Walking home for Christmas

I had a walk out this morning with my son Joe as we both wanted to blow away the cobwebs. Him from being stuck indoors a lot finishing his 3rd year dissertation and me from having overstretched myself in the present buying and wrapping stakes (amazing how tiring that can be). And I fancied I should build up some credit in the … read more >

The Misty Mountain Hop – a hike up Scafell Pike

I spent friday night within a nest of Orcs and by the time the saturday morning 6.30 alarm call for breakfast came, all those snores, wheezes and coughs meant I’d had a pretty fitful sleep. A hike up Scafell Pike (Or Misty Mountain, as it turned out to be) seemed a really big undertaking. The Orcs in question were Steve, Chris, Jeff and a couple of other guys … read more >

What’s up there then? A detour up March Hill

I planned a walk on Saturday to get vaguely in the zone for a hike up Scafell Pike on 26th Nov (vaguely, as in one walk won’t get me as fit as the other guys doing the walk!). And it turned out to be the best day of the weekend with blue skies all the way. My sketch of a route, planned a couple … read more >

Planning Routes with getamap from The Ordnance Survey

As will be obvious from some of my initial posts, I’m pretty new at planning biggish walks/ hikes. A site for planning hike routes I’ve stumbled over which is really good is the Ordnance Survey’s ‘getamap’ site / planning tool. This is UK only so I can’t point any USA vistors to a similar service but I’m sure one exists. … read more >