Camping food review // RightonTrek
Book Review // Peak Bagging: Wainwrights
I wasn’t specifically setting out to doing the wainwrights but having bagged quite a few over the years it now seems like finishing them is a reasonable challenge, especially since I now fell run.
I wish I’d had Peak Bagging: Wainwrights when I first started out! The trouble with not intending to bag wainwrights is the chances are there’s walks done which haven’t been efficient for gaining the most summits, however amazing the routes might have been.
Continue reading “Book Review // Peak Bagging: Wainwrights”Navigation top tips
This article first appeared in 2016 when I wrote for Womenclimb website. As it’s National Map Reading Week I’m sharing the content again here… with a bit of a refresh.
Here are my top tips for planning your own adventure and not getting flustered by navigation:
Continue reading “Navigation top tips”Eryri/Snowdonia Gold Level Ambassadors
Have a go at Orienteering!
In the last month I’ve been working with members from East Pennine Orienteering Club to create a Marsden Virtual Orienteering course for their virtual series. Its live this week!
If you’ve never had a go at Orienteering this is a great way to try it out. From understanding the orienteering style of maps to learning how to navigate at speed and maintain the orientation of the map. The best bit is, you don’t have to be a fast runner – its all about ability to navigate accurately and come up with the best route between controls. You don’t even have to run at all, if you just want to use the courses for practicing navigation skills and techniques then just go for a walk.
Continue reading “Have a go at Orienteering!”Using digital to practice old school navigation
I love navigation challenges and having done my first orienteering event in the cold damp months of February I was disappointed when Covid hit that there wouldn’t be more over the summer.
Then a friend introduced me to a series of virtual orienteering runs via the East Pennine Orienteering Club (EPOC) and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Virtual Orienteering
Virtual Orienteering has become a popular activity with both Orienteering clubs and event organisers using technology to provide ‘events’ for people to continue to participate in activities.
Continue reading “Using digital to practice old school navigation”The trouble with New Year goals
I’m going to start by saying that I’m not rubbishing those of you who have set New Year goals. I’ve got some for 2018 too. But the trouble with goals is the pressure you put on yourself to achieve them.
Continue reading “The trouble with New Year goals”The relationship of Fun/Fear
You’ve probably heard of type 2 fun – when fun challenges you and might scare you but otherwise leads to massive personal development.
I actually imagine fun to be a bubble that I’m in. Its a fairly massive bubble that most of the time I never notice the edges of where it becomes fear. As I’ve pushed myself to do harder and newer things the bubble has grown.
Continue reading “The relationship of Fun/Fear”Try Caving
I hate caving. I know hate is a strong word but having had a go I can honestly say, I hate caving. Wading around with wet feet inside cold wellies wearing a rubber boil-in-the-bag suit with a fibre pile onesie underneath so any physical exertion leads to being really sweaty. Having a mild panic attack in the dark, when the choice presented to you is to either wriggle through a tiny slot barely big enough to fit in or to slide down rock and somehow avoid landing in the pool of freezing water at the bottom. I feel a bit sick just thinking about it now. There’s always the choice to turn around but I’m not a quitter and like to push my boundaries of fear.
But I didn’t know any of this when I agreed to give it a go. I thought ‘It’s a bit like rock climbing, but underground’. Walking through passages marvelling at rock and fossils and wandering into huge caverns.
The reality is more like grovelling in the dark, wedging myself through rock and losing my dignity and nerve as I lower myself over the void to disappear into the abyss, dangling in free space.
Day 5 and 6 of the Winter ML… snowholing and navigation
Its 11am – I’ve already got frozen snot across my face and my buff has frozen with my breath. The goggles I loved earlier in the week have failed me and I feel like I’m in a white out as they’ve misted up.
It was windy and cold as we headed up onto the Cairngorm plateau on Thursday, in search of somewhere to spend the night. We spent most of the day leading each other on navigational legs, predominantly heading into the South-Easterly wind. It was a time for head down trudge and holding on tightly to the map. Having lost one person from the group at the start of the day due to fitness, the pace had suddenly quickened and as we had to start breaking trail through the deep wind slab it was a lot of effort to keep up a good pace to keep from being cold in the wind.
Looking for obscure contour features in these conditions was a test of endurance more than it was of ability.
As you can imagine I’ve never been so happy as when we reached our snow hole spot at Ciste Mhearad at 3pm. Especially when we found old snow holes which we could get away with extending. It still took 3 hours of digging before we could sit in relative comfort for an hour of melting enough snow to eat freeze-dried food before we headed out for night navigation practice.
