The end of a wet year

Dry days- 178
Days of rain- 187

Well, that's the end of 2011! All of the Turkish Delight and walnuts are gone, there are still some mince pies and Brazil nuts left, and my as yet uncut cake As far as bouldering goes it's not been the best year, the weather has been against me from the start. Having said that, I've managed to put up a few new problems which I'm proud of which is always good. The new routing had taken the focus away from other projects such as the Keel and The Silverdale stuff, although its been a bit wet to do a lot of my Aims. Also this year I've managed my first half marathon in the Cross Bay Challenge which I thoroughly enjoyed. Losing the Old Man was a bit of a dip, but recently leaving his ashes on a Munro helped bring closure.

So life goes on, with all of its ups and downs. Despite all the ups and downs and lack of goals being achieved, I think 2011 has been pretty positive despite the roller coaster ride. I'm looking forward to a 2012 with fewer downs, more ups and more bouldering goals ticked. All in all things look pretty positive for the coming year.

Happy New Year to everybody!! I'm off to celebrate with my 6th alcohol free day. See you all next year.

Horizontal Snails

Dry days- 178
Days of rain- 185

Annual leave today. And guess what? RAIN! No surprise there. After dragging my ass out of bed, I headed out for a walk. Due to the short days I decided to go somewhere close, so a Kentmere revisit was on the cards. There was no parking in the usual place by the church so I went to Weak Sam's spot, which was free. It was pissing down as got my stuff on, then stomped up the Garburn Pass track. There was a couple who set off as I was getting dressed, so I followed them up the track. At the summit I hung a right and headed towards Yoke. There was snow on the ground at the summits, but the ground was sodden. At one point avoiding a bog lake was impossible so I ended up with wet feet before the first Wainwright top. Great.

Between Yoke and Ill Bell the Westerlies blew with a vengeance. It was hard to walk, and the horizontal hail didn't help. I stayed behind the couple as I couldn't be bothered putting any effort in. Foswick was achieved easily enough in a clear spell with old views, but then the wind and hail came back with an extra spurt of enthusiasm. Heading to Thornthwaite Crag the woman in front kept getting blown over, as did I (albeit less so) then at one point she obviously took a glove off as it then sailed horizontally somewhere towards Harter Fell. I didn't bother going to the summit of Thornthwaite Crag as conditions were bloody awful, although I overtook the couple here. After this I stomped through snow and slush towards Mardale Ill Bell. This is when the hail softened to snow, then back to hail. The snow was ok but the hail hurt like hell. The snow hail combo (hence, snail) continued past the summit of Mardale Ill Bell, down to Nan Bield Pass, and all the way to Kentmere Reservoir. After this it seemed to settle, with occasional flurries.

I was back at the car by four, after five hours of snail blasting to the face. It was getting dark so after getting changed I headed home. I'm making a turkey biryani, which has taken two days effort but smells excellent in the oven. I hope it tastes as good as it smells, I'm hungry.

The wind down to 2012

Dry days- 178
Days of rain- 184

A belated Happy Christmas to everyone. I hope you all had a good one.

It's remained wet here, so I've not managed to get out. After a decent Christmas, today the Doc and I went out for a walk around Entwisle Reservoir to get some fresh air. It was pretty busy and lots of the trees had been decorated, plus cards dedicated to various late loved ones. It all created a bit of a Blair Witch atmosphere. Red Wall was soaking, so that's one for next year. Rivers Of Blood SDS was the only aim I achieved this year, so looking forwards I've come up with a fresh set of ten for 2012:

1. Finish my Red Wall Link Up Project
2. Boulder 7c. I think the Red Wall project will be this grade, so that is excluded.  It'd be nice to do a 7C that doesn't instantly get downgraded too.
3. Get a house that I can build a woody in
4. Build a woody, and more crucially, use it
5. Tick two problems from the last few years Aims For lists
6. Run a marathon
7. Go to Font
8. Do at least ten Munros and ten Wainwrights
9. Stop drinking and get fit
10. Read ten more books from the BBC Big Read top 100

Number 9 comes from too much to drink at Christmas, although it's a theme I've needed to address for some time. The weight has been creeping inexorably upwards, the waist expanding. Thus I haven't drunk since Christmas Day and I'm planning not to for a while just to see if it makes much of a difference.

Number 10 is obviously off topic, but after War and Peace and Anna Kereninananina I have read Catch 22, and am keen to get more of these books read- just started Pride and Prejudice.

Obviously this year has been fairly wet, guaranteed more wet days than dry days now, and time has been an issue. Next year I am hoping to get out more if the weather allows. A house move and a board would help no end, but that's something to address in 2012.

As ever, too much to do but too little time. I may go for a walk tomorrow, as the forecast is wet.

Dank Days

Dry days- 176
Days of rain- 180

I think the wet days are going to win this year.

After final Christmas shopping this morning, it was a sunny day so I headed over to the project R-Man and I cleaned recently. I found that the mud washes down the crag as the cracks were filled with it. It was wet, but due to the mud it wasn't even possible to towel it dry. I had a brief play on what will be the easiest line, but it wasn't the day to try it. So now I'm home and making icing for the cake.

Winter Wonderland

Dry days- 173
Days of rain- 176

I went to see the family Mac yesterday. MadMac and I had planned to walk up a couple of hills, the plan was Beinn Dorain and Beinn an Dothaidh. MiniMac 1 was up at 6:45 so we were ready at a reasonable time. We drove up easily, the roads being in good condition, and parked at Bridge of Orchy station and set off before ten.

Getting to the bealach was quite straightforward, apart from one steep section. We opted to wander up Beinn an Dothaidh first as navigation can be difficult in mist or cloud. The only downside to this plan was that no one had been up the hill recently so we had to blaze a trail through fairly deep snow. It took a lot longer than planned to get to the summit, although the weather was amazing. Clear skies, cloud free tops, crisp. A bit windy with spindrift but you couldn't really ask for better. Looking back down all we could see was fields of white snow with our tracks piercing through them.

I scattered a few of the Old Man's ashes at the summit cairn, then we stomped back down. By the time we were back at the bealach it was gone 13:00 so after a discussion we opted to leave Dorain for another day, as there was only another 150 minutes of light left. After something to eat, we headed back down and drove back to Glasgow whilst listening to Napalm Death's most recent album, very good actually.

Still full of the lurgy, been two weeks now and it's not going yet. Pain in the arse.

Brief Report

Dry days- 171
Days of rain- 172

R-Man, the Ginnster and myself had a day looking at wet quarries today. We found a couple of possibilities, R-Man did a nice crimpy wall and I saw a fox.

Over and out.

More rain

Dry days- 171
Days of rain- 171

More rain!!

I went for a run this morning, just the short course in the rain. I certainly didn't feel very fit. I'll need to get back into the running from January.

This afternoon the Doc was off shopping in Preston, so I popped to Wet Poo for an hour. When I got there I realised I'd forgotten to bring my shorts, so I ended up climbing in my jeans. The problems had been reset, so I had a go at flashing as much as possible. As usual I managed to flash a few V5s and most of the easier stuff, but then got shut down on anything harder. Consistent if rather unimpressive.

Im hoping the weather will be less crap this week, still need to get out on real rock!

Holy Crap!!!!!

The water soaked iPhone is working! Zero battery life, but a sync means I haven't lost anything which is fab. And to boot, I was due an upgrade in February so I've now put in an order for a new phone.

All is well in the world. Except for the weather. The financial crisis. War. Taxes. Religious disputes. Disease.

Oh well.

Weather Warnings

Dry days- 171
Days of rain- 169

The recent weather has been pretty rubbish, to say the least. Yesterday I decided I would go out anyway. An interesting decision considering the gales hitting the UK, with various road closures and weather warnings.

I opted to walk up a Wainwright, in order to get some numbers up. As I was Blob herding after school, I opted for one of the smaller and closer hills- Loughrigg Fell fitted the bill. Getting there was fun due to high winds, and areas of flooding on the way there. I had t o drive through various bits of flooded road, with a few inches of standing water. Eventually I arrived and headed off in the rain.

It wasn't too bad going, although the path was a river. Evidently I was in the Lee of the hill as when I was 100 metres from the trig point I encountered the full force of the wind. I literally could not stand up, but being the stubborn person I am I crawled to the top, then back down again. The pain from the hailstones travelling at the motorway speed limit pursuaded me not to walk up Silver How on the same day. Winded and breathless due to the high wind, I headed back down.

Back at the car I found that my phone, which I had in the bottom of the rucksack in a poly bag, was more like a goldfish that you win at the fair- sloshing about in a poly bag of water. iPhones and water don't mix, so I think this is an insurance job. At least I got out for a bit. I wonder when the rain will cease. Off to do some Munros next weekend with MadMac, I hope the weather ain't as bad then!


The road past Windermere:

Moss, Rain and Hiding

Dry days- 172
Days of rain- 165

The forecast was changeable for today, but when I woke up this morning it was shitting it down and was windy to boot. After a brief text exchange, R-Man and I opted for a wet day wandering around dank Lancashire venues looking for bouldering.

First up was Billinge Hill Quarry which was impressive in its verdant nature. We stomped about getting wet, then cleaned a few bits and bobs. There's some rock there that may be worthy of attention, but it will require some cleaning. After a while getting muddy and wet and smacked in the face by Rhodedendrons, we decided to move on.

Next up was Central Quarry. We parked up, and hopped over the fence and into the quarry. Generally the quarry was disappointing. There are some nice looking lines over on the left, which are unfortunately obscured by the piles of logs. On the right are a couple of potential boulder problems, usually requiring a patio to be built.

With wet feet and mud coated trousers, I met up with R-Man at Withnell Quarry. The quarry was working today, so we had to jump the barbed wire fence then sneak round to the left end and Brick Buttress. Nothing special here. We tried to look at the right end, but that meant we couldn't sneak past without being seen so we opted to leave it for the day.

Some things to look at. Let's hope that the rain stops at some point.