Brought the kids up Knipe Scar with limited and challenging art materials (huge sheets of paper and thick marker pens) for a lesson in drawing what a landscape makes you feel, rather than focusing on what you can actually see.
Tag: hiking
Dan Q found GC1DH7W Knipe Scar – On the Edge
This checkin to GC1DH7W Knipe Scar - On the Edge reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
A swift uphill scramble for my friend and fellow volunteer John and I, before dinner. We’re staying in a nearby farmhouse for a week of volunteer work, writing software to help charities. Beautiful view from the summit this evening! SL, TNLN, TFTC!
Yr Wyddfa’s First Email
On Wednesday, Vodafone announced that they’d made the first ever satellite video call from a stock mobile phone in an area with no terrestrial signal. They used a mountain in Wales for their experiment.
It reminded me of an experiment of my own, way back in around 1999, which I probably should have made a bigger deal of. I believe that I was the first person to ever send an email from the top of Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon.
Nowadays, that’s an easy thing to do. You pull your phone out and send it. But back then, I needed to use a Psion 5mx palmtop, communicating over an infared link using a custom driver (if you ever wondered why I know my AT-commands by heart… well, this isn’t exactly why, but it’s a better story than the truth) to a Nokia 7110 (fortunately it was cloudy enough to not interfere with the 9,600 baud IrDA connection while I positioned the devices atop the trig point), which engaged a GSM 2G connection, over which I was able to send an email to myself, cc:’d to a few friends.
It’s not an exciting story. It’s not even much of a claim to fame. But there you have it: I was (probably) the first person to send an email from the summit of Yr Wyddfa. (If you beat me to it, let me know!)
Note #25196
Gorgeous view of Slievenamon towering over Kilsheelan, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, as seen from Gurteen Wood, where my mother and I are just on our way back from our successful expedition to the 2024-11-24 52 -7 geohashpoint.
Thames Path 2
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…
On our first day‘s walking along the Thames Path, Robin and I had trouble finding any evidence of water for some time. On our second day, we did not have this problem.
After weeks of sustained rain, the fields we walked over as we left Cricklade behind were extremely soggy. On our way out of town we passed Cricklade Millennium Wood, I took a picture for the purpose of mocking it for being very small but later discovered it’s too small to appear on Google Maps and became oddly defensive of it – it’s trying, damn it, we should at least acknowledge its existence.
…
Ruth and her brother Robin (of Challenge Robin/Challenge Robin II fame on this blog, among many other crazy adventures) have taken it upon themselves to walk the entirety of the Thames Path from the source of the river (or rather, one of the many symbolic sources) to the sea, over the course of a series of separate one-day walks. I’ve mostly been acting as backup-driver so far, but I might join them for a leg or two later on.
In any case, Ruth’s used it as a welcome excuse to dust off her blog and write about the experience, and it’s fun and delightful and you should follow along and give her a digital cheer. The first part is here; the second part landed yesterday.
An Intense Day On Crib Goch
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Hiking vlogger Dave shares his expedition around the Snowdon Horseshoe back in March. It’s a fantastic ridge walk that I’ve taken a few times myself. But on this particular expedition, hampered by strong winds and thick cloud cover, a serious accident (very similar to the one that killed my father) occurred. Because Dave was wearing his GoPro we’ve got amazing first-hand footage of the work he and the other climbers on the hill that day did to stabilise the casualty until mountain rescue could come and assist. The whole thing’s pretty epic.
Speaking of which, did you see the jet-suits that are being tested by the Great North Air Ambulance Service? That’d have made getting to my dad faster (though possibly not to any benefit)! Still: immensely cool idea to have jet-propelled paramedics zipping up Lake District slopes; I love it.
Mission Across Wales
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Truly in the style and spirit of Challenge Robin / Challenge Robin II, this sweary idiot decides to try to cross Wales in as close as possible to a completely straight line, cutting through dense woods, farms, rivers, hedgerows and back gardens. Cut up by barbed wire, stung by nettles, swimming through freezing rivers, and chased by farmers, it makes for gruelling, hilarious watching. Link is to the four-hour playlist; put it on in the background.
Review of North Trailhead Of Sawyer Camp Trail
This review of North Trailhead Of Sawyer Camp Trail originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.
Review of Golden Gate National Recreation Area
This review of Golden Gate National Recreation Area originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.
Dead Dad Day
I’m not sure that I process death in the same way that “normal” people do. I blame my family.
When my grandmother died in 2006 I was just in the process of packing up the car with Claire to try to get up to visit her before the inevitable happened. I received the phone call to advise me that she’d passed, and – ten emotional minutes later – Claire told me that she’d “never seen anybody go through the five stages of grief as fast as that before”. Apparently I was a textbook example of the Kübler-Ross model, only at speed. Perhaps I should volunteer to stand in front of introductory psychology classes and feel things, or something.
Since my dad’s death seven years ago, I’ve marked Dead Dad Day every 19 February a way that’s definitely “mine”: with a pint or three of Guinness (which my dad enjoyed… except if there were a cheaper Irish stout on draught because he never quite shook off his working-class roots) and some outdoors and ideally a hill, although Oxfordshire makes the latter a little difficult. On the second anniversary of my dad’s death, I commemorated his love of setting out and checking the map later by making my first geohashing expedition: it seemed appropriate that even without him, I could make a journey without either of us being sure of either the route… or the destination.
As I implied at his funeral, I’ve always been far more-interested in celebrating life than mourning death (that might be why I’m not always the best at supporting those in grief). I’m not saying that it isn’t sad that he went before his time: it is. What’s worst, I think, is when I remember how close-but-not-quite he came to getting to meet his grandchildren… who’d have doubtless called him “Grandpeter”.
We all get to live, and we’re all going to die, and I’d honestly be delighted if I thought that people might remember me with the same kind of smile (and just occasionally tear) that finds my face every Dead Dad Day.
The Search for England’s Forgotten Footpaths
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Nineteen years ago, the British government passed one of its periodic laws to manage how people move through the countryside. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act created a new “right to roam” on common land, opening up three million acres of mountains and moor, heath and down, to cyclists, climbers, and dog walkers. It also set an ambitious goal: to record every public path crisscrossing England and Wales by January 1, 2026. The British Isles have been walked for a long time. They have been mapped, and mapped again, for centuries. But that does not mean that everything adds up, or makes sense. Between them, England and Wales have around a hundred and forty thousand miles of footpaths, of which around ten per cent are impassable at any time, with another ten thousand miles that are thought to have dropped off maps or otherwise misplaced. Finding them all again is like reconstructing the roots of a tree. In 2004, a government project, named Discovering Lost Ways, was given a fifteen-million-pound budget to solve the problem. It ended four years later, overwhelmed. “Lost Footpaths to Stay Lost,” the Daily Telegraph reported. Since then, despite the apparent impossibility of the task, the 2026 cutoff has remained on the statute books, leaving the job of finding and logging the nation’s forgotten paths to walkers, horse people, and other obsessives who can’t abide the muddled situation.
A couple of days into the New Year, with the deadline now only seven years off, I met Bob Fraser, a retired highway engineer, in a parking lot a few miles outside Truro, in Cornwall, in the far west of England. Fraser grew up in Cornwall and returned about thirty years ago, which is when he noticed that many footpaths were inaccessible or ended for no reason. “I suppose that got me interested in trying to get the problem sorted out,” he said. Since he retired, seven years ago, Fraser has been researching and walking more or less full time; in the past three years, he has applied to reinstate sixteen lost paths.
…
Ending on a High
For the final week of his 52 Reflect series and as a way to see off the year, Robin and I spent the last weekend of the year near Fort William to facilitate a quick ascent of Ben Nevis. My previous expedition to Britain’s highest point was an excuse for some ice climbing but I hadn’t actually come up the “path” route since an aborted expedition in 2009.
Somehow in the intervening years I’ve gotten way out of practice and even more out of shape because our expedition was hard. Partly that was our fault for choosing to climb on one of the shortest days of the year, requiring that we maintain a better-than-par pace throughout to allow us to get up and down before the sun set (which we actually managed with further time in-hand), but mostly it’s the fact that I’ve neglected my climbing: just about the only routine exercise I get these days is cycling, and with changes in my work/life balance I’m now only doing that for about 40 miles in a typical week.
For the longest time my primary mountaineering-buddy was my dad, who was – prior to his death during a hillwalking accident – a bigger climber and hiker than I’ll ever be. Indeed, I’ve been “pushed on” by trying to keep up with my father enough times that fighting to keep up with Robin at the weekend was second nature. If I want to get back to the point where I’m fit enough for ice climbing again I probably need to start by finding the excuse for getting up a hill once in a while more-often than I do, first, too. Perhaps I can lay some of the blame for my being out of practice in the flat, gentle plains of Oxfordshire?
In any case, it was a worthwhile and enjoyable treat to be able to be part of Robin’s final reflection as well as to end the year somewhat-literally “on a high” by seeing off 2018 in the Scottish Highlands. If you’ve not read his blog about his adventures of the last 52 weekends, you should: whether taking a Boris Bike from Brixton to Brighton (within the rental window) or hitching a ride on an aeroplane, he’s provided a year’s worth of fantastic stories accompanied by some great photography.
And now: time for 2019.
Note #12728
Summit of Ben Nevis with Robin (on almost the shortest day of the year) to finish off his 52 Reflect project.
Challenge Robin II
After the success of Challenge Robin this summer – where Ruth and I blindfolded her brother Robin and drove him out to the middle of nowhere without his phone or money and challenged him to find his way home – Robin’s been angling for a sequel. He even went so far as to suffix the title of his blog post on the subject “(part 1)”, in the hopes perhaps that we’d find a way to repeat the experience.
In response to an email sent a week in advance of the challenge, Robin quickly prepared and returned a “permission slip” from his parents, although I’m skeptical that either of them actually saw this document, let alone signed it.
With about a day to go before the challenge began, Robin’s phone will have received a number of instructional messages from a sender-ID called “Control”, instructing him of his first actions and kicking off his adventure. He’d already committed to going to work on Friday with a bag fully-packed for whatever we might have in store for him, but he doubtless wouldn’t have guessed quite how much work had been put into this operation.
By 18:06 he still hadn’t arrived to meet his contact. Had this adventure fallen at the first hurdle? Only time would tell…
Update – Friday 9 November 18:45: Robin arrived late and apologetic to find his contact, “Frowny”, at the GBK at that address, was played by JTA.
The pair ate and drank and “Frowny” handed Robin his first clue: a map pointing to Cornwall Gardens in Kensington and instructions on where to find the next clue when he got there. The game was afoot!
Clearly he’d taken the idea of being prepared for anything to a level beyond what we’d expected. Among his other provisions, he was carrying a tent, sleeping bag, and passport! “Clearly my mistake,” he told his contact, “Was giving intelligent people a challenge and then leaving them three months to plan.”
Update – Friday 9 November 19:53: In Cornwall Gardens, Robin found the note (delayed somewhat, perhaps by the growing dark) and began his treasure trail.
Soon after, though, things started to go very wrong…
Update – Friday 9 Novembr 20:40: Let’s take a diversion, and I’ll rely on JTA to keep Robin’s eyes away from this post for a bit. Here’s what was supposed to happen:
- Robin would follow a trail of clues around London which would give him key words whose names alluded to literature about Paddington (station) and Penzance. Eventually he’d find a puzzle box and, upon solving it, discover inside tickets for the Paddington-to-Penzance overnight sleeper train.
- Meanwhile, I’ve been rushing around the countryside near Penzance setting up an epic extension to the previous trail complete with puzzles, mixed-terrain hikes, highlands, islands, lions, tigers and bears (oh my). Some of those might not really have been in the plan.
Meanwhile, here’s what actually happened:
- Storms swept in across Penzance, soaking me, and
- Causing the sleeper train to get cancelled.
So now we’re working out what to do next. Right now I’m holed-up in an undisclosed location near Penzance (the ultimate target of the challenge) and Robin’s all the way over in London. We’re working on it, but this hasn’t been so successful as we might have liked.
Update – Saturday 10 November 07:58: We’ve managed to get Robin onto a series of different trains rather than the sleeper, so he’ll still get to Penzance… eventually! Meanwhile, I’m adjusting the planned order of stages at this end to ensure that he can still get a decent hike in (weather permitting).
Update – Saturday 10 November 10:45: Originally, when Robin had been expected to arrive in Penzance via a sleeper train about three hours ago, he’d have received his first instruction via The Gadget, which JTA gave him in London:
The Gadget’s primary purpose is to send realtime updates on Robin’s position so that I can plot it on a map (and report it to you guys!) and to issue him with hints so that he knows where he’s headed next, without giving him access to a phone, Internet, navigation, maps, etc. The first instruction would be to head to Sullivan’s Diner for breakfast (where I’ve asked staff to issue him with his first clue): cool eh? But now he’s only going to be arriving in the afternoon so I’m going to have to adapt on-the-fly. Luckily I’ve got a plan.
I’m going to meet Robin off his train and suggest he skips this first leg of the challenge, because the second leg is… sort-of time-critical…
Update – Saturday 10 November 13:29: Robin finally arrives in Penzance on a (further-delayed) train. I’ve given him a sausage sandwich at Sullivan’s Diner (who then gave him the clue above), turned on The Gadget (so I’ve got live tracking of his location), and given him the next clue (the one he’d have gotten at Roger’s Tower) and its accompanying prop.
Armed with the clue, Robin quickly saw the challenge that faced him…
After all of these delays, there’s only about an hour and a half until the tide comes in enough to submerge the causeway to St. Michael’s Mount: the island he’s being sent to. And he’s got to get there (about an hour’s walk away), across the causeway, find the next clue, and back across the causeway to avoid being stranded. The race is on.
Luckily, he’d been able to open the puzzle box and knows broadly where to look on the island for the next clue. How will he do? We’ll have to wait and see…
Update – Saturday 10 November 14:18: Robin made spectacular time sprinting along the coast to Longrock (although his route might have been suboptimal). At 14:18 he began to cross to the island, but with only a little over half an hour until the tide began to cover the causeway, he’d have to hunt quickly for the password he needed.
At 14:22 he retreived the clue and put the password into The Gadget: now he had a new set of instructions – to get to a particular location without being told what it was… only a real-time display of how far away it was. 7.5km and counting…
Update – Saturday 10 November 14:57: Robin’s making his way along the coast (at a more-reasonable pace now!). He’s sticking to the road rather than the more-attractive coast path, so I’ve had “Control” give him a nudge via The Gadget to see if he’d prefer to try the more-scenic route: he’ll need to, at some point, if he’s to find his way to the box I’ve hidden.
Update – Saturday 10 November 16:50: No idea where Robin is; The Gadget’s GPS has gone all screwy.
But it looks like he probably made it to Cudden Point, where the final clue was hidden. And then kept moving, suggesting that he retreived it without plunging over the cliff and into the sea.
In it, he’ll have found a clue as to broadly where his bed is tonight, plus a final (very devious) puzzle box with the exact location.
The sun is setting and Robin’s into the final stretch. Will he make it?
Update – Saturday 10 November 17:25: He’s going to make it! He’s actually going to make it! Looks like he’s under a mile away and heading in the right direction!
Update – Saturday 10 November 17:55: He made it!
We’ve both got lots to say, so a full debrief will take place in a separate blog post.
Challenge Robin
Do you remember Challenge Anneka? It aired during the late 1980s and early 1990s and basically involved TV presenter Anneka Rice being dropped off somewhere “random” and being challenged to find and help people in sort-of a treasure-trail activity; sort of a game show but with only one competitor and the prizes are community projects and charities. No? Doesn’t matter, it’s just what I was thinking about.
Ruth‘s brother Robin is doing a project this year that he calls 52 Reflect (you may recall I shared his inaugural post) which sees him leaving London to visit a different place every weekend, hike around, and take some photos. This last weekend, though, he hadn’t made any plans, so he came up to Oxford and asked us to decide where he went: we were to pick a place between 10 and 15 miles away, blindfold him, and drop him off there to see if he could find his way home. Naturally he’d need to be deprived of a means of navigation or communication, so we took his phone, and to increase the challenge we also took his wallet, leaving him with only a tenner in case he needed to buy a packet of crisps or something.
After much secretive discussion, we eventually settled on N 51° 50.898′, W 001° 28.987′: a footpath through a field in the nothingness to the West of Finstock, a village near the only-slightly-larger town of Charlbury. Then the next morning we bundled Robin into a car (with a blindfold on), drove him out to near the spot, walked him the rest of the way (we’d been careful to pick somewhere we believed we could walk a blindfolded person to safely), and ran quietly away while he counted to 120 and took off his blindfold.
I also slipped a “logging only” GPS received into his backpack so that we’d be able, after the fact, to extract data about his journey – distance, speeds, route etc.. And so when he turned up soaking wet on our door some hours later we could look at the path he took at the same time as he told us the story of his adventure. (If you’re of such an inclination, you can download the GPX file.)
For the full story of his adventure, go read Robin’s piece about it (the blog posts of his other adventures are pretty good too). Robin’s expressed an interest in doing something similar – or even crazier – in future, so you might be hearing more of this kind of thing.