Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

Cheshire has seen many a fast moving spotty rain shower pass over it today and the Met Office's online rain radar shows more Ireland. In between those, there have been spells of alluring sunshine of the kind that makes wonderful photos. How is it that you need a session of rain for the sunlight to look better when it comes afterwards at this time of year? Well, good photos don't come without some cost.

That little mention of photographic endeavour brings me to an afternoon well spent in Chester last Saturday. What drew me away from home was the prospect of meeting with some sun without any dampness, something of a rarity in the last few weeks. There were other reasons too, such as the escape from what felt like a rut. The reason for choosing Chester was that I got to looking through the photos of the place that I have been sharing in the online gallery only to come to the conclusion that they didn't look the best. It was time to have another go and I came away with some pleasing results too when the clouds didn't get in the way of the lighting. Much of my urban stroll took me towards the less crowded parts of the city like Grosvenor Park where a miniature train was conveying families around a small circuit. Trotting along the banks of the River Dee and along the old city wall took me towards the Old Dee Bridge from where I found my way towards the more crowded rows where many were out shopping. These may be uncertain economic times but you wouldn't have known that from the bustle and a headline in the local rag about the place being a boom town.

The passage of a large wad of cloud in front of the sun meant that any designs on digital capture of landmarks such as Chester Cathedral or Chester Castle (the old County Hall looks an elaborate affair) had to wait for another time. While awaiting the return of the sun, I ended up in a shop or two though I wasn't really on a shopping outing. However, that didn't stop a visit to a branch of Field and Trek resulting in my coming away with a Berghaus Twister Softshell jacket having saved nearly £30 off the original price. My succumbing to the attractions of making a purchase might have been influenced by there being a sale in progress but I have toyed previously with the idea of acquiring a heavier duty counterpart to my North Face Apex Elixir (currently needing a spot of sewing to keep in the drawcord at the base of the jacket after the wrong thread came away) might have made me more vulnerable to this kind of thing, even though it was a thought that had slipped from my conscious memory. So far, it's got only a bit of a light wetting but I like the cut and fit. Exhaustive testing is not something that I do but the new acquisition is working well thus far.

The trying out of the previous day's extravagance had to await its opportunity when Sunday came dry too though with milky skies, thanks to a passing anticyclone sticking for long enough to give us respite from all the damp greyness that has been outstaying its welcome over the last few weeks. It was enough for me to take to lanes and highways on my bicycle. Though I was to spend some time around Lindow Common, the main motivation was the investigation of potential commuting routes but the level of traffic and the steepness of some inclines left me thinking the venture a work in progress. However, a chance perusal of a map afterwards at home revealed a possibility that went by Over Alderley, Hare Hill and Mottram St. Andrew. The promise of a sunny Monday had me taking a risk in the form of trying the route in the flesh and the experience convinced me of the need for tightening my back brakes though nothing untoward happened; then, any inclines can be tackled with greater confidence and there are a few such as the dip around Over Alderley or the hill on which Mottram is situated. Nevertheless, I sampled a glorious morning and pass someone harvesting "haylage" on my return in the evening; some of it was blowing in the air too. Other amenable days may get me passing the way more often.

Even with all of this, I remain on hiatus from walking in hill country though seeing how high the local reservoirs are now might be one draw. There's a bank holiday weekend at the end of the month too and thoughts of making something of it are just beginning to prod me into action. Autumn isn't far now and there's a certain coolness to be felt on some mornings as well. Maybe that's what's bringing more attractive lighting between those showers…

Today, I was in a shop when I overheard someone moaning about the less than exciting weather that has been with us for much of July. Many have very optimistic hopes for the summertime so that sense of frustration was understandable. It's why it's best to spread those aspirations around the year instead. Nevertheless, some spouts of sun this evening added some cheer and there may be a window of better weather latter in the week to break up things.

Maybe I should have made better use of the dry though grey day but I ended up doing some clearance at home instead. It was that activity that caused me to come across a map that I bought in Dublin in May. Surveying outdoors blogs can leave you with an impression that some have a soft spot for certain types of outdoors equipment. For on, it's stoves and another does footwear. For me, it seems to be maps, probably because they are so good at opening up any location awaiting exploration.

The map in question was produced by an alternative producer of Irish Maps, EastWest Mapping. For a while now, they have produced maps for Walking World Ireland to accompany pieces on walking routes in the island of Ireland. There was a time when they sold all sorts of outdoor maps and guides, including OSi and Harvey maps, but that seems to be over now. Nowadays, they use their website to sell only their own wares instead of those from others.

So far, those include three maps for the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains along with map guides for the Wicklow Way and the Táin Way, a circular trail starting and ending Carlingford on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth (incidentally and perhaps ironically given it features in a Celtic myth regarding cattle rustling, it was the only part of Éire affected in the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak; the disease was not allowed to spread any further). All can be ordered over the web and payment is by using PayPal. Regarding the maps for the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains, they are divided to cover the following areas: Dublin & North Wicklow Mountains, Lugnaquila & Glendalough, West Wicklow Mountains. There is another in the offing to complete the quartet and that will be for the eastern Wicklow Mountains. Currently, it is possible to by three of the intended four as a set from the website though that should become a quartet when the final map is released early next year. The scale is 1:30000 and overlap between each of the maps is generous so things look promising.

Returning to that map bought last May, it covers the Dublin and North Wicklow Mountains and I seem to remember that it needed discipline to leave the others after me at Eason's in O' Connell Street. Looking at it now, I have to say that there is a good deal of detail though I'd have to try it out on a real walk and not an armchair one to reach a definitive verdict. As well as claiming to be waterproof or water resistant on the cover, the paper used in the maps seems to be like what Harvey's use in their SuperWalker series so it should stand up to the occasional wetting, even if I wouldn't go opening the map up in a downpour like I got on the way home last Friday evening. Though my work circumstances have changed since the purchase, any excuse for more walking in my native Ireland has to be good. After all, any excuse to return to a area with pleasing hill country has to be good.

There are many things that I like about my Meindl Burmas but one niggle always been how harshly they treat my feet over hard surfaces like tarmac, gravel or dried out grassland. My recent foray into the Scottish Borders was another reminder of this and I now am minded to look for a solution. What I am not planning on doing is buying another pair of boots and the Burmas fit well anyway so alternatives to the provided footbeds are what I have been seeking. Have had a bit of a poke around the web (there's an interesting article on the subject at OutdoorsMagic), it looks as if I'll be giving something from Superfeet a go. Nevertheless, the option of using cheaper shock absorbing equivalents as volume adjusters in my Scarpa ZG10's sounds an intriguing idea, though those boots are largely in semi-retirement now. Another curiosity that I encountered was the idea of using tongue depressors from Superfeet to make lacing more effective. Curiosities aside, I do believe in getting boots that fit me in the first place though there was that one experience when it didn't work out as planned. For now, I'll stick with making my Burmas feel better and I feel a bit of experimentation coming on…

One night last week after I had tired of trying to break up ice on the footway outside my house, I finally got to watching my copy of the BMC's Winter Skills DVD. That act may have brought a wealth of information my way but I have no intention of launching a full scale incursion into hill country whenever weather like that which we had for the last month arrives. What I am planning to do with the information is to use it as a stepping stone to more learning experiences. Knowing the basics regarding crampon and ice axe usage along with a smattering of avalanche and winter navigation awareness is only ever a beginning. While winter hillwalking is my interest, there was climbing content in there too but I'll give that possibility a miss with my head for heights not being what it might be.

In among all of the expected winter skills stuff was a discussion of winter weather trends. The DVD was made a few years back and the winters at the start of the century were of the milder variety. With the wider awareness of global warming, some of us were beginning to think that cold winter weather like what we had recently was set to become a memory. At this point, I have to say that included me but these things now look cyclical after the last few winters having longer spells of snowy weather and it appears that it has been like that for a while. There was a mention of the green winters of the 1950's and they were followed by much colder ones in the early years of the next decade. This was all before my time but I do remember cold snaps during the winters of the 1980's with my being unable to get to school for the most of a month one winter and the water to my parent's house being frozen for a similar length of time during another. The last decade of the twentieth century wasn't one with much in the way of snowy winters if I remember correctly and I was living in Edinburgh at the time.

It seems that every time that hefty snowfall visits us, travel chaos results and a whole cacophony of media comment ensues. That may amaze those from places that have cold weather every year such as Montreal or Berlin but the maritme climate of Britain and Ireland must mean that we see such things less frequently anyway. Not only does that mean that it is difficult top justify investing in measures to deal with the sorts of condtions that prevailed from last year into this one but it must also mean that we are not so practiced when it comes to dealing with them either. This thinking also sets me to asking question of my own skills and experience. Spending my early years in the milder rain-soaked part of the world that is the southwest of Ireland would mean that I wouldn't get to sample as much of the white stuff as others do elsewhere. One consequence of that is that I only recently took a bicycle for a spin on snow, an act that taught me the importance of maintaining good contact between the tyres and the road though any skids were arrested by planting a Hedgehog-shod foot squarely on the ground.

In a way, I suppose that what we got was a rare experience for many of us. An Irish television meteorologist was heard to opine on air that a retreat to the record books was in order to see how the length of the cold spell was comparing with previous forbears. In Britain, many were cut off by a covering of several feet of snow with an excursion for a Christmas turkey in the far north of Scotland taking a month longer than expected. The hills of Cheshire and Derbyshire were so plastered with snow that many were cut off by closed roads and I know a few of them. In the middle of all this, I got to reading Joe Cornish's experiences of walking in deep snow in the Lairig Ghru without skis or snowshoes. Whatever I may have made of his exploits, his latest book, Scotland's Mountains, is well worth a look and the images in there amaze me with their lighting and sharpness. My own attempts are pale reflections in comparison. All of this was causing the usual questions regarding personal preparedness to bubble up in my mind.

It wouldn't the first time because I penned an entry on the subject over a year ago after another snowy visitation and recycling of content is not really my style if I can help it. This winter's arctic episode, it was on with a semi-retired pair of Scarpa boots for getting to and from work, a job that they did with aplomb until everywhere became icy. Before that point, I made good use of what lay on the ground for confidence building and I am not just talking about a certain pre-Christmas constitutional. Well, there was a lunchtime amble about Nether Alderley and that piece of reconnaissance that took me to Buxton and Bakewell, both in the first full week of the year. It was because the snow on the pavement outside my house had become packed and even turned to ice that I was out with that spade.

Now that I have come to thinking of ice, I am minded to add a set of Kahtoola Microspikes to my gear collection because snow usually doesn't stay long and the customary icy aftermath is always both a danger and a nuisance. In fact, they even might come in handy for low level trips in hill country too; I feel the need to add to my experience of snow-covered terrain but without rashly putting myself in the way of danger. On the same subject, there's also Icebugs's Trail BUGweb with steel carbide studs for gripping on ice and they do footwear with the same type of thing integrated. into their soles, an interesting innovation though I see it having more use in their home country of Sweden.

It's all very fine talking about walking on level ground but uphill gradients are another matter. It's then that the sight of ice really does concentrate the mind like it did when I went exploring the Howgills near the end of 2008. After all, you don't want to slip and end up careering downhill towards a stone wall or worse. Though noting the amount of effort expended in travelling over about a foot of snow played a part in my rethinking of plans on that outing, it was the ice lower down that really constrained my upland wandering. Walks over some hills between Buxton and Macclesfield when snow lay underfoot haven't troubled me as much but that may be down to local knowledge and experience as much as anything else. However, on the whole, I think that a certain glimmer of confidence is creeping upon me with regard to winter condtions. The acquisition of an ice axe is being pondered though I don't intend going beyond the softer snow of lower reaches for now. That isn't going to make the ideas of having an appropriate boot/crampon combination go away or do the same with the idea of getting in some training. The recent conditions may have added to my level of experience and that DVD supplied me with more information but there's a good way to go yet. Quite how the desired experience is going to accumulate is a journey whose course is as yet unknown.

Those of you who are regulars may note a certain change in the colours around here. Another bit of electronic fiddling was the cause of bringing the background colour to my notice The new year has yet to see a proper piece of outdoors action. That's not to say that I didn't go inspecting the recent snow, especially given how much of of it was plastered on the hills between Macclesfield and Buxton. That viewing took place on the second Saturday of the year from the confines of a warm bus rather than in an attempt to flounder through fields hosting feet of snow. Hearing and seeing how much was up there, thoughts were attuned to the need for snow shoes in such circumstances. It's little wonder that folk took to skis and going downhill on unexpected slopes like those of Kerridge Hill near Bollington. Drifting snow was starting to impeded traffic while I was on my little excursion and it later closed the A537 Cat and Fiddle road next to completely. Buxton looked very pretty in its white coat on a bright day but things were duller by the time that I reached Bakewell. It all made for an enjoyable spot of reconnaissance but a fuller bout of hill wandering is in order now that things are calming down though there is more snow on the horizon for the middle of the week. It would appear that 2010 is getting an interesting start.