rginns blog

I don't do long distance walking. However, having done the first half of the walk in 2012, I was expecting it to start hurting around day 3. I wasn't disappointed. At Catterick Bridge, we stayed in a pub B&B (which was, incidentally very pleasant). Here, I had to see to my feet. Twenty minutes with a needle and compede, and the work was done. My feet felt remarkably better after this. Evening meal, a beer, and bed. It took about half an hour before my feet started hurting the following day, but luckily, it wasn't that bad that it slowed me down. I like walking with my dad. We have the same pace really, although I tend to be quicker on the uphill, Dad is quicker towards the end of the day when I'm flagging. Still, we compliment each other well. This section took us along a flat plain towards the Cleveland Hills which you can see for ages, and promises more interesting walking that is a little more up and down than the Mowbray valley. We left Catterick Bridge, pa

We left Grinton Lodge in the morning and walked down the road, suitably refreshed after a few hours of unconsciousness. We were treated to fantastic views across the valleys. We made our way back to Fremington and rejoined the route following the Swale, we soon came to Marrick Priory after walking through sheep inhabited fields and barns, although we didn't make a detour. It seems to be an outdoor centre now, with a dozen willing idiots in helmets and lifejackets walking gleefully towards the river. They had picked a good day,  fairly sunny and still no rain. At this point we were overtaken by a rabble of about a hundred geriatric ramblers so we let them pass and waited, leaning on the fence. We then went through the gate and diagonally left up the grassy hill to a set of 375 steps through a wood and then a couple of fields and the hamlet of Marrick. Leaving here we were soon crossing fields of cows, a total contrast to the Lakes, tame by comparison. Field, wall, field, wall,

I'm quite behind with the blog, but will catch up over the next few days... In Late September me and Dad went up to Kirkby Stephen having walked from St Bees to Kirkby Stephen last year, thus completing half of the Coast to Coast. Last year it took around 5 days to reach Kirkby Stephen, meaning we had 6 days to walk from Kirkby Stephen to Robin Hoods Bay in order to finish in 11 days. We took an early train up, as early as we could, and after a change at Carlisle managed to get to Kirkby Stephen by 10:30am. Then ensued 13 hours of walking... This was to be the longest stretch of the week, over 26 miles and we already had a late start, so it wasn't the best of first days!! The highlight was the pull up to Nine Standards Rigg on Hartley Fell, the boundary between Cumbria and Yorkshire and pretty much the half way point on the route. We stopped here for some well earned cheese, Brot and dried apricots...   Pops on the way up to Nine Standards Rigg The descent from Nine Stan

Went to Egerton last Friday with Taffa to see just how wet it was... the only climbable rock was under the bridge and even here a lot of the lines were wet, which produced that really insecure slippy feeling you get in damp weather. Anyhow, we got some easy problems done and still had a good time... here's the vid...

As I was working away for most of the week I didn't manage to get out anywhere, in spite of working about 30 minutes south of Font. although this was frustrating I know there will be other occasions I can get there. This weekend saw the very first WiltonFest, a celebration of all things Wilton. This was organised by the BMC and luckily the weather was cracking - well, at least it wasn't raining..  I'd mentioned to R-man  that I'd intending in going and he was too. I was a bit unsure as to how many people would actually make it down, but it seems the Wilton's are really well appreciated, as there were 80 or 90 people down at one point!! I was pleasantly surprised to see a few boudering mats as well as plenty of old faces: Ousells Tim made it down, keen as mustard to try the line to the right of Cosmic Rockers on the inside of the Prow - a great looking though potentially squeezed in line that both Robin and Tim were trying on a top rope, It'll probably be 7c

So the training has taken a baack seat this week. I went up to Lancashire archives in Preston on Tuesday to drop off some more of the LCCC archives for safe keeping, and the rest of the week has been spent driving around the country sorting out various software and hardware issues on site for work, so psyche has been low for the wall.  Anyway, R-man contacted me to say he`s developed some bouldering at Egerton quarry and offered to give me a bit of a tour, so on Thursday I met him after work. After some parking  confusion, we located each other and made our way to the upper tier. Egerton is a pretty scruffy quarry, overgrown in places, but it has the same Lancashire charm that you often encounter, and the rock is mainly solid, crimpy, and there are some pretty good problems. All in all I climbed the following problems; Bringing the Bear 6a+, Reach for the Stars 6a, Competition Horror Show 6b+, Conniption 6c, Hit the Buzzer 6b, The Nose 5,  and a couple of other easy ones. If you ca

Ok, so Week 3 was pretty average, only managed two sessions on the board, the second of which was cut a little short as I managed to tweak my left middle finger slipping off a sidepull. Moral of the story is don`t assemble a table saw inbetween sets, especially if it has a freshly oiled blade. Or rather dry your hands and chalk up before getting back on the board. Ah well, you live and learn. It didn`t turn out too bad in the event, and in the morning it was just normal post session finger ache, but it could have gone the other way I guess. The week was topped off on the Saturday by a visit to Wilton 1 as Taffa fancied getting a rope on. Weather was pretty good, bit chilly but not too bad, and the  aim of the day was to get something done. Clearly a pretty low aim, but as we had 3 kids in tow and the better halves we could quite easily have come away empty handed... Whilst the kids looked fruitlessly for wimberrys (geddit?) we headed straight for the prow, and there was already a