North Pennines and North Western Lake District

Megan and I are just back from another hill walking holiday. This time we camped, first near Barnard Castle where we did walks around High Force and up Cross Fell (the latter in bad weather) then in the Lake District. We saw uncle Colin in Bishop Auckland for the first time in many years, and watched an outdoor production of Shakspeare's The Tempest. From there we moved over to Buttermere to a campsite by two pubs, probably the most beautiful valley in the Lakes and with beer and food on hand in-between walking the hills, what could be better?

Here are some pics and vids of this holiday - click to enlarge / view.

Megan taking in the view from the summit of the superb Glaramara - Prince of Peaks.

Buttermere with Fleetwith Pike at its head. This is probably the most beautiful valley in the Lake District.

Video of the Buttermere panorama from Red Pike:

Triple Buttress - another soaking!

Mark at Loch Coire Mhic Fhearchair (circa. 2000ft)

The Triple Buttress walk is a great excursion into wild places you can't see from the road. It's a four mile mountain walk to a corrie with majestic scenery all the way, and a fine path underfoot. It follows the valley between Bein Eighe and Liathach and then swings round to the right contouring endlessly into a dramatic corrie with waterfalls (very much in spate at the moment), a Loch (it was so windy, there were waves lapping the shores!), and huge rock buttresses. The weather was nice as we started, iffy as we approached the corrie, then it went from bad to terrible. Continuous driving hard rain most of the way down. As well as both being soaked our legs are now suffering badly from the recent adventures. But it was well worth doing.

A Big Hill: Liathach in challenging conditions

On the high ridge of Liathach heading for Spidean a Choire Leith (3456ft)

Yesterday the weather was bad so we did the "Mountain Trail" from Loch Maree up into the Beinn Eighe range. It's waymarked all the way which is handy, but make no mistake it's hard work! Step aerobics on steroids I'd say, 2000 feet of ascent in the rain in hardly any distance at all.

Today we reasoned that although the weather is bad, the forecast is for it to get worse. So if we were going to do a Big Hill, maybe today was going to have to be the day. So it was we headed up into the Liathach range with cloud base around 700m hiding the tops far above. More step aerobics - over 3000 ft of ascent in about a mile and a half - amazingly steep tracks. As we got higher the weather got more and more challenging. Soon the rain turned to snow as we headed up. Visibility was poor and it was decidedly slippy. Occasionally we were treated to a peep at the truly majestic scenery around us, but mostly it was well hidden.

We arrived at the snowy summit of Spidean a Choire Leith (3456ft) with the weather at its worse. No view, snow, rain, wind and fog, but a sense of achievement nevertheless. But we could not hang around, we needed to get down lower below the worse of this weather. More peeps at the scenery on the long way down.

At least we had done a Big Hill (the highest in this region) despite the horrible weather. A lie in tomorrow, then!

Scottish Highlands - Kinlochewe and Torridon

Beinn Eighe

Liathach

Megan at the summit cairn, Beinn Damh

Hello friends and family and Happy Birthday for yesterday Mum! (21 again??!!)

Megan and I are on another walking holiday up here and have just done an ascent of Beinn Damh, 2957ft. Just short of a Munro (which requires 3000 ft), but a fine mountain with spectacular views of all the famous mountains around it. A fall of snow overnight gave an unexpected bonus. The mountains always look at their best with a bit of snow on them, as hopefully the photos show. It was a smashing day and already we have managed something we didn't manage on our recent Skye holiday - a summit!

As we were at the summit admiring the views we saw very bad weather heading our way, so we packed up quickly and headed down. Soon we were in a real blizzard - in May! We were covered in snow, then just as quickly it stopped, the sun came out, and it was nice again.

Birding has been good, with Osprey and Golden Eagle seen on the nine hour drive up, and today Wheatear and a Scottish Speciality - Ptarmigan.

Good views on the way home from Skye

It's a long drive back from Skye to Horwich - 400 miles and 8 1/2 hours, but much of that time is spent travelling through lovely Scottish scenery. This picture was taken on the drive back, a view of Loch Garry.

Bad weather forces a retreat from Skye's Bla Bheinn

It is said that Skye's Bla Bheinn (pronounced "Blaven") is the best mountain in Britain. It's just over 3000 feet high (a "Munro") and the ascent starts from near sea level, so it's quite a way up. Today, Megan and I attempted this, having had inclement weather and no peaks so far this holiday. The forecast was for some bad weather, yes, but in-between that some nicer breaks. So off we went to see if we could get up the mountain's East ridge and see the legendary view of the Cuillins from the top.

But it was not to be. We were constantly battered by very high winds, driving rain and very poor visibility. Certainly no views to speak of. The last 1000 feet up the ridge was hard going on scree and steep rock / grass, with the wind so strong at times I couldn't stand up (big chap) let alone
Megan (a bit smaller!).

So we took the decision to go down. We reckoned there would be nothing to see anyway, and sure enough it did not improve all day.

Shame, but we tried, and we got down safely.

A curry was called for as a consolation prize!

Tomorrow the forecast is even worse, with blizzards and severe gale force winds coming in. Nice :-)

Views from the North of Skye

The weather here on Skye is incredibly variable. It changes from dreadful to lovely in the space of minutes and does this again and again. So we haven't done any big hills yet, but we (Mark, Megan, and Joe) have enjoyed the place nevertheless.

Today we walked up to The Old Man of Storr which was a great little walk full of interest, as the three photos hopefully show.

I'm well pleased that our cottage has a good mobile signal that includes GPRS, and that I brought my laptop, and that my phone has Bluetooth. Wireless internet in a crofter's cottage on Skye - whatever next!

Mark