Category: Travel

Scottish Mountaineering

Spot of Winter Mountaineering

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Not sure why i haven’t updated this sooner! It’s not like i haven’t had the time lately!

Well this post is from my trip in February to do some Winter Mountaineering around Ben Nevis. I based myself in Fort William, which is a great place to stay due to the location, but mainly the Wood-fire Pizzas and craft beer bar!

I managed to cram in 4 routes in 4 days, plus a summit of Ben Nevis to the trig point. A lot of the winter climbing routes take like 6-8 hours depending on conditions, so knocking out more than one route in a day is sometimes hard. Unless you’re up early and back late!

We ticked off the routes

  • Castle Ridge – Grade III** – Ben Nevis
  • Curved Ridge – Grade II*** – Buachaille Etive Mor
  • Ledge Route – Grade II*** – Ben Nevis
  • Spider Rib – Grade II – Aonach Mor

From Ledge Route we continued on and walked to the summit of Ben Nevis. It was pretty much a white out, with very low visibility! which as always makes it more epic 😉

Morocco and Hiking the Atlas mountains

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M’Goun Massif

Over the Christmas period and leading up to the New Year, a few of us decided to head out to Morocco and trek around the Atlas Mountains. The M’Goun Massif part. This is about a 5 hour drive from Marrakesh.

We arrived in Marrakesh on Christmas Eve. Spent the day wondering around getting everything ready for the next few days. We basically had time for a quick walk around and a pizza. Morocco is a fairly wealthy African country, but it is still very different from England, or any country in the ‘1st’ world! The markets are an amazing place to wonder around.

We traveled to where the trekking would start on Christmas day, about a 5 hour drive. We stopped off in a town and had a Tagine, a traditional Moroccan dish.

Every night we stopped in a gite, walking from one to another. All the gites and villages were amazing in there own way. There are easy to navigate in between and cheap to stay, you can book most of them online, or just turn up!

We did seven days of walking through the mountains, hills and villages! the maximum elevation we got to was around 3,000m (about 9,800ft). We wanted to go to the summit of M’Goun but the snow and ridge pass was too bad.

There was a lot of gear to take for hiking around for 4 days in Morocco. It was pretty warm through the days, and it dropped cold at night! We hiked through snowy conditions and through dessert areas. So we had to pack for a few different environments!

The above is pretty much all i packed for the trip!

It was an amazing experience, and i would definitely go back to do something similar! Its pretty surreal place to go when you come from England. The mountain ranges and villages are amazing!

Now its back to training for the races! Although i do have 2 winter climbing trips booked in over Feb & March!!

Trips and Training

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After the Hardmoors i had a week off and felt good for it. The first run i did was a steady 10miles down the Pennine Way, taking in Kinder Falls and back. The legs felt good, bit tired towards the end. Last 2 miles was a push but it was downhill and on nice flagged moors.

From there i had a trip into the Lake District planned. This was part of the new Trig Ring unveiling on top of Blencathra. And it was also a chance to meet a few people off of Instagram. So there is a Whatsapps group that is full of people off Instagram that are into the same kind of stuff, hiking, running, climbing, anything outdoors really. On the Whatsapp group everyone plans trips and meet ups, kinda cool. Using social media to actually be social!

So my plan for the Lakes was get up there early Saturday morning. Go for a 20km run in the fells, then a spot of bouldering. Sleep in the YHA then on Sunday meet up and head up Blencathra.

The run was pretty good. Started just outside Keswick, up Walla Crag onto Bleaberry Fell, High Seat and High Tove. Obviously  bagging a few Wainwrights along the way! The run from Bleaberry Fell, High Seat and High Tove was pretty much a big fest, and made for some slow running and wet legs!

But i got 20km in, with 644m (2178ft) of elevation, in 2hours 30mins. So considering the bogs and wet lumpy ground i was pretty pleased.

The Sunday was all about Blencathra, we headed up to the top around 8:30. With the unveiling happening around 11:00. The planned routes were up Halls Fell Ridge and back down Sharp Edge. These are two awesome routes for scrambling. And i will defiantly be back up in the winter with crampons and ice axe in tow.  If anyone is heading up Blencathra, take in these two routes.

At the top for the unveiling was Stephen Birkinshaw, he wrote the book ‘There is No Map in Hell’ about his running journey taking in all the Wainwrights in 6days and 13hours. He’s still the current record holder, so i took the book up and got him to sign it!

After that i’ve had a couple of local small races, one being the first Trunce Race and the first Spencers Dash. This weekend i also volunteered for the inaugural Pennine Bridleway 57km. I was one of the race sweepers, it was a really nice day and great route. I did about 30 miles of sweeping, but i started getting a twinge in my groin so i got a lift back while the other sweeper, John, carried on the last 5 miles. So in effect i DNF as a sweeper 🙂 The race was along the Pennine Bridleway through the Peak District, mainly along old railway lines, so it was a pretty flat course.

Next up is the Great Lakeland 3 Day event! Beginning of May, bag myself some more Wainwrights! Although i need to get back into a training routine and sort my diet out. They have both been a bit lax recently!

Helvellyn

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This weekend i traveled to the Lake District and stopped over for a few nights. I stopped over in Windermere, but didn’t really get into Windermere this time as the main reason for going up was to go up Helvellyn via Swirral Edge. This was the first chance for a while i could get the crampons on and ice axe out.

I don’t think i could have wished for a more perfect day, the snow was amazing, the sky was clear with blue skies and the sun shining. I hit one patch of cloud just as i reached the summit, but this soon passed. And to be honest it made it a little more cooler to reach the top and be engulfed by cloud!

The sun then came back out and i had a bit of food on the top, there was barely any wind. There was the odd gust, which dropped the temperatures down to around -13c, the temperature out of the wind was about -5c. But this didn’t feel bad at all, bit bad on the hands when eating a sandwich. I actually took my coat off and just had a base-layer, t-shirt and an Arc’teryx hoodie on.

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It was an awesome day out, and on the way back down i made a detour to Catstye Cam. I think it took me about 5 hours, 16km and about 900m of elevation. The weather defiantly made the day, it a couple of weeks i’ll be going back to the Lakes to go up Skiddaw and blencathra. Hoping the snow is still there for some epic adventures.

I would defiantly recommend taking a visit to Helvellyn, whether this is in the winter or summer. It’s an easy hike from Ullswater, about 4miles there and back (14km). And theres a few pubs in Ullswater to grab a beer when you’ve done.

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Christmas in Sydney

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It seems a bit late, but here goes.

So for Christmas and New Year we went to Sydney, Australia. Two years ago my best friend moved out there, so we decided to visit, spend some time with him and some time touring Sydney. We didn’t really have time to venture any further than Sydney as we only had two weeks. Turns out two weeks in Sydney is pretty much perfect.

We spent the first few days in Long Jetty, about an hour out of Sydney, and where my friend and his family live. Long Jetty is an awesome place, its a small village, at one side is a Lake with two, wait for it, ‘Long Jetty’s’. And the other side is the beach and surf!

The BBQ is where we cooked Christmas Dinner 😉

From Long Jetty we ventured into Hunters Valley to try some wine! This is about 1 hour 30mins from Long Jetty and is defiantly worth the drive. We stopped in an awesome place that is a golf/spa resort. We then did a day of touring some of the vineyards or cellar doors as they kept saying! This was an organised tour, we weren’t drink driving in Oz!!

We then went into Sydney itself. We had 5 days in an Air B&B in the centre. We all had New Years Eve together, with my friend and his wife driving into Sydney and staying in our AirB&B. We also met up with another friend, she’s lived in Oz for about 10 years. So it was nice to catch up and spend New Years Eve with them. We managed to find an empty pub with views of the bridge and fireworks! always a bonus knowing folk who live close.

From there we moved onto Manly for 3 days, we also visited Bondi Beach, but in my opinion Manly is soooo much better. The last time i went to Bondi was quite a few years ago and i kinda remembered that there wasn’t much there, which was part of the decision to stay at Manly. Manly has good shopping, pubs and restaurants. The beach is really good, and a little walk away is Shelly Beach. Plus they have a Patagonia shop, that sells Patagonia Manly t-shirts!! of course i bought one.

From Manly we went back into Sydney and had the last few days in the Four Seasons hotel, which over looks the harbour. Although our room overlooked the city, which was a cool view at night, looked like i was living in Blade Runner in 2019!!! Plus its amazing how much hotels drop their prices after New Year in Sydney. The Four Seasons went from around $500 a night before New Year and $150 after!

So we got to explore Sydney quite a bit, The Rocks area behind the Harbour Bridge is amazing, especially the pubs, a lot of them also have roof terraces that have amazing views. We went to Darling Harbour a couple of times, walked across the bridge to the North side. Had a little walk around Luna Park. the ferries they use to get the Manly, Bondi etc are awesome for the views when leaving Sydney too.

 

Also……….

As a bonus, our flight was delayed for 4 hours in Sydney, which meant we missed our connecting flight back to the UK! Which meant Emirates gave us a free hotel and 24 hours in Dubai, which also turns out to be pretty much all the time you need in Dubai, if you’re like me, that is. managed to do the Dubai Mall, indoor aquarium and underwater zoo! Who knew you could have an aquarium and zoo in a Mall!! Saw the big buildings, fountains, had food etc.

Helsinki trip…..

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Went to Helsinki with my mate Bo, same guy i went to Norway with last year. The trip started for me in London, where Bo lives. He lives in the Queens Head, a pub in Piccadilly. He owns the pub, just to clarify that. Spent the day/night in London then headed to Heathrow to catch the plane.

Leaving London, and arriving Helsinki!

We had a day/night in Helsinki to start, we had an Air BnB in the city, which was a really nice apartment and about a 5 mins walk from the main city centre. The city is not really that old, its around 200 years old, but then there was a fire, so most old buildings are around 150 years old. So in city terms its quite modern!

The city is quite, well compared to the likes of London or Paris its quite. Which is good, they have everything you’d expect a European capital to have, its just easier to walk around, get a table etc. They have a metro, which has one line! can’t get it wrong, they have trams running through all parts of the city and the trains are fast and cheap! As we didn’t really have much time on the first day, i dragged Bo into Hard Rock cafe Helsinki, on the basis he’s never been to Hard Rock Cafe. And taking him their made me laugh!

The next day we were picked up to be taken to a hotel we were staying at about 30mins form the city centre. the hotel was awesome, hidden in the trees, and right on the lake. All wood and glass! was brill. We started our Kayaking from there. Around Helsinki is 100’s of islands, so we kayaked the Baltic, around some islands and then got off and had a walk around an Island.

After the Kayak we went back to the hotel, and had a swim in the baltic. The sea was an amazing 25 degrees (Celsius). Finland also has an extraordinary amount of Saunas. Population 5.5m people, Saunas 3m!! they like saunas. So we embraced this and had a sauna, after 10 mins in the sauna, jumped in the Baltic and repeat. Ok the desired effect doesn’t really work when the fucking sea is 25 degrees!

The day after the Kayaking we went bike through the forest and along the coast line. In winter you can actually bike on the sea as its frozen!

 

After these activities we went back to Helsinki and had a few days there. We went to the 1952 Olympic swimming stadium, and had a swim. 50m pool too which was a novelty to swim in. It’s also outdoors, so i can only imagine they use it for 3 months of the year.

We went on a boat tour around the islands which was good, we also went on the stupid red tourist buses and did some exploring. We found some good bars and nice restaurants. One of which we had Reindeer, well worth it if anyone ever comes across it, very nice. They have a few bars that have outdoor swimming pool areas, and surprisingly saunas. One bar on the harbour had a sauna, and little jetty so after the sauna you could jump in the sea! then grab a beer! We somehow managed to walk into Helsinki’s football clubs ground, and there training pitch, while they were training! We went paddle boarding twice! as paddle boarding for two hours is cheaper than a beer! From where you start paddle boarding you can make your way into the Baltic sea! I’d highly recommend doing that!

Helsinki is a awesome city, and if you like outdoors and outdoor activities you should defiantly go. If you want to go for the night life and beer, don’t bother, there isn’t much and the beer isn’t cheap. Apparently the locals get a ferry to Estonia, as its cheaper. Its also pretty much crime free.

Running Adventures

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So….. my plan of updating this thing every week properly backfired! about once every 3 months currently!

Anyway, lets say I started the Hardmoors 55, seems better than saying i did it, as ‘did it’ would imply a finish! Which i didn’t do. It was my first DNF, thought i would feel a lot worse for having a DNF. It bugged the shit out of me at the time, felt like a failure and that maybe i had overreached  “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” Arthur C. Clarke

So i beat myself up a little bit (the exact same way i do when i start a sentence with ‘so’), realised that i just need to slap myself, have another go and train smarter! I think the training is the area i need to improve. I dropped out at around mile 30, just before the 3 sisters. My hip started hurting around mile 15, which didn’t bother me too much until about mile 25. I must have been compensating for my left hip on my right side, as my right hamstring and glute started hurting. I just thought dropping out was the most sensible option, to not get too drastically injured and still be able to do the other events i’ve entered. I also pretty much decided the moment i’d quit that i was going back next year. To fucking smash it 😉

Now the weather was bad, with snow, sideways sleet and wind. But i had the right gear and never felt cold or wet, i can’t even blame the weather for sucking!

So the positives and lessons learnt are that, i did 30miles, no small feat in itself. The course is worth running more than once, and i’ll get to! The weather makes the adventure. Fucking stay over, getting up at 3 in morning to run 55 miles is fucking dumb. My flexibility and mobility is zero, i need to work on this. Just because on a training run you can comfortable do 20miles, does not mean you can do 55miles, and doing 40-50 miles per week is not enough. One long run a month of a marathon or more is on the cards when in training for an Ultra.

 

The above stories are a huge over reaction and absolute bollocks. Whoever Bethany Lodge and Graeme Hetherignton are maybe they should have asked the runners, or got off their lazy arses and run it themselves to find out. Useless twats, being good at you job and having some integrity would help.

Last weekend i did the Great Lakeland 3Day event, this is a Mountain Marathon event 3 different classes (as with most mountain marathons). The event is 3 days in the Lake District, Run/Hike camp everyday. You get given a map and have to navigate to the check in points, these are just electronic markers, no people. There is no aid stations so you have to be self sufficient on the Hills/Mountains.  The event was brilliant, on day 1 i did the the Elite class, 30 miles with 3,000 metres of elevation. Day 2 and 3 i dropped down to the lowest class, covering 20 miles on day 2 and 10 miles on day 3. I’ve been to the Lake District before, but not like this weekend. This was up in the Western Lakes, a place i’ve  never been before. It’s part of the Lakes that isn’t really busy compared to Windermere or Keswick way out. There is basically no one on the hills. We started from Ennerdale, went up Hen Comb, down to Crummock Water, up on to Dodd and then up again onto Whiteside running the ridge past Hopegill Head onto Grisdale Pike, back down and then up to Barrow, from their along the ridge onto Scar Crags and Sail, then a steep down and up to Knott Rigg. Down from there all the way over to Dale Head, over to Hindscarth and onto Robinson. Finishing at Buttermere, the new camp site. Second day was backup to Hindscarth along to Dale Head, and down into Little Town, where i had Soup and a roll 😉 From there up back onto Knott Rigg and back down to Buttermere. The 3rd day i just walked it back from Buttermere to Ennerdale. I would defiantly recommend the Great Lakeland 3Day, the adventure and exploring is amazing.

 

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Now it’s onto some triathlons…………

Norway Adventure & a Marathon

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So…. in September (after the Amalfi Coast) i went to Norway Kayaking down the Fjords, camping and some hiking. I went with my friend Mr. Robert Swift, he has a pub in Piccadilly called The Queens Head, check it out, they also do awesome pies and have created a new company called Piccadilly pies, go have a beer and a pie!

Anyway, we flew from Gatwick, in Bergen. Which must have the most photographed sign of any airport.

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From there we went to Voss for a night, this is a beautiful place, kind of like Windermere in the Lake District, but with bigger mountains and lakes! Plus they have Voss Water, apparently this is somewhat famous. Each pint in Voss is about £10, luckily there are only about 6 pubs, we still went to them all though!

From Voss we got a bus to the start of the kayaking. We kayaked for maybe 2 hours, got out explored a waterfall and had some food, started back up for a few hours then pitched tent. A few things to note, there is nothing there, take food and beer! Once you hit the Fjords and get on the water there is no shops, pubs, restaurants or toilets! You are in the middle of nowhere! BUT the fucking 4G works everywhere, and i mean everywhere! It is pretty awesome that it does, but pretty sad that although you are in the middle of nowhere your wife can still call you, or work can email you! Just leave your phone at home!

The below is our tent, and for a few days what we saw every time we left it……..

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We hiked up to the top of a Fjord, which there and back was around 22km, there was one steep bit towards the end to scramble up to the top, around 2km or so. I have yet to make this into a Strava segment! The walk up was amazing, we got to see some amazing views and the countryside around us was spectacular, Norway is a must go to place.

I got back, spent a few days in London, had a few too many beers, then back home!

When i got back i had the Sheffield 10km to run, i did this with my sister as a warm up to the Marathon, and to get her back into feeling how good it is to race and be running with everyone. My time was 46:47 which i was pretty happy with, and still felt good at the end.

After that we had the Yorkshire Marathon, this was a pretty cool day all in all, a well organised event, and a nice flat course. Worth a run if you like marathons. I had promised my sister i would run round with her and try and get a good time. I think she was a bit apprehensive, especially about the last 6 miles or so, so i said i would stick with her and make sure she finished it. I tried to average the time out to 6 minutes per km, which would give us about 4:15 finish time. She started to slow down a bit around 30km mark, so i just kept pushing her, we ended up doing it in 4:26. I was pleased with this time, even though i think i could have shaved 30mins off on my own, that wasn’t really the point. It made me even prouder of my Trail running marathon time of 4:36!

One thing i highly recommend after doing this run in them is some calve sleeves, wow, awesome bit of kit. I got the Compressport ones, i also told my sister to get them before the race and she was super impressed by them. My niece and nephew also bought me a medal hanger for my birthday. Pic below with the medals from this year on it, minus the new Marathon one.

 

Holiday in Amalfi

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In August we went to the Amalfi coast, we stayed in Amalfi, went to Positano for a day, then we went to Sorrento for a few days, and had a day in Capri.

Amalfi itself is pretty amazing, its big enough that there is plenty do, with bars, restaurants, shops and beaches. Yet small enough that you don’t get overwhelmed by everything, it is just the perfect way to actually see how nothing on the Amalfi coast has really changed (especially the roads). Amalfi is defiantly one place worth a visit.

 

We found a bar that makes its own Amalfi Gin, which, if you like Gin is well worth a find (its easy to discover these things in Amalfi, me telling you will only ruin the adventure).

We stopped in the Grand Hotel Excelsior, which is a really nice hotel, you have to be prepared that there is no modern/new hotels knocking about, nothing new really gets built, but what they have is pretty good and the views are pretty sweet.

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That is our hotel, top of the hill. Its like a 15 minute bus ride into Amalfi, the busses are free and put on by the hotel. There is also some steps all the way down, now me being me, i used the steps and created a Strava Segment! They guy in the hotel says it took around 45mins, smashed it in 12mins. Please don’t try this on my very bad advice, if you fall and die it is not my fault! I literally passed no one! i also reckon i now own the record for most trips u and down the steps in 4 days, 9 down and 7 up.

The beaches and seas get pretty packed, but our hotel had a private beach which was pretty awesome, it had a bar and a snack bar on there too. The sea is amazing, and warm (in August).

We also went to Sorrento, there we stopped in Hotel Plaza. Sorrento is much larger than Amalfi and is basically and small city/large town!

They had a pool and bar on the roof which was pretty good, and a gym in the basement, and yeah i used this!

From Sorrento we got a ferry over to Capri, this is well worth a visit. The island is unreal, it is defiantly a millionaires paradise! The little town up the hill is amazing. Basically you have a square that overlooks the harbour and the sea, another square that is full of bars and restaurants, and off this is streets full of shops. However these shops are literally all designer shops, all the way down.

The Amalfi coast is definitely a place everyone should visit.

Off-Road ADV Ride & Llanidoles

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Last Friday i went on the Yamaha off-road experience http://www.yamaha-offroad-experience.co.uk/ check it out. I did the Tenere experience, seeing as i have a Tenere!

This is in Wales just outside a village called Llanidoles, this is the Village where the River Severn starts, nice little place too. I went down on the Friday, it took around 5 – 6 hours i think to get there, around 150 miles. Didn’t touch the motorway and passed some awesome scenery and through some cool little villages on the back route. Had a few pit stops as i proper fucked up with the packing on the way down. My back and legs were killing me, school boy error, which i corrected on the way back, much more enjoyable ride.

This is what i basically took, the Wolfman tank bag, and the waterproof held bag. Thats the tackle i put in it, normal shit, tent, sleeping bag, roll mat, stool, pillow bag, stove, cup, food/drink, mobile charger, gaffer tape, tool roll, torch etc. You can see the way i packed the bag, basically boxed me in so i couldn’t move.

the ADR off-road riding started around half 10, i did it on mu own bike, a few other guys used the places bike. I bought my bike to be used for off-road, green-laning and riding, and i wanted to give it ago. The trails where in a woods and old shale quarry, it was 10,000 acres with 100s of miles of trials in it. There were mud tracks and shale tracks, i managed to do good no major offs. Its a lot more scary than i thought going 40 – 50 mph around shale tracks and the back sliding round corners but you get used to it. We were shown how to ride off-road, the cornering, and standing up on the bike. We covered around 100 miles in the day around different, with about 80% of that off-road, the day was overall around 8 hours long, about 6 hours riding.

Pics of the bike at the campsite, on the trails, and when i’ve washed it at home. If you have a Yamaha XT660Z or 1200 i would absolutely recommend this trip, people come from all over to do it, i mean like there was a guy from France and another guy from Switzerland there.

 

This is Lianidoles, small little village but pretty cool to walk round for a few days, some nice pubs which i had a few pints in and a few meals. Worth looking up if your in the area.

 

Last night on the campsite, laid on the bike with a cup of red wine before the journey home, up at 6:30, packed up and set off for 7:30. Packed the bike up a different way and was a awesome journey home with no aches or pains. Last pic is obviously the clocks, 413 miles covered. Didn’t have much chance to take photos of the actually day, but fuck it, i’ll do it again, and take more next time.