Photo Gallerys... Video from the summit (large File) Report... Well, here we are, the start of another academic year, and for some of us, including me, this year will be the last. First trips of the year have a nasty habit of having problems, mainly due to the fact that its usually people organising them that are new to their roles and there are so many new people, plus plain bad luck. In 2003 the club ended up driving the wrong way on the motorway and ended up on the outskirts of London rather than the Lake District, In 2004, we got to the camping barn really late after having to rescue a guy who was lying in the road after being run over, In 2005 our minibus had a slight accident (known as Phil) and me, Matt and Rob ended having to spend quite a bit of time sorting out replacement transport, so as you can see the first trip of an academic year has a bit of a reputation. I'll let you read on for yourself to decide if this trip lived up to that reputation. We met at the Sports Centre at 7pm, ready for heading off, we were taking the brand new 17 seater minibus and my car. We loaded most people into the bus and those who were left got the comfort of the car, its a false hope really, those who arrive early and are ready to go sooner get the discomfort of the minibus to travel up there, the late comers and those who didn't claim seats son enough get the comfort of a nice clean, fairly fast car with climate control and a decent stereo, not to mention being safe from Phils driving (which has got us into trouble before). While everything was being loaded we came upon a slight problem, Jon and Gwen had had the great idea of buying a large pack of Tesco Value Eggs to take up there, the eggs themselves weren't a problem, the problem was how to get them there in one piece as they couldn't be piled in like the rest of the kit, I didn't want them in my car and Gwen didn't think anyone would want to nurse them on the bus. However I have never like being defeated by inamorata objects (Please note, I said I didn't like it, not, that It didn't happen quite a lot), I noticed Callum walking back to the bus from the little boys room (that's the loo, not a kiddies play area), I called him over, passed he eggs and asked him to stick them on the bus, problem solved, and if they break, its not my problem.
We discussed routes very briefly, we didn't need to discuss them for long as Jon said it was simple to get to and I had satellite navigation in my car. However I did manage to get Phil pretty excited when I handed him a map to plan his route on, the map was of Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, where I had met my family a few weeks earlier (it was visiting day at the ape house, only joking). Phil planned to drive straight through the bears enclosure, followed by the wolf enclosure, play chicken with the elephants, take a toilet/food break in the lion enclosure (I'm not quite sure whether it was the people in the bus, or the lions outside the bus he was intending to allow to get some food here), the big dilemma that he had was that he couldn't decide whether to crash into the flamingo pool, which was next to the restaurant so everyone could grab some food while the minibus was recovered, or to crash into the penguin pond, where everyone would have penguins to play with. I think in the end he decided that the penguin pool would be the better one, mainly because he wanted a penguin and he reckoned he could get a good price for them on ebay. I nabbed the map off him in the end as he was planning this way too well, and as everyone knows Phil doesn't do things by halves usually and I didn't fancy having to explain to the university how their new minibus ended up in a penguin enclosure, over 100 miles away from the Lake District, and actually in the opposite direction to the Lake District. We set off and surprise surprise, my car was going faster that the 17 seater minibus, even with Phil driving. We had a great journey up, with very little traffic,except the little bit around Birmingham which I think is always there. Everyone in the car was really chatty, which can be unusual for new members, but was great for me as there nothing worse than driving while everyone is asleep and there's no one to talk to. We managed a bit of a race with a minibus of Scouts on the motorway, which obviously we won, but they gave up a good fight in their 17 seater minibus. The satnav brought us to the road that the camping barn was on, though not by the easiest route as its a computer, it just calculates the most logical route, i.e. the shortest, which in this case took us down a small forest track by a burnt out car. I was starting to worry about Phil taking the minibus down this track, due to his reputation, but it turns out that they had directions for the easier route. Going back to where we were, the satnav had directed us to the road that the camping barn was on as that was all the postcode would do, but this wasn't ideal as we found out later that the farm where the camping barn was was actually quite a way off this road, and by quite a way, I mean at least half a mile. We drove along the road a bit before decided the best thing to do would be to ask at one of the houses, there were 2 to choose from, 1 which looked really eery and possibly even haunted and a nice looking house. Strangely enough we chose the nice looking house, we were going to choose the haunted house as none of us believed in ghosts, but we weren't too keen on getting scared or attacked by something we didn't believe in. Although by the look of the haunted house, if we rang the door bell, it would be answered by someone closely resembling Lurch from the Adams Family (course as soon as he answered the door, he'd be mobbed by us asking for his autograph). We got directions from the house as to which gate and farm track to go down. This is where using cars for these trips is not ideal as, although my car is very comfy, pretty nippy and has a decent stereo, it wasn't really designed for off-roading, though the last company car I had before I moved to France and then moved to Oxford for uni got taken on no end of off-roading round Lincolnshire, even some routes that my mate wouldn't take his Land Rover. We drove though about 3 different field, each divided by a gate, which some un-lucky person had to get out and open each time, thankfully as driver I was excused from that duty, and I was really good to the people who had to do this as I have been known to just drive off when Al and Amy have done this in the past (often with humorous results, I've ended up driving down Cheney Lane with the President of the Club at that point running behind the minibus and Marie (the girl who Matt thought wanted to kill him) laughing and egging me on from the back seat). We found the farm at the end of the track, just after the field of cows that we drove through, but it took us another 10 minutes to find the barn as it had no lights on at that point and was in the middle of a sheep field.
We got the stuff moved in, starting with the most essential kit first, the alcohol, which through the process of good planning I had made sure was in my car. Obviously we got first pick of the beds in this extremely nice camping barn, in fact you could call it a bunk house as we had bunk beds in the rooms, a living area, indoor loo and a kitchen. After about half an hour or 2 leisurely cans of strongbow (depending on what unit of time you use) the minibus turned up. They had the advantage of seeing the camping barn easily as we had all the lights on now. Everyone moved in and claimed their beds, well, those that would get beds claimed them, as there were not enough beds to go round. If anyone's wondering, the eggs got there ok. We settled down for a drink, or 2, or several as we're students. Jon had chosen the right lager, as the lager that he had chosen came with a free beer tub, which when filled with water will keep your beer and milk cool. We had a few hands of cards before heading to bed, well all of us except Jon, Callum and Phil headed up to bed, unfortunately they had to sleep in the living room as there weren't enough beds for everyone, “UNLUCKY GUYS!!!”, I felt sorry for you as I was snuggled up comfy in my bed. Saturday The following day started in the abrupt manner that has become a tradition on trips, playing music extremely loud, preferably something either really hardcore so people can't get back to sleep or so annoying that people will rush to get up and turn it off. I've found that the Crazy Frog works really well, though the first time I tried it in North Yorkshire Moors last year, I pressed play and near enough as soon as it started playing I turned round to find Maddy with her arms out stretched ready to strangle me, unfortunately she went further than just looking like she was gonna strangle me and did actually attempt it, nice going for a vegetarian (except when it's meat off my plate in restaurants, who against cruelty to all animals (except me, apparently). Anyway, back to the story at hand. Everyone drifted up over the next ten to fifteen minutes, this is what happens when you play music that people can stand in a morning, they don't get up as quick. There was the usual queue for the toilet and sink, with some resourceful members taking the sheeps approach to the morning essentials to avoid the queue. Breakfast was the standard Quaker Cereals (that Quaker the oats brand, not Quaker the religion, though some people are still asking questions how Pepsi was able to buy the Quaker religion, when i fact they bought Quaker Oats the company). We made the sandwiches while Joe described this random text message that he had received, some girl who he doesn't think he knows, sent him a text message saying she had just got a trout and would he like to come round and try it, which if it was meant to be a pick up line, she deserves a medal for originality and daring as I can't see it working with people on a standard night out unless your trying to pull fish fettishers.
We got loading in the vehicles, amazingly the comfort of the car seemed to be a second choice for most people, I'm starting to think I smell or something. We started along the field tracks to the road, but there was a spooky sight in the fields that we drove through, the cows that were in the field the night previous, were now sheep. It's like some kind of curse, WereSheep, by day their sheep, but by night, when the light of the full moon hits them, their cows, Spooky! Anyway, like most mornings we couldn't go straight to the start of the walk, this time the reason was that we had to drop in at the filling station at Kendal to fill the minibus up (Cars tank is still half full, hows that for efficiency) and as everyone knows, Phil won't make his own sandwiches so he has to get some from the filling station. We now had the most enduring part of the journey, now usually that would put images of trying to get the minibus up steep hills, along the treacherous, only accessible to 4x4's Rhino Pass or trying to get the minibus back on the road after a Phil mishap (check the trip report of last years Lakes Trip, the Alps trip of the 2nd Lakes Trip of last year to find out what Phil mishaps are). In this case what we had to put up with was nothing like that, we got stuck behind a passenger vehicle, this may not sound like much until you find out that the vehicle was a converted battery powered milk float that only did 10mph, downhill, so we meandered down the lane at about 8mph, which is good for passenger who can look at the views, but not for drivers like me and Phil. We followed the milk float till it pulled over in Ambleside, at which point it was overtaken by over 25 vehicles, including a VW Passat with the passengers making gestures at him. Once we'd got past the milk float pretending to be a bus we made great time to the car park where we were to start, but somehow the minibus made it there first, must be Phil's driving.
At the bottom we got the usual formalities of group photos out of the way and then set off. Well most of us set off, Phil and Gwen took this moment to check the minibus was locked and then start playing with the locking button. Basically the side sliding door wouldn't shut properly, then when you try locking it when a door is open the horn beeps, then the alarm will go off after a few seconds. It was pretty impressive, looking down the hill to see Phil slamming the side door as hard as he could, then Gwen would press the locking button and the bus would start beeping its horn at them. This went on for about 10 minutes. We had a quick break after about 15 minutes so people could take off excess cloths and so Gwen and Phil could catch up (I think they managed to lock the bus in the end). The first part of the walk was a pretty steep, hard slog, but you gain hight really quickly and within 15 minutes we had got an amazing view over the lake. These type of slopes really separate the men from the boys, or in our cases the physically fit people from the people with medical issues and beer bellies (aka me). Strangely enough, last time we attempted a long steep slope like this the 2 people who seemed to struggle the most were the ex-Royal Marine and the guy working as a Lifeguard. Gwen and Jon were starting to show signs of becoming a married couple, they were starting to argue like a married couple, Gwen was staying at the back, as a back person, while Jon was trying to get her to walk faster, it doesn't sound much now, but at the time it was actually very amusing. I carried on with the group till we reached what had, from a little way up, looked like the end of the steep slope, but was in fact just a change in gradient. The rest of the group carried on, after Gwen had given me some motherly words, “be careful and text us when you get to the bottom, so we know your safe”, she's worse that my mother, and this came only 2 weeks after she had been hitting me at the welcome meeting. I walked down carefully, as Gwen had told me to and because I was knackered. I should probably just mention here that I was recovering from a chronic back problem at this point and had had 3 operations over the summer, so I had a decent excuse for turning back, I wasn't just being a mincer. I got to the bottom to find an ice cream van in the car park selling some locally made dairy ice cream, so I grabbed 2 of them and texted Gwen to tell he I was safe and was eating ice cream, that'll make her jealous. I then popped back to Ambleside to the Outdoor shops there, as Ambleside is, in my opinion, the best place to go shopping for outdoor pursuits gear, well there and Decathlon stores, mainly cos their cheap and we all like cheap. Jon had also taken the opportunity to give me a shopping list for the club, thanks mate.
The rest of the group carried on to the summit of Helvellyn, which at 950 metres (3,117 feet) above sea level, it is the third highest peak in both the Lake District and England. On the way up they managed to find a specially adapted wheelbarrow, which had handles at both ends and no wheel. A similar type of carrying device is currently being considered for Scotland, to get stuff to the top of Ben Nevis. The group carried on to the summit of Helvellyn, along the summit (as its got a long flat summit, which people have actually managed to land aeroplanes on top of. From the summit of Helvellyn the main group headed to Grisedale Tarn. From here there was a big decision to make, not big as in, “should we cancel third world debt”, more, big as in “Should we head down now, or do another summit”. The decision was made to head down to the pub, a very fine student orientated decision, if you ask me, not that I'm against walking, I'm just all for going to the pub, and seem to have a reputation for it. The group headed down, while Jon attempted to call me and get me to come and meet them, however there was some problems getting phone reception, but thankfully I was on my way back anyway. We met up at Grasmere, where there were a few post walk photos taken, and then the drivers got in the car for me to take them back to pick up the bus, while the rest of the group went to the pub. We returned to the pub after collecting the minibus, which unlocked a lot easier than it had locked, which possible means that Phil and Gwen were pretending to have locking problems, just to get attention, SAD. The rest of the group had already got their drinks in (though none of them had got drinks in for the drivers, take the hint ready for the next trip). The driving team (Adders, Gwen and Phil) got in the queue for a non-alcoholic drink, mine and Gwen's luck must have been in, as Phil unfortunately had no cash on him so rather than borrowing money from poor, hard up students, he decided to use his card. This worked out great as the minimum spend was about £7, so me and Gwen got a large cola each, plus some crisps, Phil got a pint of the local ale (he wasn't driving again that day), but the bill still didn't add up to enough, so he ordered a portion of chips for the whole group. This was great as Phil immediately disappeared outside for a fag leaving the chips with me and Gwen. We took them to the group and you'll be amazed how popular you become when you are holding food, even though we'd already had half of them. Phil managed to get 2 big chips in the end, not bad considering he bought them.
After the pub we headed back to the barn. Gwen wasted no time in taking charge of the kitchen, though Jon didn't seem to realise that she was in charge, as he kept wandering in and randomly stirring the pasta and sources, and then telling Gwen they needed stirring, even though she had stirred them just previous to him coming in. As I said earlier, their starting to behave like a married couple. This did lead to some, what I consider to be sexist from Gwen, that he's behaving like a typical man in the kitchen, I am nothing like that in the kitchen, mind you, there isn't much stirring required in microwave meals. While in the kitchen watching the sitcom “Gwen and Jon Cook”, it became apparent that Gwen must have shares in the Sweetcorn industry as half the vegetables in the vegetable source were sweetcorn, she had also put out bowls of Sweetcorn on the table for people to nibble at instead of crisps, and as soon as I walked in the kitchen she had presented me with a bowl full of sweetcorn and a spoon. What's worse was the fact that there was still half a catering sized tin of sweetcorn left. I was getting worried that if I opened my mouth in my sleep, she'd drop a spoon full of sweetcorn in it. She didn't seem to get the hint that we really weren't that keen on sweetcorn. While I working at an activity centre, they used to open a can the same size as ours and it would be enough for about 150 kids and 50 very hungry staff, she was trying to get the same amount eaten by 20 people. Anyway, the sweetcorn with pasta and vegetables went down well, then came the pudding of custard, with one or 2 people trying to compete to eat the most custard, its like primary school all over again, but this time without the lumps in the custard, which my dinner ladies at school always assured me were meant to be in there, I guess our custard chefs weren't quite talented enough to cook lumps into custard.
After we'd finished eating we did the standard student evening activities, which as I'm sure you aware include, thinking about doing the washing up and then deciding to just dump it in the sink and leave it instead, followed by some more drinks and a game of cards. As we are all students, and fairly smart we chose a game which would challenge us both intellectually and physically, Snap. You may think that Snap isn't particularly challenging intellectually, but once your had a few pints, suddenly it becomes more taxing on the brain. If you drink enough, the game gets even more entertaining as you can always see 2 cards the same, it's known as double vision. People slowly started to make their way upstairs to bed. Well all except the 3 guys (Callum, Phil and Jon) who were sleeping downstairs. Sunday The following morning the usual wake up order was back. I woke up around 7ish, and crept downstairs as everyone else was still asleep. At the bottom of the stairs Callum had decided he didn't like Phil and Jons snoring (don't deny it Jon, I know you snore, I heard you). This in itself wasn't a bad idea, but he had managed to roll over in the night so that he blocked the kitchen door (O well, I was really looking forward to doing last nights washing up, but I'll have to go with out), the Outside door (looks like we're trapped inside the barn then) and was making it harder to open the living room door. Thankfully our safety officer was asleep and couldn't see this obstruction blocking the exits, mind you, as our safety officer is Phil and he was in the living room, he'd have struggled to get out the living room to see the obstruction. I though I ort to let everyone else sleep for a bit longer, so I entertained myself for an hour by reading the leaflets about the area and building a fort around Phil, using the benches, spare cushions and spare club sleeping bags. I would have put the kettle on, but we needed to put another £1 in the electric box, and Jon was asleep in the way of the cupboard with the box in. Eventually, I got bored and lonely and decided it was time for everyone to wake up so it was time to play “The Crazy Frog”, which is guaranteed to get everyone rushing up to turn it off. This did work for some people, though Phil, who was right next to the stereo managed to sleep straight through the whole song, the fort must have been pretty sound proof. When he did eventually wake up, he didn't seem to be surprised that he had woken up surrounded by benches, cushions and sleeping bags, as if that kind of thing happens to him on a regular basis. Everyone came down in dribs and drabs, most headed for the washing facilities or the kettle and toaster. Phil, being the usual exception to the rule, headed outside for a smoke and a coffee, closely followed by Adders and Helen. We all headed outside for a bit of fresh morning air, it has nothing to do with the fact that Gwen was trying to second people into doing last nights washing up, though me and Phil should still be exempt from that under the old Fellwalking Club “Drivers Immunity Act 2003”, which states that drivers are excused from such chores. After breakfast there was a frenzy of activity as we got everything packed, loaded and the barn tidied and cleaned. This was hampered slightly by Phil taking this moment to return indoors and start getting breakfast and by the fact that the hoover actually threw out more dust that it picked up. Jon took charge of everything in the barn, Gwen had taken charge of the minibus loading, I took charge of loading the car and Phil got dressed. The eggs managed to cause yet another problem for us. They hadn't been used, even though we did serve up scrambled egg, or what people though was scrambled egg, it was in fact the congealed custard from last night, but it managed to fool some members into trying it. So what did we do with the eggs, we refused to take them back with us and it may look a bit bad, giving the farmer 24 Tesco Value eggs, when he has Hens laying top quality free range eggs. We decided to leave the eggs in the end.
We loaded the vehicles and headed off to Langdale, which seems like an easy thing to do, but there were complications, for a start I got stuck in a queue of traffic behind the milk float thing again, we got past this at Ambleside again and started travelling at a decent speed, by decent speed, I mean that my car was no longer being overtaken by the ramblers, out for a gentle Sunday ramble). We managed to pick up the signs to Langdale and followed them easily enough, though we found out later that it was directing us down the less favourable route, mainly single track roads and then the worst bit of all, the Infamous “Wrynose Pass”, where we nearly lost a minibus in 2003. For anyone who doesn't know Wrynose Pass, it is a narrow, low quality road/track over the undulating steep slopes on the hills, this is only really advisable in a four wheel drive, not a minibus, or a VW estate car. In this case I managed to get through to the other end with just 1 minor issue on route, the clutch had got a tad hot, by that I mean red hot with smoke coming from under the wheel arches, not ideal, but no permanent damage done, my clutch disc just has a nice char grilled effect on it now. We got to the car park where we were meeting the other and got started walking pretty quickly as they had been waiting quite a while, since they didn't get stuck behind the milk float thing and then missed the first signs for Langdale, so took the second set which was a much, much better route. We started walking up the valley, which starts really easy, but then gets steeper. After about an hour we were probably just under halfway up, but we had found a small pool in the river, which people wanted to swim in, and eat lunch. Callum, Jonjo, Sagan and Charles braved the cold of the pool while everyone else watched and Jon started wandering off, he really doesn't like stopping. This seems like a good point to say that the swimming in the pools in this area has been done before on a previous Lake District trip, then in Loch Ness and then there was the real hardcore version in a stream, just below an Alpine Glassier.
From here the rest of the group headed up to the summit, while I turned back and headed back to the vehicles. The group had decided to do a round route and come down the spur close to the car park, and of course the pub (we are students after all). While at the top they met up with Lancaster University Hiking Club, who had popped up for the day and run into us (Unlucky!). This is about the time Jon texted me to tell me to meet them at the bottom of the spur, so as I was nearly at the spur I headed straight there and started waiting for them, at the same time they was several miles away at the top of the hill. We eventually met up two and a half hours later. I'd seen Lancaster come down, another university club and a group of Scouts, possibly the ones we were racing in the minibus. From here we allowed our natural student instinct to take control and about 15 minutes later we found ourselves sat in the pub (strange how it led us there). This was the dedicated hikers bar in The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, which does great food at reasonable prices, and they ain't too stingy with the portions either. After the food and a few photos, it was time to pile into the vehicles again and head home. This time I had let the minibus go first, so as to give it a fair head start, though we thought the fact that Phil was driving would give them that anyway. We managed to find our way out of the Lakes pretty easily and managed to catch the minibus up on the motorway. At the time the minibus was sticking under the speed limit and was in the side lane with everything overtaking it, our natural assumption was that Gwen was now driving, however when we pulled into the services, they followed and parked next to us. As the driver got out it was a shock for all of us, as either Gwen who we assumed was driving had grown a dodgy moustache and goaty or Phil was driving. Given the fact that Gwens hormones are against her ever growing a full moustache and goaty without major body changes, we assumed that Phil must have been driving. It turns out that Phil had taken notice of something I'd said last year about there being new Average Speed Camera's on the motorways and it had scared him into driving within the speed limit. For anyone else who may be scared of these camera's, the government has admitted that there is a fault with them not detecting you, if you change lanes. From here we ploughed on back to Oxford, where we arrived in the early hours. Altogether a successful trip and one that will hopefully set the standard for the rest of the year. Chairman and Alumni Officer
|
|
||
