag for pretty much everything now, all year round. Admittedly, in the depths of winter I’ll probably need to be layered up inside it (being a girl who suffers the cold), but for 95% of what most people would consider ‘three season’ use I’d be more than happy in this (and I’ll use it in all four seasons).
Fabric. W.M. also use a fabric that is impressively down-proof. Normally with a down bag, you open it up and inside you’ll inevitably see a few bits of rogue down floating around having leached through the fabric or the seams. There are far less escapees in this bag than with any other I’ve seen (Marmot, Alpkit, Rab, Mountain Equipment…).
The fabric feels absolutely gorgeous next to the skin, it is positively luxurious.
Zip. It’s the little things that can often make or break a product, and in this case the way W.M. have presented the zip issue is nothing short of ‘shout out loud’ refreshing. Not only do you get a zip with a tag on each side (rather than one that you have to slide round to get it inside and never seems to start on the side that you want it), but they’ve laminated a strip of the fabric each side of the zip, stiffening it, thereby preventing the fabric from being pulled into the zip. Stick and snag free zippage! The bag is almost worth the price-tag for this simple feature alone in my opinion.
Construction. There is some clever stuff going on here with what Western Mountaineering call a ‘Differential Cut’ in the main body of the bag:
“Its purpose is to give the inner shell a smaller circumference than the outer shell. This eliminates extra fabric inside the bag that could lead to cold spots. All of our mummy bags are differentially cut to promote proper lofting and to protect against down compression when knees or elbows push against the inner fabric.”
They also build in what they then call a ‘Reverse Differential Cut’ in the hood of the bag:
“Our hoods are cut so that the inside of the hood is made with a larger piece of fabric than the outside. This creates a hood with loose down filled fabric which surrounds your head. That way you can can enjoy warm insulation around your head and face without having to cinch the hood tight. Also, the extra fabric can be adjusted to create a down filled ruff or bill across your forehead.”
Both of these work – cold spots are much reduced around joints when you stretch and move, compared with a more conventional bag construction, and the hood is indeed wonderfully snuggly without necessarily having to do up the drawcord (which is something I absolutely hate having to do – having a small circle to breath through and a cord pressing into my face really doesn’t feel great).

Conclusions

In short, I think this sleeping bag is one of the best and nicest pieces of outdoor kit I own. It’s not something I would ever have considered buying had I not been offered the testing gig as it’s a cut above my normal sort of price operating range, even for high level equipment. However, now that I’ve experienced what the top end actually buys you, I’m not sure I’d ever feel happy buying a ‘lesser’ bag now. The quality of design and construction is impeccable, I have found absolutely nothing whatsoever to criticize in this sleeping bag (and you all know by now that I’m particularly anal about things that annoy me or are what I consider to be sub-standard).

It’s light, incredibly warm, supremely comfortable, fits me like a dream (I could wear layers inside if I wanted to) and actually makes me want to find excuses to use it. The simple genius of the reinforced zip strips mean the zip hasn’t even bugged me by getting stuck as they inevitably do normally. The draft tube that covers the zip is squishy and lovely (so basically it’s full of down and actually really works), as is the neck baffle. The foot has extra down in it so I’ve managed to even get away with not needing my socks on inside it (a first!). The drawcords work, the storage and stuff bags are adequate (although I choose to transport the Ultralite inside a lightweight roll-top dry bag to protect it), and it isn’t even a bad colour!

The only down-side is the >£300 price tag, but in all honesty, with the amount of care, attention to detail and the level of component and construction quality there is just no way I can argue that the cost should be less – this bag is worth every penny. It’s available in three different lengths and anyone of a slightly broader build than me could also look at the Western Mountaineering Alpinelite, which is essentially the same bag as the Ultralite, just with a wider cut!

The link bit

The Ultralite from Webtogs: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Western_Mountaineering_Ultralite_Down_Sleeping_Bag_101792-19697.html

Other down sleeping bags, including others from Western Mountaineering: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Down_Sleeping_Bags/

Western Mountaineering’s homepage: http://www.westernmountaineering.com/index.cfm

The W.M. Product and Construction info page: http://www.westernmountaineering.com/index.cfm?section=about&page=Product-Details

by the mountains and by the sea

2011-06-06T00:53:00.001+01:00

are where you’ll find me.

I’ve wanted to fly to Caernarfon ever since I first started learning to fly – a trip over the mountains and over the sea was always going to be something special. This weekend I found myself with a four-seater aircraft, two keen passengers and 2.5 hours of ‘Pilot-in-Command’ time to make up, so the decision was made to finally make that special journey.

From Shobdon we chose a route over the Cambrian mountains and the wilds of Mid-Wales, across to the coast at Aberystwyth and then up, past Cadair Idris, the Rhinogs and Snowdonia, with miles of deep turquoise sea glistening off our left wingtip until we crossed the Lleyn Peninsula and reached the Menai Strait. We floated down into Caernarfon Airport for a well earned cup of tea and an ice-cream in the sunshine as we contemplated where to choose for our route back.

One of the Elan Valley dams and reservoir in the heart of the Cambrian Mountains

The journey home was to be a near heart-breaker. The mountains are buried deep in my heart and soul, without them I wouldn’t be the same person I am now, and the chance to experience them from such a unique vantage point – at the controls and in command of an aeroplane, with the total freedom of the skies to take me wherever and to whatever perspective I could best dream of, was something truly special.

We climbed out of Caernarfon, over the bay and the crystal sea, circling back across our haven runways and out, up, ever climbing, striving to pull ourselves onwards to be able to reach above Snowdon’s halo.

Looking back and toward our mountains

It was as we were still climbing over Llanberis and Llyn Peris, that I began to become quietly concerned. Snowdon had a layer of cloud providing a ceiling beyond which we could not go, and which wasn’t high enough for us to safely cross her flanks. I began to worry that we would have to head back, missing out the mountain crossing I was craving.

Looking onwards the weather had changed and we no longer had the clarity of vision that we’d been blessed with earlier in the day, and we could no longer cross via our planned route. A diversion was in order as I hoped that my intuition would be right, that we’d get through to be able to safely descend below the gloom. We headed successfully around the murk and over the Carneddau to then follow the A5 past Tryfan and the Glyders, over the base of Ogwen Mountain Rescue and onward to Betwys-y-Coed before heading back onto our planned course across to Bala and Llyn Tegid, then Lake Vyrnwy and on down across Shropshire on our way back home.

Tryfan through the haze

Two of my dreams laid out before me, hand in hand, the mountains as I am in flight

The photograph may not be much, but this is the memory of a distant Snowdon on my wingtip, with Mother Nature’s grace drawing her silhouette before us

We had no real trouble finding our way home, flying over the counties and hills that form my home, back into more familiar territory and a waiting runway. The weather allowed us through, despite having changed from a clear blue sky into an unsettling grey murk beneath which we had to pass before reaching safety on the ground.

All three of us enjoyed the day, both Matt and Phil taking the controls for a while so that I could just enjoy the surroundings, and they could experience a small part of what flying means to me.

I would just like to say a big thank you to Matt for the use of his photographs here, his patience and his enthusiasm. Oh, and thank you to Phil for generally putting up with me.

all in a spin

2011-05-31T00:38:00.001+01:00

I admit it, I’m messed up. Stupid, deluded, obsessed, whatever you’d like to call me – I won’t deny any of it, nor will I defend it or try to pretend otherwise.

I learned to fly back in 2008/9 because it was something I’d always wanted to do, it was something I never thought I’d be able to achieve, a challenge financially, motivationally, psychologically and intellectually. I loved it, even the nerve-wrackingly terrifying parts of it, all of it was amazing and despite the immense financial burden it placed on me, I don’t regret one single second.

Of course the financial burden became too much when I left my secure full-time engineering job in the middle of the recession, and for well over a year I didn’t fly at all. At first it was tough, I felt like a junkie going cold turkey, but after the first couple of months of pain I eventually found I could live without the buzz and the pleasure I got from living a part of my life in the skies.

Moving on a few months to the point where I started doing contract work and found myself with some ‘disposable’ income again: I vowed to get back into the air – despite no longer ‘needing’ the rush, I never stopped feeling the pangs of desire each time I drove past an airfield or watched a Cessna float overhead. It should have ended at that. I should now be blogging about flying cross country, meeting people in different airfields across the UK and nearly getting lost in poor weather, but if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that I’ve upped the ante somewhat and flying for me is no longer simply about being in the air, but about testing my limits and seeing the world from a whole different perspective.

On Saturday I went ‘normal’ flying again, for the first time in far, far too long. In fact, I’m currently desperately trying to get enough hours in to retain my license currency, having failed to pay attention to the fact that it will lapse next Sunday if I don’t get my finger out – and if that happens it will mean a repeat of the Skills Test. Frankly I’d rather just keep myself current, and so I’ve been flying in a PA28, going cross country and just generally trying to get back up to speed in conventional aircraft so that I can go and log some solo time again. Of course there’s a good chance I’ll fail to get in the necessary hours and will still have to repeat the test, but c’est la vie – at least I’ll be back up to speed enough to cope with it by then!

Normal flying is ace, I still love it and want to do more. My friend Matt came with us on Saturday and sat in the back whilst I flailed and fannied about trying to learn to fly a new aircraft type in some of the most windy and turbulent conditions I can remember ever flying in. Not once did he complain, but in fact seems to have really enjoyed the experience – so much that he’s now trying to talk himself out of wanting to learn to fly himself…Of course for me, knowing how much enjoyment the trip gave him, and how much he’s been buzzing about it afterwards is a truly magical feeling.

Saturday’s flight tested me mentally, in that suddenly I’d had to remember how to do everything I’d not done for a year an a half – plan a flight, do the calculations, prep the aircraft, fly it (whilst learning the nuances of another different aircraft type), navigate, cope with sub-optimal wind conditions, fly into an unfamiliar airfield without damaging anything or making myself look like a useless dweeb, all whilst also trying to convince an incredibly experienced and talented instructor that I’m not totally incompetent and can in fact pilot an aircraft by myself. I was nervous and not a little stressed, but I still loved every minute of it. I do have to also admit that the time I’ve spent flying the Pitts with Paul seems to have given me a degree of confidence I would otherwise have been lacking…

The previous day (Friday) was when I’d realised my somewhat urgent license scenario, after I’d been flying the Pitts again. Friday’s flight itself had been something really quite special for me though…I’d overcome a couple of mental barriers and been left feeling invigorated, positive and just a tiny bit sick.

Actually, I’ve understated that last part – Friday’s flight had left me feeling sick as a dog for the whole of the rest of the day in fact. My head had been in a spin, along with the rest of my body and the aeroplane. Several times…

Dread. Fear. Sheer bloody terror. When Paul looked me in the eye on Friday and told me I’d be learning to spin and recover, fear was what gripped me. Fear, verging on panic. There was nothing I’d been dreading more – I knew that I was going to have to learn sometime, not just from an aerobatic point of view but from a safety point of view too, yet when the moment came to climb into the cockpit and head off to deliberately start stalling and throwing the aeroplane into what for all the world feels like a uncontrolled tumble, I wanted nothing more than to run away and never fly again.

Being forced to sit down and talk it all through on the ground, to explain what it was that scared me and what I actually thought a spin was proved to be a revelation. Having someone explain in simple terms exactly what happens and why, and how you are actually controlling the manoeuvre and choosing to end it (as opposed to ‘recovering’ as if something had gone wrong, when sometimes it’s exactly what you’ve been intending) was exactly what I needed. I needed to understand, to know what I was going to be feeling, and to trust. I was still scared when it came to the first spin in the air, but knowing I was in good hands and trusting that those hands were pushing me forwards to progress was an exhilarating feeling. Finally gaining a degree of understanding of what was happening and then being encouraged and guided into a knowledge and a new capability of control meant that by the end of the flight I realized I was actually enjoying myself. Laughing and grinning uncontrollably, I was enjoying the feeling of pushing things, forcing myself forwards out of my old comfort zone and on into a realm that had been a closed door a few hours before.

I am addicted. I’m hooked. I never want to let this go again – I want to fly, to push myself, to push my limits and find out how good I can be. I want to be helped, guided, cajolled, pushed, pulled, bullied, coaxed, comforted, cuddled and held, beaten, battered and forced out of my comfort zone over and over and over again. I want to understand who I am and what I can be, I want to know where my limits really lie and how far I can push them.

My head hasn’t stopped spinning despite the rest of my body stopping, and I love it. All of it.

compare and contrast

2011-05-24T20:29:00.001+01:00

Monday: Bailed attempt at riding the Trans Cambrian way due to horrific levels of wind, and a severe drenching.

I would just like to offer an apology to everyone for the storms and extreme winds and bad weather we’ve been having – it seems most likely that Matt and myself are the main cause of said ‘less than ideal’ weather conditions, because we’d decided to pack all our gear onto our bikes and head off into the wilderness for three days on the Trans Cambrian Way. In fact, it’s probably my fault these storms have hit, as I’d made the bold statement prior to the trip, that the only reason we might not commit to the route would be if the weather conditions were actually dangerous…

For a while it was funny, hilarious even, to battle the winds on the ridge-top, but after an hour or two of cycling with a ten degree lean just to stay straight, and being forced into the lowest gears on the ‘granny ring’ in order to make progress on downhill sections (much of the up we’d had no choice but to push, no matter how shallow the angle – the wind was truly insane), we decided enough was enough.

By this point I was less amused – my feet were cold and extremely wet, my panniers were too damned heavy, and I’d really had enough of the wind

Drenched to the skin by rain that had been blasted at us at god-only-knows what kind of speed, exhausted from hours of fighting the conditions and getting next to nowhere and realising that at the rate we were progressing we’d have no chance at finishing the route, we made the only sensible decision and headed for the nearest tea shop and then the train home.

Tuesday: A fabulous day out in the sunshine (still a little windy) on the Long Mynd and riding Minton Batch

Having bailed on our intended route, Matt and I decided to head up onto the Long Mynd today for a fun day ride – Minton Batch is a classic singletrack descent from the Mynd I’d been hearing lots about and really wanted to do, so we chose a route to incorporate it.

Up, up, up (not the most fun part)

There were some cracking views to be had today – you could actually spot most of the places labelled on the topograph for once!

Minton Batch – Shropshire Mountain Biking classic. So good we changed our plans to do it twice!

If you click on this one to make it bigger, you can just about make out the plastic pigeon Matt is having a conversation with just after we’d ridden the Batch descent the first time round…it was so good he just had to share!

Such a good day and such a fabulous place to mountain bike, Shropshire will be seeing a whole lot more of me and my trusty steed in the future I’m sure! Cheers for the laughs Matt!

mud, mud, glorious mud!

2011-05-16T13:57:00.001+01:00

I’m really starting to get into this mountain biking lark. Despite the pain and ultimate discomfort, there is a huge grin-factor associated with going down something steep and technical at speed.

Last Thursday I had a quick hit trip to Llandegla with one of my MRT buddies, Tom. We didn’t ride anything particularly technical trail-wise, but Tom did push me into the Skills area and onto the jump section, where he then proceeded to shout encouragement and abuse at me until, eventually, I was actually jumping! Oh yes, it begins…

Friday was an altogether more sedate affair, in that no jumping or extreme speed occurred (the mud was both too sticky and too slippery all at the same time). There were, however, a rather large amount of mud, sheep poo, water, rain, wind, stinging nettles and ‘navigational challenges’ involved as Matt and I ventured out into the wilds of the Ceiriog valley – out on the bikes away from the trail centres…

Both of us fell off in the mud. Both of us and our bikes got covered in some rather unpleasant sticky, stinky brown stuff, we stood around looking blank as we tried to work out which tracks to take and we even missed out on food in the pub, but we both loved it!

More time out in the wilds, being ‘adventurous’ is most definitely on the cards (and probably with a proper camera in future, rather than just our crappy phone cameras).

mountain rescue

2011-05-08T22:04:00.001+01:00

This is a short self-indulgent one folks, there will be another gear review and maybe even an interesting outdoorsy post coming up soon I promise, but in the meantime you'll just have to put up with this from me:

WOO.

HOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ahem.

Ok so what exactly am I so chuffed about? Well, basically just lately I’ve been putting in a whole lot of hours in travelling, training, meetings, ropework, engineering work, boredom, more travelling and the occasional bit of piss-taking with NEWSAR and many of the other English and Welsh teams, and I’m pleased to finally say that not only am I now a Full Mountain Rescue Team Member (as of last Wednesday, I am no longer a trainee!), but I have also been pushed into the position of team Comms Officer.

Oh, one other small thing (I lie, this is huge for me), today I re-took my Casualty Care exam (having very shamefully failed it a couple of months ago), and passed it. Guess I can have a crack at actually being useful medically as a Rescuer now. YES!

That is all.

www.newsar.org.uk

life, the universe and aerobatics

2011-05-05T22:51:00.001+01:00

Sadly the answer is not 42.

I’m not sure there really is an answer actually, but some slightly more specific questions will, of course, have slightly more specific answers.

Living life in the short-term is easy. You just think about what it is you want to be doing today, tomorrow, maybe even next week. You plan trips and holidays for later in the year and you think about ways to pay for everything and just focus on a means to survive. The medium-term isn’t much different. For me, the medium-term covers the next couple of years, the time during which I have definite contract work scheduled, time during which I know for sure I’ll have some form of income, as sporadic as it may be.

My dilemma comes in a variety of guises and eventually, when I finally focus enough to see through the outer layers, is revealed to really be a question of what happens in the long-term.

What has gotten me questioning things like this? Well it’s simple really – I’ve found a new love, something that has captured my imagination and my soul and is something that with things the way they are happens to be completely unsustainable.

Anyone that knows me will know that I tend to not do things by halves. A symptom of a chronic lack of self-esteem perhaps? A product of being bullied as a child and never feeling like I could ever be good enough? However you choose to look at things/me from a psychological perspective, the end result is that whenever I find something I feel is worth doing, I tend to throw everything I can at it. I’m a constant underachiever inside my head – no matter how others may view me and the things I do, deep down inside I know it’s never enough, which is why I keep on trying, fighting and flying.

And this is where we get to: flying. I’ve always wanted to fly. Gaining my Private Pilot’s License was one of my life highlights. Never before had I worked so hard for something that meant so much to me, which is why having to stop flying after I quit my job was so painful. Finally getting back into in the past few months has been something of a trial though – I’ve felt at once incompetent, useless and unconfident. Meeting Paul and taking my first few flights in the Pitts Special started to change those feelings though, and hence I now find myself in a short/medium/long-term dilemma…

I want to fly. I need it, this is a big part of who I am. It’s an odd thing to do though – many of the days I’m due to fly I tend to wake up in the morning full of dread, wishing for bad weather so I don’t have to go. I don’t understand why this should be, because upon climbing into the cockpit those feelings instantly start to melt away. Feeling the weight of your fears dissolve as the cushion of lift pushes you off up into the sky is something quite special, for me only topped by the challenge that finding a focus in the freedom of aerobatic movement has started to give me. I need this, like a junkie needs their next hit, somehow I can’t let go and in fact, I don’t want to.

Ok so it’s not as simple as just wanting to fly, I don’t just want to fly, I want to fly aerobatics. I want to learn to fly the Pitts Special, and by that I don’t just mean becoming able to get her into the air and back down onto the ground again safely (although these two elements are a major challenge in themselves), but being able to understand how she handles, feel instinctively how to treat her and fly in partnership with her, carrying out manoeuvres and sequences that at first feel impossible, but upon learning feel unlike anything else you could ever imagine.

There is another element to this dilemma though – being the way I am, just learning to fly aerobatics won’t be enough, I know I’ll want to do more. Is this something I could be good at? Really good? I don’t know, but I need to find out. Somehow.

Sounds simple so far doesn’t it? I know what I want so I’ve just got to find a way to do it right? Well this is where the long-term issues start to rear their ugly heads. How on earth do I afford this? In the short to medium terms, I have the means to continue but not for long, and in the long-term I have no way to sustain the habit, financially it is crippling.

“If you want it enough, you’ll find a way.”

So here we are, I need to find that way. I’m not sure my field of engineering can sustain me in the long-term, the radio industry is evolving rapidly at the moment and I can see it changing into something that no longer captures my interest, and I’m not someone who can live life working a job that I hate – I need to be inspired, I need to enjoy what I’m doing, especially if my life is dominated by the time it takes. It’s all well and good having hobbies that grant you freedom and satisfaction, but if the work you do in order sustain them leaves you resenting the need, then what is the point?

I’ve got some big decisions to make – I’m not looking for any sympathy here, this isn’t that kind of blog posting. I’m incredibly lucky – I have a life that has options, I have a husband willing to support me in whatever I decide and I have the chance to learn a skill that is truly breathtaking. I just need to find a way to make it happen.

the crux of the matter: reviewing the crux ak47 rucksack

2011-04-26T19:38:00.001+01:00

Before I begin I would like to offer my thanks to Justin for his company, patience and fabulous photos, Adam for putting up with my faffing and also to Gareth for an amusing evening in good company – the process of gear testing is certainly an arduous one ;-)

I’ve been rather busy of late, although thankfully many of the things I have been busy doing have allowed me to take my Crux AK47 pack (very kindly sent to me by Webtogs after the success of my previous Silva compass review), out in a variety of states and in a variety of weather conditions in order to form my opinions for this review.

Good grief, kit testing is tough

My trusty old Berghaus Arete has certainly seen better days, and after several days out in the wilds of a very wintery Scotland this season, with heavy loads of ropes, ice axes and other metallic accoutrements, I found myself swearing profusely and vowing to get myself a new pack with less worn out hip and shoulder padding. I should just mention that the dear old Arete has offered itself up to me with no reservation – life and soul it has poured into carrying my loads, shedding rain, snow, hail and the burning sunshine of the Alps. It has resisted the coarse tearing of Chamonix granite chimneys, been dropped down scree slopes, been sat on, stood on, slept on and generally done everything I have ever asked of it with not so much as a whimper or a grumble, and so it is with a degree of sorrow I find myself leaving my heavily self-modified old friend on the shelf, and picking up the shining and spritely Crux in its place.

How does one go about developing an objective opinion on a product? My thoughts on this were pretty simple in this case: I wanted to know a few critical things about it and I wanted to find out through my own experience, hence I took the pack out on the hill, lots!

So, firstly, is it actually big enough for all my kit?

This is an easy one. Yes, it is (95% of the time).

At a stated 47 litres this pack actually feels a fair bit bigger than my old Arete 45 and I’ve very, very rarely felt the need for anything much bigger (bearing in mind that my primary uses for a rucksack are rock, ice and alpine climbing, along with 2-3 day wild camping/back packing type trips on occasion).

This bag isn’t aimed at long distance trekking or travelling, the simple design and minimalist padding on the hip belt are very keenly pointed toward the ‘Alpine climbing’ market, where the size and lack of features are an optimal combination for most people.

With the minimalist design in mind, is it comfortable enough to use when carrying a really heavy load? (i.e. a full winter climbing loadout including rack, ropes, axes, crampons etc.)

This was always going to be one of the most critical questions in my mind, especially with the recent memory of one particular trip to Creag Meagaidh this winter, where I found myself brought near to tears by the pain in my bruised shoulders and hips after carrying a very heavy pack, with a very minimal and overused set of strap padding.

Looking at the AK47, and reading the manufacturer’s specification (it weighs a quite amazing 1170g apparently, it certainly feels very light for its size), I was initially left feeling somewhat sceptical that carrying anything heavier than a standard wild-camping load (as per my first test foray) could be anything other than horrifyingly painful – the hip belt is tiny and the ‘padding’ isn’t really what I’d call padding…

With these reservations in mind, I dragged my long-suffering better half out for an ‘evening stroll’ up Moel Sych. I loaded the Crux up with a variety of bits of kit, including several litres of water and a heavy duty 60m single rope, to make up a weight that ever so slightly exceeded that which I’m ever likely to carry in a winter climbing scenario. We then went for a walk up a big hill. For 3 hours (actually, 20 mins of it was 2km of very steep packless running, but I digress…)

Fiddling with the hip belt – takes some getting used to, but once you’re familiar with the shape it’s surprisingly comfy

One 3 hour stroll with a hefty load is hardly enough to really answer the question, but this combined with several outings carrying a whole range of loads – from a minimal highly compressed daypack type load of just a couple of litres of water and a jacket (see later for more on this), to several days worth of camping and cooking kit, to heavy ropes and climbing loads, to excessively heavy test loads, has left me really rather impressed overall. The shoulder straps are great, padding is good and the cut is comfortable – no issues there (for the record, I’m an averagely sized, slimly built female and am using a size 1 back). The hip belt was always going to be the weak point with it being so minimalist, but surprisingly, despite its lack of padding, I didn’t find it at all uncomfortable once I had gotten used to it. I’ve yet to find myself in pain or even the slightest bit bruised, which is nice. The innovative cut shape of the belt and the way the pack sits on my back means that it is actually far more comfortable to carry than I ever thought it could be.

Fully laden and nicely stable, and no, I didn’t fall in!

I don’t doubt that there are plenty of similarly sized bags out there that would be much more comfortable with hefty loads, but for me the Crux is absolutely fine, and of course, being a climbing pack, it is also incredibly stable to carry.

How well does it compress when nearly empty? (The Arete was pretty rubbish for this unfortunately)

Knowing that the AK47 carries a full load pretty well, my next question was simple: just how well does it squash?

Climbing is a great sport, but climbing with a rucksack on is nowhere near as pleasant or as easy as ‘going bareback’ – packs are cumbersome things that when badly packed, badly positioned, badly worn or just badly designed can turn a simple task into an awkward nightmare. Just imagine if you will, that you’re out in the mountains, having just spent four hours carrying a fully loaded pack of climbing gear into some remote crag in the middle of winter. The weather is less than ideal, with falling snow and a strong wind making life ‘interesting’. Your chosen route follows a deep cleft part way up the crag, with the rest of the route being an exposed icy ridge. You empty your pack at the base of the route, then commence the ritual of putting on your harness, clipping on your gear, uncoiling your ropes and tying in. Once all this is done you are left with an empty shell of a rucksack, now only containing emergency rations, a flask and belay jacket. You put it back on feeling all too aware that the last thing you want is a flappy oversized empty bag on your back, catching on every protrusion of rock in the chimney, then billowing out in the wind with its lid flapping merrily away on overly long straps, acting like a small sail and threatening to overbalance you and throw you down one side of the upper exposed ridge…

One very nicely compressed AK47 daysack on Striding Edge, Helvellyn

I am very happy to report that the Crux is excellent in this respect. I absolutely love the side compression strap arrangements – one strap on each side zig zags between a slide buckle at the bottom, a couple of plastic loops mid way and into a clip in buckle at the top, meaning that compressing the entire side of the bag is very simple and very easy to do, and you don’t end up with a big bulge in the middle like you do with the more regular system of using two separate straps. The strap is easily long enough to accommodate attaching a roll mat or tent on the outside of the bag should you need to do so, and is also completely removable if you’re wanting to strip the bag even further to save another few grams. The lid also clips down nice and neatly if you’re compressing the bag (as I had in the Striding Edge photo above), doesn’t flap and the bag stays neatly tucked in to your back.

Oh, and the hip belt works ok with a climbing harness on, but I usually clip it out of the way round the back anyway (actually, it would be really nice if the hip belt were removable for just this type of occasion, but I’ll let the Crux guys off seeing as the AK47 is so incredibly lightweight – a removable belt system would add a not inconsiderable amount of weight to the whole system).

Side compression straps (MRT radio and hydration pouch not included…)

Alrighty, it’s been good so far but does the AK47 have all the features I want and need, and does it have any features that I don’t want? (i.e. anything I’m going to cut off)

Anyone that knows me knows that I dislike faff. Especially when it comes to kit. I like my equipment to do its job as simply and efficiently as possible and I don’t like extra unnecessary bits of fluff – the ‘bells and whistles’ so many designers seem to think are essential nowadays. I like my rucksacks to be simple and only have bits that I’m actually going to use on them – I don’t like extra zips or pockets or pouches (unless we’re talking about my Mountain Marathon running pack…mountain running is an entirely different ball game…). I don’t like bits that flap around or get caught on things or leave me wondering what on earth they’re for or what type of narcotic the designer was on. Despite my penchant for self-engineering things, on a pack that costs over £100 I’d really rather not have to be cutting bits off and for that matter I shouldn’t actually need to be tying on extra bits of cord to make my own gear loops because the manufacturer has decided in their infinite wisdom not to actually include them on their flagship climbing pack, but rather to just give you some handy little fabric loops onto which you can tie your own…and I’m going to breathe now…

Yep, this is one faff-free rucksack, but honestly, Crux, come on – just put the bloody gear loops on.

On the positive side, the AK47 does actually have all the other essential bits –hydration pouch pocket, ice axe loops, a water resistant zipped lid pocket (also an internal mini zipped pocket underneath the lip), rope compression strap and twin ‘bivi’ draw-cords securing the main pack (which, interestingly, are actually made of nice chunky, brightly coloured 4mm rated accessory cord. In theory they could be cannibalised and used as emergency abseil tat…but I can’t really imagine a scenario where this is ever likely to even cross your mind if I’m honest). It also has a chunky bright red haul loop that is nice and easy to clip onto gear at belays and would be equally easy to clip onto a haul line (the pack is also strong enough that you could hang it from the loop onto a piece of gear and actually stand with your full weight inside the bag – impressive and potentially useful to some people believe it or not).

There are also ski loops on each side of the pack, attached to the small but mostly adequate wand pockets (fine for walking poles, but not big enough for a water bottle), but not being a skier I couldn’t comment on how usable they would actually be.

No extra pockets, no unnecessary webbing, no big stretchy mesh pockets or superfluous lengths of bungee cord (although I may add some this winter in order to store crampons on the outside…maybe). A simple, no frills, easy to pack and easy to use rucksack – pretty much just what I’m after, even if it doesn’t come with gear loops attached and is lacking a removable hip belt.

How hard wearing is it likely to be?

No-one wants a bag that will come apart at the seams at the first sign of stress, or abrade through at the slightest scuff. The AK47 is an extremely lightweight pack and yet, somehow, rather than using the thin and flimsy feeling fabrics becoming popular with most pack manufacturers, Crux have managed to make this pack out of a nice hefty feeling kevlar/cordura fabric, and have even reinforced the base with a double layer. The back system is a wonderfully formed section of alloy tubing – not unlike a tent pole actually, that really isn’t going to bend or break unless you really go some and of course provides a fantastically stiff platform.

How hard wearing this pack will be and how long it will put up with my abuse is anyone’s guess, but so far it has been sat on, rained on, dropped out of cars and Land Rovers, dragged through dense woodland, gorse, brambles and partially caught up on barbed wire fences (I took it out with me on a long missing person search with the team a while ago in case you’re wondering). It has been climbed with, camped with and used for storing sharp things but is so far showing nothing more than the odd dusty mark. Time will be the real judge of course, but I have high hopes.

Does anything about it annoy me?

The irritation factor. No matter how good a product is, if any one element of its design irritates the user so much as to actually detract from the activity in which they are participating, then it will end up being left at home. My relationship with the Crux wasn’t love at first sight I have to admit, something just didn’t click to begin with and I kept thinking that I’d most likely end up returning to my old faithful Arete despite its somewhat battered state. I couldn’t quite work out what it was that left me with doubts, couldn’t quite pin down the niggling feelings I had, but, after a while, the more I started doing and the more I used the pack, the less obtrusive the doubts became.

I think to begin with I’d convinced myself the AK47 was going to be uncomfortable due to that minimalist hip belt, and for a long time, despite not having any pain and not being at all uncomfortable carrying it, my instincts kept telling me that it simply couldn’t be a comfortable carry. Eventually I overcame those doubts, realised that it in fact was not uncomfortable, and the bag started to become more a part of me – as it should be.

Overall, nothing really irritated me I don’t think. Ok, so the fact that I had to tie my own gear loops was annoying, but that was a one off annoyance, easily resolved.

The hip belt doesn’t have any form of retainer for the excess webbing…actually, yes, that is annoying – I hate having to tuck the ends away or tie knots to keep them from flapping all over the place. It’s not exactly a show stopper though, and when everything else about the bag has finally started to really click, I’m going to try to overlook that one little niggle (or maybe put my own loops of elastic on).

The water resistant zips on the lid pocket occasionally irritate me a little bit because they’re so stiff, but really, the advantage of them being mostly waterproof (along with the rest of the bag, as discovered on a very wet Snowdon bivi with Justin) vastly outweighs the piffling triviality of the slightly stiffer action they have over normal zips.

Rain. No test would be complete without it

So do I like it?

Yes, I do actually really like this bag, despite the fact that at first I just couldn’t quite gel with it (and I still can’t explain why, there is just no tangible reason!). Time spent using it has convinced me that Crux’s design thoughts and efforts are ones that fit with my style of mountain-going, and also fit with my ethic – simple is always good.

Anyone looking for a pack to use for climbing, scrambling or even just general heavy duty mountain use could certainly do worse than look at the Crux AK47, or any of the AK range (the smaller AK37, the extendable lid version AK47-X, or the bigger AK57 and AK70) They are all available in 3 different back sizes (except the single sized AK37). Great packs, simple, well designed and [hopefully] near bombproof…time will tell as I will certainly be putting mine through its paces!

For anyone interested, here is said rucksack from the lovely people at Webtogs: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Crux_AK_47_Rucksack_102245.html

Other climbing style rucksacks (including the AK37, AK57 and AK70) can also be found here: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Climbing_Packs/

Some more info from Crux on these packs here: http://www.crux.uk.com/en/rucksacks.php?info=64

welsh wild camping

2011-04-14T12:13:00.001+01:00

Oh the life of a gear reviewer!

Hehe ok so I’ve only really just started with it all, but I’m enjoying the challenge of taking new bits of kit out into the hills and trying to form objective opinions on them. The latest gear aquisition is a Crux AK47 rucksack that I’m currently in the process of testing for Webtogs, and about which I will write a proper review once I feel I’ve tested it more thoroughly and ironed out my indecision about various aspects of its use…

So, this blog entry isn’t so much about the kit testing, as it is about the process, by which, I basically mean I went walking and wild camping with Justin last week, and it’s about time I wrote something about that little trip.

For some reason I let myself be talked into a ‘bivy on Snowdon’ on Wednesday night after I’d been training with NEWSAR. What a crap idea that was…and I knew this to begin with. My biggest mistake however, was in borrowing a bivi bag that was really too small to fit a thermarest inside but still deciding to try to do so…

There are many ways in which I could describe that night, but I’m going to go with this one: a bit like being tied up in a straight jacket, wearing a gag (frigging drawcords…) and being laid in a large shower cubicle with the water supply on cold…oh yes, t’was a wonderful night, only topped by waking up in complete clag and more rain. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I’d at least had a nice view of the stars…but no.

Run awaaaaaay!

A retreat to a cafe for tea and time to dry out left us wondering what had happened to our fabulous weather forecast, before we eventually set out through Beddgelert Forest in search of a nice spot to pitch the tents (oh yes, no more of this stupid bivying lark), eventually settling on a rather magical spot amongst some abandoned mine buildings, with a view of nearly the entire range of the Nantlle ridge.

Morning View…

Playing with the camera and headtorch

In the morning we abandoned all our well-thought-out plans for the day in favour of just chilling, wandering, and enjoying ourselves (aided in part by one of our party managing to twist his ankle in a muddy bit).

This was my first trip out wild camping this year, and I have to admit I’ve missed it a bit. There is something truly magical about being out in the hills away from normal life, simply able to see and enjoy nature and whatever gifts she gives you. Looking out of an open tent door at a wide-angle vista of stars framed by some of the most beautiful geography our country has to offer, is really something special. I breathe easier out there somehow.

Snowdon, showing off her best side

simple mods: petzl myo xp

2011-04-05T17:32:00.001+01:00

Why oh why oh why can’t the big gear companies get the simple things right?

Take Petzl for example, and one of their best selling headtorches – the Myo XP. This torch is owned and used by more outdoorsy people than I care to think about because it’s powerful and effective and just works. (Ok, so there have been issues in the past with these torches, something to do with a batch with a wiring fault, but I’m not going to get into that on here – the new ones are all good as far as I know). My issues are far simpler…

The Myo is my torch of choice for pretty much everything, from night time searches, to early morning approaches to Alpine climbs, to evening descents from the Ben, to just finding stuff in the car in the dark – this torch does it all most of the time. It is however, quite a long way from perfect.

Issue 1: The on/off button is, quite frankly, rubbish. Tiny, utterly unusable with Mitts on and next to impossible with gloves, and annoyingly difficult to press if the torch is sat flush in it’s cradle. But there’s nothing I can do about that so I’ll just have to make do for now.

Issue 2: The diffuser. This is the main reason I chose the Myo actually – a good, high output luminosity, and a diffuser lens to spread the beam (great for snow descents!). I love the diffuser, I think it’s great when I’m using it, however, when I’m not using it, the thing is an utter pain in the backside. Why do I say this? After all, you just flip the thing down out of the way so what could possibly be the problem? Well, you see, the manufacturers in their infinite wisdom, failed to realise that with the lens flipped down, light from the LED gets perfectly diffracted and reflected straight down into your eyes through the little lever knob bit on the diffuser…utterly utterly naff!

Anyway, whilst I can’t do much about the aggravation caused by Issue 1, I have taken a simple, yet effective step to eliminate Issue 2:

Matt black enamel paint. Simple, doesn’t void the warranty, and it works! No more glare in the eyes for me! It will be interesting to see how long the paint stays on there before I have to recoat it, but for the short term I’m one happy bunny and highly recommend this little modification to all Myo users – go to it!

another kind of pain

2011-04-04T12:06:00.001+01:00

I briefly mentioned in my last posting, that I’ve been hobbling round on injured knees after a mountain biking accident, and I just thought I’d like to elaborate a little. You see, I’m not a mountain biker, and it had been something like two years since I’d been out on a mountain bike, when I went over to the trails at Cannock Chase to meet up with my old friend Dave from back down south (Dave being a keen mountain biker, and Cannock being a nice half way point for us to meet for a day trip).

I borrowed Matt’s mountain bike (cheers matey), which held a couple of issues for me: 1) the spd pedals he uses (easily solved by the guys in the shop loaning me some flats) and 2) the bike is slightly too big for my petite frame.

Anyway, I had a really good time on the ‘Follow the Dog’ red run, also linking in a few more easy miles of ‘blue’ through the forest before rejoining FtD…it was all going so well, until I fluffed it. Right at the very end of the course, I misjudged a couple of things and to cut a long story short, went flying without the bike…landing directly on both kneecaps.

The bike was fine thankfully, but I had to finish riding the trail in an unbelievable amount of pain. I hadn’t broken anything, but judging by the kind of pain I still have, I suspect I may have bruised some bone underneath the big cuts. Anyway, I’m virtually back to normal now so we shan’t dwell on it too much.

The two most frustrating aspects of the whole episode were the fact that I wrecked my only pair of walking/climbing trousers and that I promptly decided I wanted another bike. Yes, that’s right, I went out, caused myself massive amounts of pain through injury, so of course I decided I wanted to be able to ride better, and in order to do that I need to ride more, and in order to do that…I needed a bike (and some knee pads!).

So here we are, my bruises finally starting to disappear, and I’m looking at my beautiful new hardtail mountain bike – one that’s mine, a bike that fits me and is an absolute joy to ride. Bring on the trails and the mountains…I will get better at this.

finding direction: the silva expedition 4 compass

2011-03-29T21:34:00.001+01:00

I like a challenge me. No really, I do! Which is a good job seeing as the first product I’ve been sent to review is a compass…

Give me a tee shirt, or a pair of socks and I could prattle on all day about sweat wicking, cold weather performance, colour combinations and the like, but seriously, how do you review a compass? I mean, they’re all pretty much the same aren’t they?

Well, despite having two badly cut and bruised knees (from a mountain biking accident last week), last night I managed to persuade one of my MRT buddies to come out on a night hike with me so I could test the Silva Expedition 4, comparing it against the Recta I’ve been using for years…

Now, before I start talking about the Silva, I should just mention that of course any compass is essentially useless unless you actually know how to use it, and have the appropriate map alongside. I’m lucky enough to have been trained in the art of mountain and micro navigation by my colleagues at NEWSAR, and one thing they have taught me is that navigation doesn’t have to be complicated to allow you to be safe in the hills. The navigation ‘Bible’ is the now legendary “Mountain Navigation” by Peter Cliff – I cannot recommend reading this book more highly, honestly, it’s short, sweet and makes everything seem simple yet gives you the basics of everything you really need to know.

Ok back on track (I must apologise for my terrible puns today, I think I’m suffering chocolate withdrawal…), the Silva Expedition 4 is the compass that most people tend to think of as the mountain navigation standard – the compass against which all others are compared. Not for me though – I’ve been using a Recta DT 420 that I scavenged from my days surveying hilltop radio masts, so the Silva is new to me and I was quite interested to see whether or not I should be ditching the old Recta…

My view of the main features of the Silva Expedition 4:

Full baseplate including scales in mm (up to 100mm), inches (up to 2 inches), and romer scales for 1:25k, 1:50k and the new 1:40k scale Harveys/BMC maps
Magnifyer thingy (for reading tiny bits on maps)
Template cutout (for marking things on maps, in circles)
Sticky bumps on the bottom of the baseplate to make it less slippy when held on map surfaces (this is especially useful on slippy laminated maps)
Glow in the dark markers on the North facing needle, and on the north mark on the compass. There is also a glow in the dark mark on the face forward arrow (all of these supposedly make using the compass in the dark easier…)

Silva Expedition 4 vs. Recta DT 420 plus additional romer plate

This compass really does cover all the bases, you can do anything and everything you could sensibly need to do with it on the hill, it even comes complete with the standard red keeper cord for either hanging the compass round your neck, or more usefully threading some form of pacing beads (for keeping count when you’re pacing distances between features – something like five cord locks or beads that you move one of for every 100m you travel) onto and attaching to a jacket pocket or rucksack strap: I use a tiny carabiner for this and clip the cord to the top pocket zip of my jacket, the compass living inside the pocket when not in use. The main advantage to doing this rather than hanging the thing around your neck is that the cord is long enough to be able to use the compass without detaching it…so you can’t lose it!

The scale and romers marked on the baseplate of the Silva are truly excellent, and I’m especially pleased to see the inclusion of the 1:40k scale there (as proudly used by the OMM on their maps, according to the packaging). This is the main area where my Recta has been well and truly out-classed – my hand drawn extra markings and additional plastic romer (no 1:40k scale on the Recta, a pain as I use Harvey maps a fair bit) really are no match for the visual and ergonomic simplicity of Silva’s layout. It’s also rather nice having a full 100mm marked down the side (I only have 30mm on the Recta), and not just for mapping use – it’s surprising how often you find yourself wanting to know how long something is…The magnifyer is also pretty good, although I rarely find myself needing to use one.

So, now we know that in daylight the Silva is great – the actual compass is accurate and responsive, the baseplate is simply and usefully marked meaning you can easily read off 6 or 8 figure grid references and make quick, accurate distance measurements from either 1:25k, 1:40k, or 1:50k scale maps. But how does it fare at night?

Now here’s the thing. Glow in the dark bits. Essential for navigating at night right?

The glow in the dark bits on the Silva are vastly inferior to the fully glowed up degree ring on the Recta, and I mean vastly. There really is no comparison – one has 3 dots you line up whilst remembering they mean North, the other has a fully visible glow in the dark degree ring. However, both are next to useless unless they have been ‘charged up’ with visible light…so either the sun (daylight?) or a headtorch…

Do you really need glow in the dark bits on a compass to make it useable at night? I would argue, that in fact, you do not – after all, you need some form of light to be able to see the map, and so the same light source can be used to read the compass, often at the same time! You also [usually] need to be able to see where you’re going, at least to a degree, so even simply following a bearing is something you’re unlikely to be doing without the aid of some form or artificial light. So whilst the glow in the dark functionality of Silva’s offering really isn’t as good as that of Recta’s, I’m not sure it really matters (and the markings are actually perfectly useable).

Navigating by headtorch!

So will I be swapping compasses? Yes, I think the Silva will be finding its way into my pack, primarily based on how good the baseplate and romer markings are. You’d have to go an awfully long way to really improve on this piece of kit!

For anyone interested, here is said compass from the lovely people at Webtogs: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Silva_Expedition_4_Compass_293.html

They also sell a nice selection of other navigational marvels and accessories here, so go check it out: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Compasses/

backseat drivers

2011-03-22T00:15:00.001Z

What exactly is a backseat driver? Well, according to that well-known font of all knowledge, wikipedia, “A backseat driver is a vehicle passenger who is not controlling the vehicle, and seems to be uncomfortable with the skills of the driver and/or wants to tutor the driver while the driver is at the wheel.”

So what about a backseat pilot? Well, in a Pitts Special S2B (you’ll see where I’m going with this in a second), the pilot actually flies from the back seat, and if they have a numpty student or simple passenger, they sit in the front.* So I guess we could quite happily modify the wiki phrase to be: “A flying instructor is a vehicle passenger who is not controlling the vehicle [unless their student is useless and cocks up (or is being demonstrated something just before they cock up, or being shown what they should have done just after they cocked up)], and seems to be uncomfortable with the skills of the student pilot and/or wants to tutor the student while the daft idiot is at the wheel.”

I am of course the numpty student, and up until today I’ve quite happily sat in the front seat of G-SKNT and attempted to learn to fly aerobatic manoeuvres from there. The advantage to being in the front is that life is pretty simple really – you don’t have a vast number of instruments to be distracted by, and you don’t have all that many little knobs or levers to fiddle with – they’re all being dealt with by the superstar instructor in the back seat! One of the disadvantages to being in the front is that you that know at some point you’re going to be put into the back seat and expected to actually fly the damned thing…

You guessed it, today I sat in the back for the first time.

I’d already made myself feel sick by flying a variety of aerobatic manoeuvres in either a ‘quite well’, ‘slightly wonky’, ‘I think that one was ok…wasn’t it?’, or ‘meeeuuuurrrghhh………..oops!’ fashion from the front seat, when, after a period of stomach re-stabilisation, I was asked if I wanted to have a go from the back…

Silly question really.

Of course, circuits can be really boring when you know what you’re doing and are flying well. They are actually bloody terrifying when you’re presented with the concept of flying a few in a high performance aircraft of a type you’re unfamiliar with and whose propeller could very easily be buried in the tarmac if you fluff up either the take-off or the landing, and which aircraft also has zero forward visibility, extra controls you’ve never used before (or not to a great extent), and a seating arrangement that means you can’t quite reach the rudder pedals optimally (thankfully this last bit will change), oh, and both the take-off and landing procedure are completely different to anything you would ever do in a Cessna 152.

Basically, I’m not yet qualified to fly either tail-dragger type aircraft, or 'complex prop’ types, of which the Pitts is both. Not only am I learning to fly aerobatics, I’m learning to fly a Pitts Special, and today heralded the start of my actually getting to grips with this beautiful aeroplane, rather than just being a glorified passenger with a joystick. Did I enjoy flying from the pilot’s seat? Hell yes. Was it hard work? Of course! I’m learning several new skill-sets with this aeroplane, and as with any learning process, feeling when things start to ‘click’ and make sense, suddenly understanding how you need to be doing something in order for it to work properly, is one of the simplest and best experiences in life in my view, and for me the process of learning to fly aerobatics and learning to fly the Pitts is something greatly rewarding and truly special.

Off course, with the numpty being in the back seat, the wiki definition went right out of the window, as all of the discomfort and fear was shared equally between both seats!

Bring on more good flying weather!

*For anyone interested, the reason for this is to do with balancing the main chunks of weight (no offense Paul) to maintain a reasonable centre of gravity (CoG). The engine is by far the heaviest component of the aeroplane, and it sits right at the front, so the pilot sits way back in the tail to help counter this. Any passenger (in the front seat) will be much closer to the aircraft’s CoG and so their weight will have less influence on balance and weighting.

semi-urban exploration: Llanberis RAF Reserve depot (bomb store)

2011-03-19T21:30:00.001Z

At a bit of a loose end yesterday following a Lyon Equipment course at Plas-y-Brenin, I found myself sat in Pete’s Eats with a cup of tea and a plate of eggs on toast, wondering what to do with the day. I quite fancied a hillwalk, but somehow couldn’t motivate myself toward anything I’d already done before, and couldn’t head anywhere new because I was somewhat lacking in the map department. I texted a couple of people, and my friend Sion headed over and met me in the cafe. After a little discussion the decision was made to go and check out the old bomb store just outside Llanberis town – now, I should just say that this place is somewhere I’d been meaning to go for a while, and so, being with someone who knew [roughly] where it was and how to get in, I was keen to head over.

Equipped with Sion’s somewhat hazy idea of how to get to the place, and several torches that we cleverly left in the car, we headed in…or at least we thought we were heading in, until we realised that we in fact were not heading in to where we wanted to be, but to somewhere else. So we headed out again. After a little wandering and some cunning use of mobile technology (Google mapping and satellite views on my phone…damned impressive), we eventually found the right section of quarry and made our way down into the depot itself.

We wandered around some of the old access tunnels, using only the torches built into our phones (as I mentioned earlier, the proper torches were being stored in the car for safe keeping at this point), and eventually popped out through a big steel door, essentially back next to the road. The decision to retrieve the torches was then made, after which we returned to explore the main stores themselves.

Sion donning his headtorch before entering the main chambers

The place is huge. Truly enormous, especially when you consider the large open concrete area through which the railway bed runs was actually once also completely covered over…

If, like me, you’re interested in the history of this place, head over to Subterranea Britannica and read their article, here.

Summary:

The depot was built by the Air Ministry between 1939 and 1941 for the storage of around 18,000 tons of bombs. Rather unfortunately, a mere six months after the depot was opened it suffered a catastrophic failure, where some two thirds of the roof structure collapsed under the weight of its layer of slate backfill (due to 'cost cutting’ design changes). A train of twenty seven wagons, at the time in the process of unloading, was engulfed and around 14,000 tons of bombs were buried (which actually represented around 14% of the entire RAF stock).

The collapse signalled the end of the storage of bombs underground at Llanberis, although most of the buried ordnance was recovered. The depot did remain in use for open storage of incendiaries and demolition works, and was finally closed in 1956.

The site remained active militarily for several decades, with all explosives being removed between 1969 and October 1975, by 71 Maintenance Unit EOD Flight from Royal Air Force Bicester. (Incidentally, due to the nature of the site, and the multiple pit areas used for the dumping of explosives, this exercise was one of very few that have ever required military personnel to first be trained by a Mountain Rescue Team: the various rock climbing techniques and rescue procedures taught were essential to enable members of the unit to reach much of the explosive ordnance with which they had to deal.)

The site is a fascinating place, and one I’d have loved to have seen whilst it was operational. I really must do more exploring…

gear reviews for webtogs

2011-03-18T21:18:00.001Z

Exciting times – I’m soon to be doing some proper gear testing and reviews on behalf of online retailer Webtogs, hence the move to the new blog template and my beginning to play around with html (check out the new tabs: they were not easy for a software numpty like me to get configured properly) on here. A new laptop also means that there may be more changes to the blog to come as I’m likely to start getting cocky…I’m sure there will be swearing involved in the not too distant future…

Anyway, enough said for now – keep your eyes peeled for some [hopefully] entertaining gear reviews soon.

rope colours

2011-03-11T19:22:00.001Z

This trip has been the first major outing for my new double ropes after my old ones got rather badly damaged in an ice climbing incident back in December. 60m, 8.5mm diameter, dry-treated Edelrid Kestrels. My old ropes were the ‘standard’ Mammut Genesis that everyone seems to use, and they were of a conventional colour scheme that just worked – blue and red.

Blue and red, great! Easy to tell them apart, easy to remember which one goes on which side (always red on the left, after all red is the port colour), no worries. So what do you think crossed my mind when the Kestrels arrived?

“Oh dear god…”

‘Night’ and ‘Sahara’ are apparently the colours of these ropes according to Edelrid…

Not to worry though, my friends out here soon came to the rescue by renaming the rope colours for me:

‘Poo’ and ‘Puke’.

…

At first I railed against this. I do not have a ‘poo’ coloured rope for crying out loud. How could you ever shout down to your belayer “slack on poo”? I mean really…

The offending items in use with a Petzl Reverso 3

For a good few days I fought to maintain that the darker rope was in fact a purple colour, but then one day, stood in the bottom of the Lower Gorge, I glanced across at the pile of ropes and finally had to admit that the dark rope does indeed appear to be a sort of browny colour in certain lights. I was gutted. There really is no denying that these ropes are a gross colour combo, but really, do they have to forever be known by such vulgar names? The answer, of course, is yes.

So, now we have one brown rope, forever to be known as ‘poo’.

The orange rope is another matter altogether, it started out life simply as ‘orange’, but soon aquired the tag of ‘baby sick’ (again, thanks Dave), and has now settled down to being simply ‘puke’.

I’ve given up despairing, there is nothing I can do other than embrace the embarrassment of it all.

There is an advantage to this colour combination - it is incredibly easy to remember two simple elements: which one goes on the left when gearing up, and which one you rig to pull as standard on full length abseils:

Left and right: The lighter coloured rope, resembling either puke or pee, depending on which way you look at it, is of course rope ‘Number One’ and therefore always goes on the left.

The darker coloured rope, now widely regarded as the ‘poo’ rope, of course has to be rope ‘Number Two’, the reasoning being self-evident. It will go on the right.

Abseiling: When rigging a full length abseil, you have to tie both ropes together, and upon reaching the bottom the laborious task of pulling the ropes down becomes the next challenge. In order to make life ever-so-slightly easier, I’ve decided to standardise the way I’ll thread the ropes, ensuring that the ‘puke’ rope is the one to be pulled (knot on the ‘puke’ side of the anchor), so we will always be “pulling a sickie”…I know, I know…

On a genuine note, I’m seriously impressed with these ropes. They handle beautifully, the dry-treatment is great and they do everything a double rope should do. It’ll be interesting to see how well they hold up to the rigours of the summer rock season, but if they are as good as my old Edelrid Falcon single rope, I’m sure I’ll be more than happy.

rjukan, day…oh forget it, I’ve lost count now

2011-03-08T19:14:00.001Z

I’ve lost track of the trip day count now, apologies. Nothing of note has really happened, I had a rest day because I was feeling battered and cowardly, and we’ve been down into the Lower Gorge for a few routes.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but since the avalanche all has not been well with me. Easy ice routes terrify me, especially if the ice is ‘dinner plating’ (big dinner plate sized shatter patterns that appear when the ice is struck) badly. I had a crack on one WI3 the day before yesterday and failed to finish it – I had to belay and get Dave to finish the route off for me…nightmare.

Kate enjoying a gritty top-out

Proving that safety glasses CAN look cool….

Me on one of the pleasant easy Lower Gorge routes from today

Despite a less than brilliant start, today was a little better in that I actually managed to climb a couple of routes without crying…yes, it had been that bad.

Tonight is windy, air is howling round the hytte [cabin] and the trees are waving at us through the windows. I went out for a brief foray to acquire more toilet paper, a dull yet essential mission, during which I took a brief look up to the sky…the moon is bright and beautiful, and I couldn’t help but breathe a little easier as the wind tousled and caressed my hair. The valley here is a wonderful place when you can hear nothing but nature’s music.

rjukan, day 5 (avalanche)

2011-03-05T19:34:00.001Z

Today was a bit of a nightmare, I don’t know what to blog, so I’ll just re-produce what I wrote in an email to a friend of mine (apologies for the typos and lack of care):

“Not sure what to blog really. I'm ok, just a few bruises. First time I've ever been avalanched, thank goodness Tom and I were both on the belay stance and the belay was good, it was quite an impact and a genuinely terrifying thing to look up and see a wall of snow heading straight down toward you! It was also the first time Dave's ever had to shout such a desperate warning! One of the first things he said when he saw us this eve (he was in front with Ant, I bailed from the route with Tom so we just walked back to the hut), was "I'm glad you survived". Apparently it was quite spectacular - Kate watched from the bottom and Dave and Ant saw from above - Dave said they'd both prayed that we hadn't been hit (it missed them), and Kate was scared when we 'disappeared' under it as it hit us.

Anyway, all is good really, and in a twisted sort of way I'm quite pleased - we bailed, failed on the route completely yet somehow I'm just glad!

Incidentally, before the avalanche I actually got stuck...that was also a first. Genuinely, completely and utterly stuck. I'd been forced to take a different line to the others (we were climbing simultaneously) and ended up away from the main ice fall trapped on a snow field - 3 feet of loose powder over unfeatured rock slab. I managed to reach a sapling (no thicker than my thumb) that I could stand on with one foot, and had to shout over to Dave for rescue. I couldn't move up as the snow was too bad and I'd hit a blank rock band, I couldn't go back down because the climbing had been too hard and insecure to reverse, I couldn't traverse for the same reason I couldn't continue upwards, I had no gear at all, was 40m up on shitty snow that could barely hold my bodyweight and was ideally conditioned to avalanche...I genuinely thought I'd had it. For a good few minutes I thought I was going to die (and I'm not exaggerating - I was in tears in panic). Mercifully my last ditch option of abseiling off said miniscule sapling (half abseiling, half downclimbing and praying it didn’t flex far enough for the sling to come off) wasn't necessary as Dave and Ant managed to get a rope over to me so I could traverse safely back onto the ice...bloody hell was it scary, the snow was unbelievably bad, absolutely nothing solid anywhere, it was genuinely more like a swim than anything else...”

rjukan, day 3

2011-03-03T21:38:00.001Z

Too tired to type today, sorry! Have some nice piccys instead:

Tjonstadbergfossen (WI4, 4 pitches)

Vemorkbrufoss Vest (WI5, 2 pitches)

I should say a big thanks to Ben, the new third member of our party and a far better climber than myself – so cheers Ben, let’s hope we get some more good stuff done in the next few days!

rjukan, day 2

2011-03-02T21:22:00.001Z

“Grading ice climbs has become simple for me. They are: Easy, Hard, I Can’t Climb It, or I Won’t Climb It.” – Joe Josephson

Today I’d half hoped to head for one of the routes above Rjukan Center, but an extremely poor night’s sleep led to not waking up particularly early and hence a bit of a lay in and thus a lazy breakfast before making the decision to head out to Krokan for an ‘easy’ day and a bit of conditions scoping.

Ice formations are a little different to those of the last time I was here (February 2010), and it would seem that a fair few of the routes at Krokan have not formed as well as they had on my previous visit, so unfortunately we were a little disappointed by what we found. We did however decide to have a go at a route called Gaustaspokelse, a 3 star WI4 I had previously seconded…this time I took the lead.

Thin. The route was far thinner than I’d seen it before, and despite looking pretty friendly and innocent from below, it turned out to be far steeper in the top section than I’d anticipated. In fact, the top 4 or 5 metres were actually slightly overhung…

Looks innocent doesn’t it? (Top couple of metres out of shot)

I made a mistake.

I underestimated the route, I went into it feeling cocky – I didn’t expect the ice to be as steep as it was at the top. I expected a simple ‘hook-fest’. I expected it to be easy…this was my mistake.

I did not expect to have climbed myself into the danger zone, and yet, suddenly, there I was – back in a place I had once vowed NEVER to push myself to again. There I was, hanging on, my arms steadily weakening as the pump clock kept ticking, with no gear to safeguard me if I fell, and no strength left with which to place any...

A flash of realisation that you're going to end up in the hospital if you blow it, knowing that you ARE about to blow it...

My legs were shaking. I was bridged out between ice and rock, an island of salvation in the sea of my rising panic, but my legs were starting to shake. I was losing it.

Fear is an amazing catalyst – looking down between your legs at an ice screw placed from a ledge that now eagerly awaits the inevitable impact once you blow it, you’re picturing the fall, hearing the crunch as your body meets itself, tasting the blood in your mouth… and then suddenly you’re simply gritting your teeth and fighting. Onwards, upwards, you’re hitting hard and true, using the rush of adrenaline to push beyond the danger zone, climbing back to safety, to solace in the trees above…

Yes, it’s all a bit melodramatic, but in all honesty I did scare myself and I did come very close to blowing it on this route. It took me a good few minutes to calm down after I reached the trees and belayed Dave up to me. Being able to walk back down rather than abseil was a merciful relief as my nerves were shot and I just wanted to sit down and enjoy a nice civilised cup of tea!

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

rjukan, day 1

2011-03-01T22:02:00.001Z

Good news! I’ve been climbing at last. Four routes to be precise…

So, Dave and I arrived in Rjukan, Norway, yesterday after an epic day of travelling (it’s a long way from Mid-Wales when you’re avoiding RyanAir…). Today was always going to have to be primarily a ‘logistics’ mission, hence this morning was spent nearly having multiple heart failures because of the sheer expense of supermarket provisions…with the exchange rate so poor, and Norway being renowned for being costly, feeding ourselves out here is proving to be a rather financially painful business. Anyway, enough of the moaning…

After our epic supermarket foray, we had a super healthy brunch of brioche and biscuits and proceeded to pack and head out to the mini-venue of Ozzimosis, just to the east of Rjukan. This place is fab when you’re used to the laborious nature of winter climbing in the UK – a 5 minute walk-in and you have several 30-35m high pure ice lines varying from simple (WI2*), to entertaining (WI3-4*), to downright scary (WI5*).

Dave started off on one of the WI3s* making it look smooth and easy, whereas my efforts in following him made it look horrendously clumsy and painful…my calfs were burning like crazy and I was swinging my axes like a rabid chimpanzee, although mercifully I did settle in to things somewhat when I led the adjacent WI3.

Dave enjoying himself

Of course, anyone that knows me will know that I’m slightly wonky in the brain department, and today I displayed this endearing trait by deciding that I was in fact going to lead a WI5 as my second ice route of the year…now I should point out that I have in fact not ever led WI5 before (knowingly) and spent most of my trip last year chickening out of doing so, hence when I wandered over to the base of this thing and started gearing up, Dave looked a touch ‘surprised’ shall we say…

They do say the colour of Adrenaline is brown: me on something steep and scary

Of course, photographs never make ice routes look anywhere near as steep as they actually are, and obviously they always feel steeper than they really are too when you’re a mere mortal…

I may have had a couple of ‘moments’ during my epic lead, you know, those ‘moments’ where you think you’re losing it, get scared, lose it a little more, think you’re going to fall off and then…

…decide that you’re not going to fall off because falling on ice is likely to hurt (bad thing), and actually, if you just gather yourself together you can force yourself to breathe and remember that actually, you are more than capable of climbing this stuff.

I did it. Dave followed me up. We abseiled off. I’m an awesome story-teller…

So, there we were, my whole body slowly dissipating adrenaline, my calfs solid with cramp (front pointing is hard going), my forearms leaden, and Dave decides to do one last route before it got dark – something verging on WI3-4 so not exactly trivial. I was utterly delighted (obviously)…especially when the hot aches robbed me of my dignity as I topped out. Serves me right for being too lazy to dig out my dry gloves I suppose.

Dave choosing an ‘awkward bastard’ of a line to finish

Today was brilliant, I love Rjukan, I love ice climbing. Let’s hope the rest of the trip is as good as today.

*Please take my gradings with a pinch of salt, the difficulty of ice routes is highly variable and so not all of the grades I’m going to give are the same as are written in the guidebook. The grades I will quote all this week and the grades myself and Dave felt the routes warranted in the condition in which we found them.

moving on…

2011-02-26T18:17:00.001Z

Another dull posting, my apologies, but next week I should hopefully be posting up some nice Rjukan Ice climbing reports and pictures. YAY!

So yeah, Dave and I are flying out on Monday for nearly 2 weeks of waterfall ice action, meeting up with others along the way, should be fun! And my Nomics and new ropes should get some decent use at last (thanks to Adam at EMS for these).

In other news, my week-long Ofcom induction was fantastic, I’m thrilled to have been given the chance to get involved at the Olympics with these guys, the experience will be immense, and the people I’m to be working with are a fantastic bunch, great engineers and a great laugh to boot. Plus, I’m being paid (always a bonus!).

In other, other news, Phil and I have found somewhere else to live. Once the paperwork has all gone through we will be shifting our few possessions over to a remote ‘Crofter’s Cottage’ (or whatever it once was), with stunning views and a water supply that comes directly from a spring on the hillside above…bizarre and ramshackle, living there is definitely going to be an experience, and a challenging one at that. I will now be embarking upon a quest to find a decent, cheap 125cc trail bike to be my ‘winter hack’ at Phil’s suggestion as the car will likely not make it to the house in the snow! Hell, if he thinks I should buy a second motorbike then who am I to argue!!

Life is improving.

life

2011-02-18T15:22:00.001Z

I’ve not felt like writing much recently, there are too many things on my mind, and too much of life just seems to be getting in the way of living.

My home is gone, one month on I am still living in a caravan on the driveway waiting in limbo for a ethereal insurer to save us. Slowly I’m losing my grip on hope, one day salvation will come, but meanwhile the descending spiral of woes both real and imagined hasn’t even begun to slow.

Morbid thoughts have been clouding my mind after my involvement with the recent flooding as a SAR ‘observer’. My mother has been in intensive care after a severe infection and emergency operations, and with her and my longsuffering father all my remaining strength and positivity are invested.

I’ve been flying and failed to concentrate, failed to be caught in the inexorable grip of the G-forces we court when flying aerobatics, failed to immerse myself in the fight and just ended up feeling sick and despondent, this is not like me.

I’ve been to Scotland to attempt to climb, and been repulsed by the weather and avalanche risk, yet another unsuccessful trip to stir the soul into desolation.

A whole host of other things are also battling to drag my mind down to within sight of the bottom, yet somehow the light is still there shining above me and I can’t let that go.

I was successful at a job interview last week and will be heading off for a week of training next week with Ofcom – I will be working at the Olympic games in 2012 as an Venue Engineer (running radio investigation) – a chance of a lifetime and an experience I’m really excited about being given the opportunity to have. The interview gave me the chance to talk about who I am and what I’m capable of, showed me once more that I’m skilled and capable as an engineer and valued as a person.

I’m off to Rjukan, Norway after the week at Ofcom, for a two week ice climbing trip I’ve been planning since the middle of last year, and despite losing my climbing partner for the trip, and failing to be anywhere near where I would like to be with my strength and fitness training, I feel good about the whole thing, I know that all I need to do to have the trip of my career so far, is to open my mind and let myself believe in myself. This is a feeling I’ve not had before, a knowledge that as long as I try, as long as I trust and let myself run, things will work out ok.

I just need to apply this philosophy to the rest of life, it can all be ok.

simplification

2011-01-26T21:04:00.001Z

I was going to make my next blog entry a nice positive one about a day out I had last week flying the Pitts Special: it was one of the best days I’ve had in a long, long time and as such is one that I may indeed write about in the future, but for now I just don’t have it in me (sorry Paul).

I spent this weekend up in Scotland failing to climb anything for various reasons, but the main one being a piece of news I received from Phil on Friday evening (I’d headed up on Thursday you see). It would seem that our lives had suddenly become much simpler, or at least they will have once all the initial brouhaha is over and done with…

Possessions…who needs them right? Perspective is something that is often gained rapidly and with almighty clarity when all of a sudden you have none.

Ok, enough of the cryptic – Phil called me to tell me that we’d had a house fire. Mercifully no-one was hurt and we had no animals in the house either, but somehow those hugely important facts don’t feel quite as comforting as they perhaps should when what you’re hearing is “everything’s gone…everything”.

Now that’s all a touch melodramatic, as everything is in actual fact not gone, just covered in a thick layer of noxious black soot – the fire burned itself out in a smouldering pile of molten metal, plastic, carpet and electronic components. It did not follow the more obvious course of setting the bookcase alight and destroying the building as well as all of our worldly possessions for some reason (oxygen starvation most likely according to the fire brigade). So, whilst we do still technically own everything we did before, none of it is ever going to be useable again – the soot and smoke damage is almost total…

So where does that leave us? Well, we are now living in Phil’s cousin’s caravan perched precariously on our driveway, desperately trying to get in contact with the landlady (don’t ask, but until we do, the house insurers still won’t know what’s happened, and we won’t know what’s going to happen to us!), and waiting for our own contents insurers to send out their damage assessor on Friday.

So, life may be crap right now, but at least it’s simple!

the new year

2011-01-07T20:38:00.001Z

My blogging of late has been horribly lax, and my simple explanation as to why, is simply that I’ve had nothing to say, nothing I’ve wanted to share. I’ve been ill for what seems like weeks now, in fact ever since my ascent of Maesglasau Falls with Dave I’ve suffered a whole series of setbacks – first the bout of food poisoning that left me totally empty in more ways than one, then what I have termed the ‘uber cold’ (it wasn’t the ‘flu, but it did leave me feeling as weak and lethargic as my last bout of real ‘flu did), and now some inexplicable round of serious infection in my lip and gums.

So basically, thus far, 2011 hasn’t really been my year. I feel drained, horrendously unfit and pretty disappointed in myself. Plans had been forged to enable this winter season to be incredible – I spent most of the summer training my fitness, my strength and psychological levels were good, and then work came and after that the seemingly never-ending period of illness. It all feels like such a waste.

So, now I’m sat here, dosed up on antibiotics, still in a fair amount of pain (stupid gum infection), slightly depressed about how things have been going, but also feeling positive that I’m going to turn it all round.

Plans for more Winter forays are being made, partners are being sought out, training is starting to be done to get me back into a fit enough state to survive the Ben Nevis walk-in. Of course my trip to Rjukan in March is still enough of a way off that I may yet still be capable of climbing that WI6 I’m lusting over, so all is not yet lost!

I’m also working harder with my Mountain Rescue stuff – this weekend should yield some hilarity with my Helicopter and winch training scheduled for tomorrow at RAF Valley (I can’t wait!!), and next weekend is the ‘Casualty Care’ course, for which I have been struggling to study but mostly failing because I find the text book such hard work – I just hope I can retain enough from the course to pass the exam in February!

If all that weren’t enough, I’ve set up a couple of pages to raise some money for NEWSAR (North East Wales Search and Rescue) through two events I’m now signed up for:

Sponsor me (and Matt) in the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon (my first ever MM) here: http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/laurenrichardson

Or, if you’re more of a road runner, sponsor me (and Matt again) to run the Snowdonia Marathon (my first road marathon) in October, here: http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/laurenrichardson2011

Both of these events will be serious tests of my resolve and my motivations, as I’m going to be putting in some real training efforts for both of them. The Snowdonia Marathon in particular scares me. I’ve never run that kind of distance before, and I’m out of running shape at the moment, but I’m determined not to embarrass myself and as such will also be participating in a few shorted distance races in the lead up (one of them will hopefully be the Lake Vyrnwy half-marathon, if I can ever manage to book a place, and I’m also now toying with possibly entering the ‘Race the Train’ event in Tywyn in August…should be an interesting year!)

Tips and encouragement will all be much appreciated, and I will be keeping the blog updated through the year with progress on how our training is going for each event. I’ll also be pointing out the links more and more as the time draws closer.

gear we like, part 6: winter odds and sods

2010-12-24T23:00:00.001Z

So, the winter season is well and truly upon us, and I’m still too ill to take any real advantage of it. Great. That said, the past few of times I have been out (both in Wales and a recent trip to the Cairngorms), I have been trialling and contemplating some very simple gear ideas, and it’s time to tell the world!

Cycling Glasses

Ok, what the hell am I on about now – cycling glasses for winter climbing? Oh yes. Check me out!

Ok, I look stupid.

So why am I wearing them? Well, since I started wearing contact lenses to climb, rather than just wearing my normal glasses, I’ve realised that I feel a little vulnerable in the face area, which is especially relevant to me as I seem to be a magnet for falling ice. I contemplated using a helmet visor, but the one available for the Grivel Salamander is more of a peak than a visor, and not what I was looking for, so the thought of ‘safety glasses’ struck me next, and hence, on a recent trip to Decathlon I found myself looking at clear cycling glasses, admiring the amount of face coverage they provide, and also feeling stunned by how cheap they were (£8 I think). They are now a constant companion on the winter hills – ace for protecting eyes from falling ice, spindrift, or even just the wind. They’re no replacement for goggles when the sh*t really hits the fan, but I’d say a good 90% of the time a pair of these are a great thing to wear as they’re comfortable enough that you forget you’re wearing them and provide you with a nice protective barrier to boot.

£9 Casio Digital Watch from Argos

Another slightly revolutionary concept here – a cheap but tough digital watch, but not to wear on your wrist…

When winter climbing you’ll inevitably be wearing multiple layers and gloves, which means that wearing a wrist watch is either not an option at all (i.e. if you’re like me and find the watch plus glove cuff combo excruciatingly uncomfortable), or you wear one but it is underneath your many layers and a total pain to actually be able to look at.

Really there are three main options for telling the time on the hill in winter: 1) wear a watch normally and suffer the consequences, 2) wear a watch over the top of your clothing layers and suffer the consequences, or 3) don’t wear a watch at all (rely on your partner, or have some form of clock stashed elsewhere).

So far this year I have chosen varieties of option 3 every time – usually either relying on my partner wearing a watch, or digging my phone out of my pocket, neither of which are particularly good options really. My latest notion, is to use a watch permanently attached to my rucksack strap, mounted upside down so I can simply glance down and see what the time is, no hassle! Now, obviously this won’t work if I’m not climbing with the bag on, but most of the time I spend out in winter I will be wearing my rucksack, or it will be close by, so theoretically this could be a great solutions, only time will tell (sorry!).

So there we go – as you can see in the picture, my new cheap retro casio fits onto the webbing strap of my Berghaus Arete perfectly – they’re almost made for each other! All I had to do was remove the watch strap, and refit the pins around the webbing (so the webbing is effectively just a replacement watch strap). I will admit that it was a touch fiddly, but the result is stunning – no cable ties or duct tape in sight!

The reason I chose this watch (I think the model is an F-91W or something), was because it was a) cheap, b) digital (don’t want an analogue watch as it’ll be more fragile with all the moving parts), c) water resistant, d) long proven to be pretty much indestructible (I know people who have had these for years, put them through hell and they just keep on and on working), e) low profile/thin/small and f) has a replaceable strap and not a built in rubber thing. In other words, it is perfect for what I wanted here – it even has the added bonus of having a light and functionality as a stopwatch or alarm.

maesglasau falls–one of the best ice climbs in wales?

2010-12-13T17:51:00.001Z

Maesglasau Falls IV, 4, Craig Maesglase. Five pitches of pure water ice, in Mid Wales.

Last Wednesday, myself and a certain Mr Williams (the man who thought so much of my belaying last year he decided to fall off of a route and break his heel after landing on me), decided that the weather had been cold enough for long enough, that we would make the trek into Craig Maesglase and have a crack at “one of the best ice routes in Wales” as it was known to be in condition (although the type of condition it turned out to be in was somewhat interesting…read on!)

This route has been right at the very top of my wishlist ever since I first heard about and laid eyes on it last year, and for good reason. Five pitches of steep pure water ice, only 35minutes from home…how can it get any better?

Ok well there is one way it could be better: the approach. Grim doesn’t even begin to describe how utterly disgusting and harrowing the final part of the approach up the stream to the base of the route is. But you can’t have it all can you? Parking is fine, and you begin your approach through the farm – please talk to the farmer on your way through if you head for this route, he is an absolutely stunning chap who is more than happy for people to climb his ice-fall, but who likes to know how many are on it and when so that should anything happen he can initiate rescue proceedings if needs be (there was apparently an incident a few years back where a solo-ist got trapped on the route in bad weather, leading to an absolute rescue epic).

The first pitch wasn’t really ‘in’, we simply solo’d up the side of the very thinly iced waterfall on frozen vegetation (think frozen spray on ice on fern fronds, very weird, but ok to get up really). The second pitch (shown above with Dave leading, and below with me following) was steeper than it looked and actually really good fun, but the meat of the route came in the third pitch – a steep and weirdly formed beast of an icefall, one where I was grateful I’d chosen to give my new nomics an outing!

“Ah it doesn’t look that bad, it’s not that steep!” are words you should never ever utter just before you set up the crux of a rarely formed welsh waterfall. You should also pay attention to where the party in front of you chose to climb the route…

What you can’t see in the picture below is the actual formation of most of the ice in the steeper upper section – it wasn’t a nice uniform homogenised fall, as would be ideal, it had actually formed as a load of mushroomy blobs, that could only be climbed by hooking your axes way over the back of them – hitting just wasn’t an option, nor was placing decent gear in much of it. I ended up run out and a little scared after I’d taken what turned out to be the incorrect line and crossed the still running fall…

…I was left with two options, reverse the terrifying and damn near irreversible and unprotected traverse I’d just made, or climb up the edge of the still flowing waterfall to where I could cross back into the finishing groove. Not being a fan of traverses or admitting my mistakes, of course I carried on upwards, where I was to find myself thanking my lucky stars that I had for the first time in many years decided to completely ‘armour up’ in waterproof hardshell gear.

I feel like I’m a much more ‘rounded’ and ‘experienced’ ice climber, now that I’ve finally experienced what it’s like to have ice water running down my sleeves, down my back and my belly, down my legs, down everything. “I didn’t realise you were getting wet up there” whimpered a completely ice coated Dave upon arriving at the belay after seconding the pitch…

Sat at the belay, having battled to find enough solid ice to sink three ice screws after finally regaining my breath and lowering my heart-rate back to somewhere nearer normal, I couldn’t stop a big grin spread across my face as I realised we were going to do the route. The view out across the valley was beautiful, and the view back down the crux pitch had been breathtaking, mesmerising even, and I was finally able to start taking it all in. This is why I love ice climbing.

As I sat watching the hills start to turn a gorgeous shade of pink, our late start and status of being at the very back of a long queue of climbers on the route that day suddenly hit me. “Oh god, we’re going to end up climbing in the dark!” Quite why that thought bothered me I’m not really sure, I mean I’ve climbed in the dark plenty of times, and in winter it’s often all part of the game. I had a good headtorch, and the hardest pitches were over, I shouldn’t have been at all worried, but somehow I was.

Dave flew up the next pitch and through the weird cavey section where I just stood and gaped for a couple of minutes, not quite able to work out the best way to proceed (obviously being a caver helps when squirming through semi iced-up narrow stream gullies), and eventually we somehow ended up stood at the foot of the final pitch with enough daylight for me to get up the slab and out at the top whilst it was still light! Dave had some fun finding foot placements in the rapidly fading half-light…

So, yeah, we did it, and thankfully the walk-off is nowhere near as unpleasant as the approach (although it did take a while with us both being tired and Dave suffering a bit of foot pain by that point).

Is Maesglasau Falls one of the best ice routes in Wales? I think so. Was it worth the effort? Definitely.

Unfortunately, it’s taken me a while to write this blog entry as I made the mistake of having a crappy fast food meal in the evening before going home, and ended up with a nasty bout of food poisoning. I guess it served me right for choosing to eat crap but I really wouldn’t wish this kind of illness on my worst enemy – spending 4 days without sleeping more than 1-2 hours at a time, expelling 20 times* your own bodyweight, and living with a constant throbbing headache really isn’t fun.

*The amount may be a slight exaggeration

i have a problem…

2010-11-29T00:07:00.001Z

Disclaimer: I deserve no sympathy. I am actually an idiot who cannot afford another expensive hobby, hence the problem!

Last week I met Paul. Paul is a pilot and owns an aeroplane called G-SKNT. G-SKNT is a Pitts Special S-2A.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to fly. For a very long time learning to fly remained a mere pipe dream, until I found the means to actually do something about it back in 2008. I undertook my training at RAF Halton, which was conveniently just across the road from where we were living, and in 2009 I passed the skills test to gain my PPL. During the time I was training I quit my job as an engineer and then moved to Wales (I actually passed my skills test two days before we handed the keys back for the house in Aston). Since then I have worked the occasional contract, but primarily relied on my ever-so-long-suffering husband to keep me in clothing, cake and chocolate (the bare essentials), hence I had to stop flying simply because there was no way to afford it.

My most recent contract in Devon has given me the chance to get back into aviation – something I’ve been longing to do for…well…ever since I last stepped out of the cockpit back in 2009.

Brilliant! Fantastic!

So…where is the problem?

The problem originates with the deep rooted desire I have harboured ever since I first went to Halton and saw a tiny little stunner of an biplane in the hangar…I wanted to fly a Pitts Special.

I had no real thoughts of doing anything other than simply ‘having a go’ in one at some point, so when I got chatting to Paul, heading down to Shobdon to aquaint myself with G-SKNT seemed like an excellent idea – I was only going to have a look after all, with a view to one day maybe going for a spin.

Aerobatics. Seemingly an activity designed to provide a terrifying and expensive method of simulating the kind of hangover you wake up with the morning after having drunk two bottles of wine at your husband’s cousin’s bonfire party…So not something you’d particularly want to put yourself through really is it? A bit like winter climbing…and well, we all know how that goes… (in case you aren’t a regular reader – winter and ice climbing are my greatest obsessions.)

Last Tuesday I flew G-SKNT.

I will admit now that I was terrified when I climbed into the front seat of that aeroplane, I knew that Paul was going to put me through something terrifying and traumatic, and I had a good idea that I was going to find it as horrifying as the rollercoasters my niece dragged me onto at Thorpe Park a few years ago (I don’t like rollercoasters). Somehow though, I also knew the real reason I was so afraid: I knew wouldn’t be able to just walk away having ‘done it’…

I had no intention of even trying aerobatic flying, let alone deciding I wanted to learn to fly aerobatics. A superb instructor, and his beautiful little aeroplane G-SKNT have changed all that.

Damn you Paul.

http://www.alteredattitude.co.uk/

brand new 2010 petzl nomics and elite mountain supplies

2010-11-17T21:01:00.001Z

So, I’m now the proud owner of a pair of the brand new for 2010 Petzl Nomics.

I will write more about these once I’ve started using them, as a simple play on the board doesn’t really count, although they did feel fantastic for this.

I have a couple of minor gripes, but they really are tiny and I will be writing more about these in a short while, but overall I’m really rather pleased with them.

I just want to say a thank you to Adam at EMS for the fantastic level of service he provided when I placed my order, and just send a shout out to anyone looking to buy any climbing equipment in the near future as he is offering a 20% discount on the rrp of all of his stock to members of the BMC, MCofS and a good number of climbing clubs.

http://elitemountainsupplies.co.uk/

Bring on the ice!!!!

devonshire cream teas

2010-11-08T23:37:00.001Z

It’s about time I got round to writing this one, after all I have been back home for nearly a week now.

Living and working in Devon for nearly two months was certainly an experience, and certainly not one I regret in the least – living with Jenny was hard work at times, but never dull, in fact we spent probably 90% of our time together laughing – from minor kitchen epics, to supermarket fiascos and random ‘youtubing’ competitions, oh how we laughed.

Anyway, the main point of this post is simply to provide the reader with our guide to some of the best cream teas we sampled during our time in the county, so here we go!

Fradgley’s, Lynmouth Street, Lynmouth EX35 6EH

9 out of 10. I’m cheating a little with this one, as this time round we didn’t make it up to the north coast, but on my last Devonian work trip this place scored a huge hit – a cream tea here consists of two HUGE scones, decent jam and beautiful clotted cream in ideal amounts (although for me perhaps more cream than was really necessary!). I don’t remember much else, so the tea must have been acceptable – I can recommend this place as somewhere it’s worth skipping lunch to visit, the scones really were massive.

Primrose Cottage, Lustleigh, TQ13 9TJ

7 out of 10. This place really is a lovely place to stop for afternoon tea, situated in the Dartmoor village of Lustleigh, it would be well situated for the casual walker. Jenny and I stopped here for a ‘site meeting’ one afternoon after having attempted to visit the day before only to find the place closed – the opening hours and days do vary. Very nice tea, beautifully made scones, with nice jam and reasonable clotted cream, although perhaps a touch on the expensive side – a cream tea here costs £5.00 per person and the scones aren’t of an overly generous size, unlike some of the others we experienced. That said, for me they were an ideal size – perfect for an afternoon treat and not requiring an empty stomach to accommodate.

The Fingle Bridge Inn, Drewsteignton, EX6 6PW

9.5 out of 10. The only reason these guys don’t score the full 10 out of 10 is because the scones on offer were plain, there was no option of having a fruit scone which is normally my preference. Colossal freshly baked scones (and I mean freshly baked – these scones were not warm from having been thrown into the microwave for a few seconds, they were warm from quite literally having just been pulled from the oven. Admittedly this may not be the case on every visit – we were there mid Saturday afternoon at the beginning of the half term break, so prime time really) greeted us alongside gallons of proper tea (with a milk jug that actually poured!), pints of wonderfully fruity jam and several kilos of the thickest clotted cream I have ever seen – I kid you not, the cream was the stickiness and consistency of treacle, truly gorgeous.

Unlike the previous two venues mentioned, the Fingle Bridge Inn is in fact a pub and not a tea room, and you could easily be forgiven for not necessarily considering that they might in fact be the purveyors of what for me, was certainly one of, if not the best cream tea in Devon!

An honorary mention must go to the Service Station at Okehampton, just off the A30, for serving simple, decent cream teas, at a reasonable price, in a roadside diner that once used to be a Little Chef. The scones are smaller than the likes of the Fingle Bridge epics, but similar in size to what you are served in Lustleigh, and come warmed (likely in the microwave), with an adequate amount of proper clotted cream and some simple sachets of jam. This is not a gourmet cream tea, but I like the place and I always enjoy the teas here – not at all pretentious, ideally positioned for the hungry driver in need of a break, and open into the evening. Ideal!

help support mountain rescue

2010-11-05T20:11:00.001Z

NEWSAR launches its supporters group on November 25th, so anyone interested in supporting us should check it out.

http://www.newsar.org.uk/

http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2010/11/05/rescue-team-to-launch-supporters-group

dartmoor wild camping: snowdon summit

2010-10-19T23:23:00.001+01:00

Yes, you read correctly – I wild camped on the summit of Snowdon, Dartmoor. Well I had to didn’t I?

Work is driving me slightly mad, I swear it, why else would I keep doing this to myself? I mean, sure, Dartmoor is lovely in it’s own way, but I can’t help but find it a little dull. I also don’t really like wild camping, let alone solo wild camping, although strangely enough the more I do and the more I work out my systems, the more I’m beginning to enjoy it.

That said, the only reasons I keep heading out like this are: 1) I need an escape from work, and the wilderness is the closest I’ve got down here to the mountains. 2) I need to log more ‘Quality Mountain Days’ and wild camps for my ML logbook (oh yes, I still intend doing it, even though the urgency has lessened somewhat now) and 3) it is all good practice, especially the navigation in the fog or in the dark, and I need to do something to ‘keep my hand in’ for MR, at least psychologically.

So, anyway back to the walk – I parked the car up at Combestone Tor right after work and thus proceeded to walk up to the summit of Ryder’s Hill (the highest point on the southern moor). I then headed over to Snowdon, SX 6684 6840, via what was possibly the boggiest, most unpleasant track I’ve had the misfortune to encounter recently. It looked so innocent…right up until you found your foot engulfed in a horrible gelatinous sludge, or more to the point, when I found my foot engulfed in a brown mucky goo that seems to have violated my boots and left them permanently traumatised…and the bog seemed to go on forever…

Snowdon is actually a chain of cairns on a moorland high point, one of them even has a summit shelter, the point visible in the centre of the picture is actually Puper’s Hill, there is another Snowdon cairn out of view to the right

Just to prove it, yet another crappy tent photo – cairn and summit shelter are visible behind

So yes, yet again I have put myself through a kind of semi-torture, but oddly, once again I really rather enjoyed it in some ways – the sunset was beautiful, and the sky was once again crystal clear for much of the night. The solitude was less eerie than last time, and more cathartic. I was even treated to a flare display by the MoD over on the Merrivale range.

I do still hate packing up a wet tent in the morning.

cornwall

2010-10-09T11:48:00.001+01:00

I’d never climbed on Cornish granite before, never climbed on our far south western sea-cliffs, not until a couple of days ago that is.

Now, I have climbed on sea-cliffs before – Gogarth and Swanage being the main examples, but I can’t say I particularly like it. In fact, I can quite categorically say that I do not like climbing on sea-cliffs. I find the whole experience morbidly terrifying, I really do. I’ve never liked the water (and this stems from a near drowning experience I’d had at the age of 2), and as such, the thought of climbing above a broiling, tumultuous froth of angry ocean, is for me really rather harrowing.

So there’s my excuse. There’s my feeble attempt to explain why I couldn’t scramble down to the cliffs at Sennen and climb back out. Demo Route still has to wait.

Thankfully though, Bosigran isn’t quite the same kind of sea-cliff – you don’t have to downclimb to a sea-washed ledge and then start climbing directly above it. The main face at Bosigran is set back from the actual sea somewhat, and has a nice simple grassy path underneath the crag, although it’s still a little close to the water for real comfort – I still get mesmerised by the violent swirling cauldron of waves below, and the thunderous sound of them colliding with the rocky landmass still makes me uneasy.

Anyway…

Doorpost. This HS 4b is supposedly the route of the crag. Three very different pitches of really rather wonderful granite climbing, up the main section of the cliff.

I know it was an easy route, but for me ‘Doorpost’ was more than just an easy rock climb – it was my first time climbing on granite (excluding my forays onto Dartmoor with the bouldering mat), my first time climbing in Cornwall, I had to swallow my apprehension of the sea-cliff environment, and the first pitch was a traverse…

Oh yeah, I probably haven’t mentioned my hatred of all routes that go sideways have I? There you go, in this one simple blog entry I have just revealed that I’m really rather pathetic as a rock climber – scared of sea-cliffs, and scared of traverses. Great.

Anyway, I led the first two pitches of Doorpost – the traverse and the crux, then seconded the last pitch so Patrick could take photos of my face rather than just my arse again, and actually, I really rather enjoyed it. I’m not sure Chair Ladder will be on the cards for a while yet, and I still don’t know if I’ll ever suck it up and manage to climb at Sennen, but Bosigran is definitely somewhere I’d like to climb again!

Thank goodness.

Look! I’m leading a traverse!!

The crux, a surprisingly awkward little sequence

Patrick coming up the classic ‘Alison Rib**’, Diff as an alternative to the walk out!

dartmoor: yes tor and high willhays wild camping

2010-09-27T20:25:00.001+01:00

Yep, another wild camp on Dartmoor. This time though, I wasn’t alone, and the mist didn’t feature.

Phil and I headed up onto the Okehampton Range to do a walk up to Yes Tor (highest tor on Dartmoor) and High Willhays (the highest point on Dartmoor, and indeed the highest point in Devon), which are satisfyingly right next to each other. The depressing part of the enterprise, however, was the fact that this particular section of Dartmoor is far from remote or wild – you are only minutes away from some of the Range tracks and indeed some sections of track that seem to be open to public traffic!!

We parked in the village of Belstone and walked up across the range from there, which meant that our walk up took a fair while and was almost entirely on vehicle tracks (apart from the section of bog I decided to take us through in the name of a ‘shortcut’ – served me right when I ended up knee-deep in the mire…). So the walk was rather dull, the area was busy, and the views were frankly rather boring too (ok so I’m spoiled by the mountains – barren moorland simply doesn’t inspire), BUT, that said, we did have a nice time camping near the top of High Willhays once we’d found a suitable spot.

The walk back down was a bit better. Neither of us could face the tedium of returning down the same old Range tracks, and so we headed off down to Dinger Tor and across the moor (on mostly good tracks) up to Oke Tor from where we followed a rather lovely ridge path. Higher Tor and Belstone Tor were also taken in before we headed back down through Nine Stones to the village…and on to a cream tea!

High Willhays, seen from Yes Tor

Our camp site, the cairn on High Willhays visible in the background

The view from the Range marker just as you leave Belstone village – the ridge of Tors just visible

Phil will hopefully now feel a little happier out on the hill with his mates (or even, lord forbid, on his own!) as we spent a good portion of the walk back doing some basic navigation drills, some of which he’d not done before, and all of which were good practice for me. It did all make the dull bits a little more fun too!

dartmoor wild camp

2010-09-23T00:46:00.001+01:00

Walking up under crystal skies, I watched the sun’s embers slowly burn out over the horizon, moisture rising from the moors. Gradually enveloped by a thick blanket of mist, the world was soon bathed in a simple diffused moonlight, warm, delicate and calming to the soul.

I will admit to finding it all a little unnerving at first, sat within my little orange cocoon, staring out at nothing but a gentle off-white world, but the moon appeared occasionally through the mist. It felt like he was watching over me, relaxing my mind, encouraging me to see the beauty of the world from a less cluttered perspective. After a while I wasn’t scared anymore.

The sunset just as I crested the rise near Puper’s Hill

Moorland through the mist and my guardian moon

The campsite by the old China clay tramway during a brief, blissful clearing of the mist on the tops

Heading home

Whilst I’d come to accept the moorland mist in the night, in the morning I was delighted to see it lift and gift me back my vision for a while, enabling a wonderful clear view of the hilltop, and the cotton wool still filling the valleys. Unfortunately (or fortunately from a navigational test perspective), this break in the white mask only lasted as long as breakfast, and no sooner than I’d finished drinking my tea, I was once again back in the damp, relying on my compass to guide me home.

devonshire place names, part 4

2010-09-20T22:29:00.001+01:00

Do I need to say more? I didn’t think I’d be posting many if any new funky place name entries, but today I found these two ‘hamlets’ in remarkably close proximity to each other:

Hole. Wouldn’t you love to live in a place called Hole? Just for the novelty.

Holes Hole!!! Huh?

Utter genius, I mean seriously? Holes Hole? I’d love to know the origins of some of these names…

devon: redux

2010-09-19T17:45:00.001+01:00

The land of clotted cream teas and the Hound of the Baskervilles, yes, I’m back in Devon again, this time for a month or so. Sadly this isn’t a month-long cake and climbing orgy, but a month of driving and work again (for anyone unfamiliar with this blog, I came down here back in March for two weeks to work doing some radio drive testing, and now I’m back doing it again, but in more detail and with slightly modified kit). Despite having my climbing and outdoorsy-ness suddenly curtailed, I am actually glad to be down here as a) I’m earning money and b) I’m going to spend some time on Dartmoor. Hell I may even wangle c) some climbing in Cornwall…

So anyway, the blog may be a bit quiet for the next month or so, unless anything interesting happens. The vast majority of my time will be spent simply driving, although the nature of the roads and the area mean that ‘simply driving’ can be somewhat more difficult than one might think…

Yes, that is a tree across the road. Yes the road was a very narrow single track where I couldn’t turn around. Yes I had to reverse back up it through the ruts and with both wing mirrors in the hedges on each side simultaneously. Yes it was about half a mile back to the junction where I could finally turn. Yes I was laughing the whole time.

bumblie’s bimbles 2: aran fawddwy

2010-09-09T21:49:00.001+01:00

For anyone that knows me, the idea that I have decided to gain the Mountain Leader qualification may be rather suprising, but there you go, I’ve registered with the MLTW and have a log book and everything, I just need to fill it.

And that’s why I’ve managed to get up off of my lazy butt and go for another decent hill walk, up another mountain I had yet to experience – Aran Fawddwy.

Situated not far from the village of Dinas Mawddwy, Aran Fawddwy is the 16th highest peak in Wales at 905m (and is only 9m off being classed as one of the Welsh 3000’ers), but being relatively inaccessible is actually pretty quiet.

The route I took went from Cwm Cywarch (parking, and also a massive set of crags I’m desperate to climb on, so if anyone fancies some slightly adventurous rock climbing and would be willing to head back here with me, please drop me a line!), up to Waun Camddwr, along the ridge bog boardwalks, across a completely unnecessary section of marsh where I realised that not following the fence had been a mistake, back to the fence line and up to the summit. The descent was back down Drws Bach, past the cairn (which is a memorial to Michael Robert Aspain a member of an RAF Mountain Rescue team based in St Athan who was killed there by a lightning strike in 1960 whilst on duty. He was 18 years old.) and onto Drysgol, eventually heading down the long dull slog of a path back to Cwm Cywarch.

Have some pictures.

A pretty valley view

The view back down the edge of Craig Cywarch

Aran Fawddwy for the first time, still a horribly long bog slog away

a Swiss holiday part 2: the valleys and being a tourist

2010-09-04T20:47:00.001+01:00

The church tower in Evolene (definitely a tourist photo!)

The Aiguille de la Tsa (or Tza) – a peak I really want to go back and climb, it is also known as the Matterhorn of Arolla valley due to it’s unmistakeable shape

The Grande Dixence Dam, tallest gravity dam in the world at a mind boggling 285m high – well worth a click on the link to see some info about it, this dam is one of the start points for the approach to the Dix hut

Phil on the walk up to Lac Bleu

The Pyramids of Euseigne, bizarre features naturally sculpted out of moraine left behind by a retreating glacier – you actually drive through these on the drive up the valley to Evolene and Arolla. Very very weird.

a Swiss holiday part 1: the Pigne d’Arolla

2010-09-04T13:29:00.001+01:00

Another long silence for which I will apologise, despite knowing that no-one cares about the apology…

I arrived back home late on Thursday after a marathon drive home from Arolla, Valais, Switzerland. Yes, I’ve been back to the Alps! This wasn’t an ordinary Alpine climbing trip though, this trip doubled as mine and Phil’s summer holiday, and also my first meeting with Alex*.

Sadly, the weather was once again against us and we got very little done climbing-wise (only one super easy ‘acclimatisation’ route and some bimbling on a cruddy little sport crag actually, although the chilling out and wandering the valleys was really rather lovely), but I would just like to confirm that the campsite in Arolla is fabulous for bumming around on continually making tea and eating biscuits, although needing 1F coins for the shower is a little bit of a pain.

Anyway…

The Normal Route on the Pigne d’Arolla, 3796m (Facile)

The Pigne d’Arolla is a lovely mountain at the head of the valley overlooking Arolla itself. Two huts serve as bases for an ascent – the Vignettes hut and the Dix hut. Often the peak is climbed in conjunction with Mont Blanc du Cheilon as a long traverse – the route up and over the Pigne being graded Facile, and the ascent of the East ridge of Mont Blanc du Cheilon being graded AD (the normal route on MBdC, and the descent from the traverse is a PD).

Our plan had actually been to make an ascent of Pigne d’Arolla, from and back to the Vignettes hut as our first ‘acclimatisation’ foray, hopefully to be followed by an ascent of l’Eveque, also from the Vignettes hut. Sadly this wasn’t to be as the weather didn’t want to play ball and we had several days of storms, snow and general mank meaning we abandoned the idea of heading up l’Eveque. (We also later abandoned our plans of heading up Mont Blanc du Cheilon from the Dix hut too owing to a combination of bad weather days and me falling ill on the last [irritatingly clear] day).

After ‘tagging the top’ via the Facile route, Alex and I headed straight back down with a brief stop back at the hut to retrieve the kit we had stashed behind and to have a drink of tea.

The route up itself is pretty unremarkable, being as it is a simple snow plod and a short section of moraine path, with only a few obvious crevassed sections to negotiate. The views however, are stunning. The views on the approach are fabulous but from the summit the panorama truly is breathtaking, with the Matterhorn visible in one direction, Mont Blanc in another, and lots more in between.

The Pigne d’Arolla as seen on the approach to the hut

Alex and the glacier approach (that for once was refreshingly straightforward – I do hate crevasse hopping!)

One of the stunning views of l’Eveque from the balcony of the Vignettes hut, an objective sadly abandoned due to the weather

The Vignettes hut, as seen on our way back down.

Alpine climbing is a wonderfully varied experience – from the hustle and bustle of Chamonix or Zermatt with their expensive shops and even more expensive uplift options (cable cars, trains etc), to quiet secluded village bases such as Arolla. Where you base yourself has a huge impact on your experience in the mountains, a place like Arolla granting you the very basic essence of it all – the mountains themselves all around you, with no flashy shops or expensive bars to distract you from what it’s all about. I liked it, lots, although I do still hate long hut walk-ins…

*Check out Alex’s blog: Glencoe Mountaineer.

moel y gest

2010-08-18T20:34:00.001+01:00

Monday yielded a visit to another new crag (to me). Somewhat foolishly I agreed to go to Moel y Gest* to check out ‘some of the best rock in Tremadog’, not realising just how bad the bracken at the base of the crag was going to be.

Dave W was my partner for the day, and he only has himself to blame for the walk-in proving to be rather more of a fitness challenge than he had imagined, as he was the one who chose the crag (Dave had a rather unfortunate accident just over a year ago whilst climbing with me – he fell off of a hugely polished limestone horror at Pot Hole Quarry, ripping out the only runner he’d had in at the time. Somehow he managed not to land on his head, merely landing heavily on the heel of one foot, fracturing it rather badly. He’s now determined to get back into climbing, but walking seems to be the greatest hurdle).

One steep uphill slog, and one short painful battle through the head high bracken and ankle grabbing brambles later, we arrived at the base of Bulkhead Buttress (continuing on further to any other sections of the crag truly would be a horrendous brackeny epic at the moment), where I selected a nice looking route to warm up on, that Dave’s printed topo* indicated was an HS 4b called ‘The Ancient Mariner’…

HS my buttocks. The Ancient Mariner is neither HS nor 4b, it is a loose, vegetated, scary VS with mediocre gear and a 4c crux. I seem to have a way with choosing horrible sandbag routes as warm-ups (my visit to Craig Rhiwarth being a case in point). A lovely heathery descent back to the bracken topped off the ‘esoterica’ experience…

I’ll be honest, upon regaining our gear stash I was ready to call it a day – my arms were scratched to bits (note to self: when going to new esoteric crags, wear long sleeves and NEVER wear shorts), and I had bits of heather and mud in places I daren’t mention. The sheer effort we’d gone to (especially Dave) just to get up there meant that only climbing one short route was unacceptable. I was going to try something else. I had my eye on a couple of harder lines further to the left of our first route, Dave assured me that they were actually very good and probably worth some stars in fact (he’d climbed them before), so I chose an E1 5b called ‘Antur Madog’.

The picture doesn’t do the route justice, the guide describes it as being ‘easier than it looks’, and in this regard it didn’t disappoint. The gear was reasonable, the rock was gorgeous (now I know why they say it’s some of the best in Trem) and the moves flowed beautifully with holds only appearing as you got to them. In all honesty, I think it’s probably one of the nicest single pitches I’ve ever climbed, and considering I’ve been such a total coward of late, climbing an E1 that hasn’t scared me but has simply allowed me to revel in the moves, is really saying something. Mind you, lately I have been primarily hanging on minging tiny crimps on 7a limestone sport routes, so this was a refreshing change…

All in all, I think I would recommend the crag to anyone who doesn’t mind a little bit of a walk for single pitch routes, the rock itself really is of the highest quality I’ve climbed on pretty much anywhere, but it’s probably worth seeking out a little local knowledge with regard to which routes are worthwhile and which ones really aren’t. It’s also probably best to go in the Spring or Autumn/Winter to avoid having to battle through the bracken that completely obscures the paths at this time of year, although if you’re a bit of a wildlife fan, we found the place to be a real haven for the common lizard – whole groups of them would pop out from cracks in boulders to sun themselves next to us, truly incredible – I’ve never seen so many in one place.

*Check out the Wiki if you fancy climbing here, there is a link to a pdf document showing all the new routes at the base of the page.

rock, heather, slime, rock, heather, loose bit, rock…

2010-08-12T22:06:00.001+01:00

What on earth am I going on about this time? To be honest I’m not entirely sure myself – is this a blog post about walking? Is it an entry about climbing? Is it about scrambling? Well actually, it’s a bit of all three…

A few days ago (or was it longer? I forget…), on a random, boring, everyday Monday, I found myself without a climbing partner on a day where the sun was shining and all was lovely in the world, so of course I had to go out. I had also just acquired a rather lovely new pair of boots (La Sportiva Trango S Evo if you must know) that I was desperately wanting to try out. Now, for me these boots are quite the investment – for starters they cost me a small fortune, even with a fairly hefty discount (and for someone who is currently jobless, spending a small fortune is no trivial matter), but they also mark a changing point in my life, for you see I have grown as a person. I am now learning to embrace the mountains for what they really are, a stunningly beautiful environment that we should not ever take for granted or underestimate, and not merely a ‘playground’ for the enthusiastic rock climber.

In a round-about way what I’m trying to express here, is that I’m beginning to appreciate simply being out in the mountains without necessarily having to be tied into the end of a rope, focussed entirely on the small patch of rock in front of me. I will never be a hill-walker, but I am now beginning develop the skills of the mountaineer – the ability to navigate, to cope with weather of all types, the confidence to cross both simple terrain and the complex, I am beginning to feel at home in the mountains and in the wilderness. No longer am I scared to venture away from the path and discover things for myself, no longer do I feel the need to follow in the footprints of others – the wilds and the mountains are areas of beauty best appreciated with a confident, exploratory bent.

With all that in mind, on that random ordinary Monday a little while ago (was it last week? The week before? Is this the beginning of early onset Alzheimer's?), I ventured out, away from the path and onto a tangled mess of rock, grass, heather and slime…oh and goats.

Welcome to the Rhinogs!

I’ve been out into the wilds of the Rhinogs before, the first time I picked an atrocious day and scuttled back to the car after nearly getting blown off of a small outcrop by gale force winds, the second time I dragged a tent and cooking implements out with me, oh and my husband. This time however, I wasn’t out for a simple bimble, I was out to test out my new scrambling and alpine climbing boots. Armed with a vague description of a supposed Grade 3 scramble to the summit of Rhinog Fawr, I made my merry way to the Bwlch where I was meant to begin, and took my first look up at the day’s objective, the full horror yet to become apparent…

I mean no disrespect to the guys who wrote up this ‘scramble’ as I’m sure that deep down they are nice guys who don’t really want to torture and torment people, but seriously, why the hell is this route in a scrambling guide? If I had chosen to follow the description exactly I would have been met with the occasional short lump of rock to meander my way up, but mostly I would have been dealing with deep cavernous clefts of heather growing over bottomless boulder and scree fields, bogs, grass and lots of slime. Sorry guys – your route is crap.

I did make my way to the summit, and I did sort of vaguely follow the general gist of the scrambling route, but I needed to touch rock more, I needed to add interest – so I chose the hardest possible lines up the short rocky buttresses, turning a supposed grade 3 scramble into what I would describe as a ‘meandering mountain game of snakes and ladders, punctuated with the occasional section of VDiff rock climbing’. Yes it was a new route, no I probably wouldn’t ever be able to repeat it, although the two or three climbing sections would probably be identifiable, but in all honesty I could never recommend this to anyone who doesn’t have a fetish for mountain mankathons.

One of the few [very] short, steep sections I chose to tackle head on – this may or may not be one of the bits I would have deemed to yield a couple of moves of Diff or VDiff, I honestly can’t remember.

Some of the day’s highlights included my encounter with one of the herds of wild Rhinog mountain goats, playing with butterflies, prodding huge caterpillars and of course, reaching the summit trig point to find a load of manky old prayer flags tied to it…

WTF? Prayer flags? I don’t get it, I really don’t, but needless to say I cut down and removed these offensive pieces of unnecessary litter. Seriously people, this kind of thing just isn’t appropriate, especially when left in conjunction with empty bottles and crisp packets…

The goats and caterpillars were cool though.

aim high…

2010-08-03T14:59:00.001+01:00

…and you’ll almost certainly overshoot…

Or at least you will if you’re ammunition is good and your sights are set straight and true.

Sounds like I’m getting all philosophical doesn’t it? Well maybe I am a touch, but this post is actually really about guns and shooting – yet another semi-hobby of mine. I say semi-hobby because it isn’t something I do terribly often, seeing as our guns are very kindly being kept by Phil’s cousin over in Northamptonshire somewhere – this does of course mean that any shooting trips have to be accompanied by evenings of deep inebriation, followed by a horrendous hangover, which is of course exactly what you want when someone is having fun with a shotgun right behind you.

Anyway, yes, I can shoot. I prefer rifle shooting to shotguns primarily because I’m pretty good at rifle target shooting, whereas I’m completely useless when if comes to clay shoots. A couple of people have made somewhat scary comments comparing me to Lara Croft – after all I can climb, I can fly, I ride a motorbike, and I can shoot. Frankly though, I’m more realistic about the comparisons – my boobs are too small and I don’t look overly brilliant in tiny little combat shorts.

The weekend was spent very entertainingly (and relaxingly) eating, drinking, and shooting the crap out of whatever we could find as a target (I got bored of patterning on actual targets – making holes in pieces of paper simply isn’t as fun as watching large chunks of glass or sandstone explode into thousands of tiny pieces). I favoured the .22 rifle and managed to get through a fair few boxes of ancient ammunition (some of it was dated 1944), whilst Phil and Arthur took it in turns with shotguns and Phil’s compound bow (archery is not my thing).

Great fun!

gear update, Alpkit Pipedream 400

2010-07-24T21:04:00.001+01:00

Following this blog entry I wrote back in May, I figured I should actually get round to writing down some of my thoughts about my latest gear aquisitions, now that I’ve actually used them.

Firstly, we have the sleeping bag, an Alpkit Pipedream 400. What can I say? It does the job! I bought it as an ‘in between’ bag, mainly for use in the UK outside of winter (when it’s really cold I use a rather lovely Marmot Pinnacle), but also for use as a summer Alpine bivi item as it’s light and packs down remarkably small. I’ve not really used it for any standard UK camping yet, although a night spent in a bunk in the Ogwen MRO base seemed fine…

As a bivi sleeping bag it seemed to perform quite nicely – I used it inside my bivi bag when we slept out on the glacier on the Vallee Blanche a couple of weeks ago, and whilst I did get cold (despite also wearing my down duvet jacket inside the bag), this is probably a greater reflection on my pathetic temperature tolerance, and the fact that I was sleeping on a 3/4 length super crappy foam mat and with my feet on my rucksack, on snow.

The build quality is reasonable, although it is obvious that it’s a more ‘budget’ offering than many of the super expensive top end bags out there, but for the money the Pipedream is fantastic value and has all the features you would expect – hood and storm baffle, double ended zip etc. I did find myself having to even out the spread of the down within the baffles each time I laid it out, as downless spots seemed to present themselves quite regularly, but really, this isn’t a big deal.

Size-wise I find it is a perfect cut for me, which means that anyone with a larger build than myself (I’m about average height-wise for a woman, and slim) might find the bag a bit tight – Phil did complain about this when he tried it out.

Packed size is great, and Alpkit helpfully supply you with two stuff bags along with the big cotton storage bag (you shouldn’t store a down bag compressed as it compromises the lofting capability of the down – the feathers end up all intertwined and less able to separate and ‘loft’, meaning your bag isn’t as warm as it could be). One bag is a compression sack with pull tabs, and the other a straightforward lightweight tight stuff bag. I haven’t used the compression bag yet, as when I played with them at home initially, it seemed to me that because the ‘normal’ bag is such a tight fit, the compression bag didn’t actually provide any advantage, but simply made the whole package heavier. Admittedly, the compression bag is easier to pack as it is bigger to start with, reaching the same size as the smaller ‘normal’ bag only after you’ve used the compression straps.

All in all I’m pretty happy and would recommend one of these to anyone (who’s not really tall or bulkily built) after a decent quality down sleeping bag for use in the UK or the Alps where weight is a consideration, they are great value for money, built pretty well, lightweight and pack down tiny. If you’re not so concerned about the weight and pack size, Alpkit’s slightly cheaper SkyeHigh range are another good option, and also come in different lengths (I also hear they aren’t cut quite as tight as the Pipedreams, so if you’re broad of shoulder they may well be a better bet!).

chamonix 2010, more photo highlights

2010-07-17T17:25:00.001+01:00

Now I’m back at home sitting here feeling rather ill for some inexplicable reason, I have been going back through some of our Alpine photographs, and I’ve decided to post up a few of my favourites that haven’t already been used on the blog. Some of them are mine and some are Patrick’s (he did grant me permission to use them so don’t worry, I have also noted which ones are his in the annotations).

(Disclaimer: should you want to use any of these pictures then please drop me a line, please don’t just copy them. Thanks.)

Enjoy!

The Midi-Plan Traverse:

Just starting the Traverse after the initial descent of the ice arete, we overtook the French pair ahead and didn’t see them for the rest of the day

Three Germans ahead of us, just heading down into the base of one of the ‘cruxes’ – the exposed gulley

The Tour Ronde viewed from the Requin hut (Patrick’s photo)

Mont Blanc du Tacul:

Tiny trail of ants heading up Mont Blanc du Tacul or the Three Monts route, viewed from the Midi-Plan

Mont Blanc du Tacul in the cloud

Posing just before the summit of the Tacul (Patrick’s photo)

Posing just after the summit of the Tacul, Aiguille du Midi in the background (Patrick’s photo)

My favourite photo of the trip, climbers descending from the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul

chamonix 2010, le bivouac et Mont Blanc du Tacul

2010-07-14T13:29:00.001+01:00

The weather this year really hasn’t been kind to us – persistent high pressure conditions have meant that the temperature has been consistently higher than normal. Today for instance, the thermometer on the electronic sign opposite out apartment, is currently reading 38 degrees C (at 12:20pm, so due to get hotter still). Basically, the predominantly snow and ice routes we had been wanting to climb are not in a good state, and descents after the sun has gotten onto the snow are far riskier than normal. What with Alpine climbing already being an activity full of objective dangers, we basically made the decision that the increased risk levels - high temperatures leading to unstable snow, unstable seracs, crevasse snow bridges collapsing more readily etc, were not really acceptable, and so our objectives changed.

Not willing to head for the routes we had originally had in mind, our last major effort was to head up the normal route on Mont Blanc du Tacul, an easy and straight forward ‘plod’ up a 4000er. But we wanted to start really early in the morning – hence we decided to bivi up on the Vallee Blanche.

I must now admit that this was in actual fact my first real ‘bivouac’. Sure, I’ve wild-camped before, but I haven’t ever simply settled down for the night in a bivi bag, and certainly not on snow, so it was an interesting experience, and not one without its ‘moments’.

Sleep doesn’t come easily to me at the best of times, so why I should have thought that I would actually reach the land of nod after eating a packet of rehydrated mush and a lion bar and then listening to the faint thuds of a distant electrical storm that provided the backing track for the unrelenting audible intrusions of my beloved partner, I do not know.

Anyway, we survived the night, ate our somewhat squashed ‘jam-o-laits’ (pain-o-lait with jam in), failed to get any water to boil properly for tea, packed up all our slightly soggy kit and began to scrunch our way across the snow toward a 3 hour uphill slog.

To be fair, there were a couple of interesting bits to negotiate – a few crevasses and the bergschrund provided some brief respite from the monotony of just plodding ever upwards, and the final rock step up to the actual summit contained a couple of slightly hairy moves in a short iced up chimney. The views were utterly spectacular.

The descent was pretty uneventful and we were back down on the flat glacier in just over an hour. Unfortunately by this point we had basically run out of water (idiots), and I had all but run out of everything. A night with no sleep, a long slog at altitude and the baking heat of the sun served to mean that the hack back across the Vallee Blanche and up the ice arete (or smushy snow arete) to the Midi station, was utter torture. Patrick compared it to one of the levels of Dante’s vision of hell (along with Ikea Birmingham on a busy weekend, and Snowdon on a bank holiday). The slope just seemed to go on forever, and my legs didn’t want to work anymore.

The relief on actually getting up into the Midi station was immense. The hell was over and we could finally relax – so we did. Lying on one of the wooden terraces, bodies in the sun and heads in the shade, with a stunningly refreshing drink of diet Coke, truly was one of life’s pleasures. Bliss. Or at least it was bliss until we got talked into filling out an electronic questionnaire that had obviously been written by someone aspiring to be a caretaker down in Dante’s labyrinth of interminably long winded and stupid questions…

chamonix 2010, midi-plan traverse

2010-07-09T13:48:00.001+01:00

I think I’m going to have to admit to a woeful lack of ‘alpine stamina’ here. Now, this is not the same as ‘alpine fitness’ which it seems that I do actually possess in somewhat greater quantities than I had anticipated (what with my complete and utter failure to train properly for this trip despite having written a plan and everything…). By ‘alpine stamina’, I simply mean the ability to go up day after day and climb route after route without being rendered a virtual cripple in between. Why do I say this? Well, simply because the number of muscular aches and pains I currently possess mean that moving or walking is a rather unpleasant notion, and all this after doing what was merely meant to be our second warm-up or acclimatisation route – the Midi-Plan Traverse.

The weather here at the moment is unusually and excessively hot, meaning that snow conditions are really not great, the snow pack barely freezes overnight and possibly doesn’t freeze at all some nights. Basically this means that many of the predominantly snow routes we had wanted to climb are seeming like a bad idea right now – an early start may well get you up the route ok, but the heat means that getting down again will be really rather unpleasant and even riskier than normal. That said, we had two options for the traverse – doing the route, and then reversing it back to the Aiguille du Midi and catching the cable car back down to the valley, or descending from the Aiguille du Plan, down the Glacier d’Envers du Plan to the Requin hut, then on down the Mer de Glace to the rack and pinion railway at Montenvers, to then catch the train back down to the valley. Both of these options would involve hot afternoon snow.

We had originally intended to reverse the route back to the Midi as this would be the quickest and probably simplest option, but on crossing some disintegrating snow slopes where I very nearly fell down the gap between snow and rock whilst unroped after an abseil (the snow just collapsed and I was only saved by the way that I fell straddling the snow – one leg down the slope and one leg down the mini bergschrund), I made the statement there and then that there was no way I would be going back this way. We actually pitched 150m of what would normally be very very simple snow traversing because it was falling apart (and this was only 10am) – every step was a lottery as to whether you were just going to end up sliding all the way down onto the glacier. Very, very scary stuff. So we had the decision made for us – we would be descending the glacier.

The route itself was pretty cool, some wonderful views and vantage points (see photos for some highlights), continuously interesting but never really that technical. Thankfully the final snow slopes up to the Aiguille du Plan were still in reasonable condition when we got to them after the terrifying snow traverse, so finishing the route and then descending back to the col Superieur du Plan from where we would descend to the glacier was quite straight forward. We even stopped there for a sandwich before we began the arduous and [for me] nerve-wracking descent.

Most of the route as viewed from after most of the initial snow crest

The view back to the Aiguille du Midi from the gulley on the Chamoix side leading up to the Rognon

The final slopes up to the Aiguille du Plan, view from the top of the Rognon du Plan, just before the abseils

The view back to the Midi from the Plan

The descent was horrible. As a general rule there are two aspects of climbing I really don’t get on with – traversing and descending. (So why the hell was I on this route huh?). I’m not good at walking down things, I find myself feeling like a newborn calf – all gangly, off balance and uncoordinated. I harbour a constant dread and fear of slipping and sliding uncontrollably to my death, which then makes me more uncertain of my steps and it all goes round in a vicious circle. Anyway, the descent really was horrible. Steep mushy shitty snow that went on for hours, crevasses with collapsing snow bridges, I even managed to fall in the actual glacier bergschrund when the snow bridge collapsed, although thankfully I managed to get my axe in the other side and kind of belly flop my way out (yes Patrick, I should have jumped the thing, you were right). Ice sections that needed a capability to use the flat footed ‘French Technique’ of crampon work (which I’ve never really done, so that was fun, not), more steep mush that barely held body weight, the sun constantly beating down on you making you sweat and giving you a headache, and of course we didn’t have enough water with us (who does?).

On the Glacier d’Envers du Plan

The Requin hut was a very welcome haven after some 2 hours of torturous descending, we sat and enjoyed a cup of tea and a bowl of pasta before then heading down the ladders to the Mer de Glace, where we would then spend another 2+ hours of hacking over glacier (although this time a ‘dry’ glacier, where all the crevasses are open and visible and therefore fairly straightforward to negotiate), including a rather unnerving section of crevasse jumping where the Mer de Glace met the Glacier des Leschaux. The access ladders back up to the Montenvers station complex were one final kick in the teeth, seeming to go on forever (there are something like 4 vertical ladder sections to go up). Happily we did actually manage to get the second to last train back down to Chamonix.

So, in short, it was a naffing long day – the glacier descent is actually a rather long way as well as being an arduous slog. Hence, I’m feeling pretty battered and tired – my ‘alpine stamina’ does need some work…