How's the weather ?
- Thread starter Toddy
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With weather like this I'm surprised you don't long to go home.
We've had hail, snow, sleet, rain, gales and blizzards all day long.
It's a little calmer now, but the wind feels like it's coming from the Arctic and everything is slushy wet and slippery. It's just above freezing just now, but if it does freeze, it's going to be dreadful on paths and roads.
I know it's nothing like the winds and floods in other areas, but still most unpleasant.
We've had hail, snow, sleet, rain, gales and blizzards all day long.
It's a little calmer now, but the wind feels like it's coming from the Arctic and everything is slushy wet and slippery. It's just above freezing just now, but if it does freeze, it's going to be dreadful on paths and roads.
I know it's nothing like the winds and floods in other areas, but still most unpleasant.
Just having a power cut. Second since this all started. I'm the only one in the street with any lights, just cooked my tea on the camping stove.... sweet and sour chicken and rice. Now I'm relaxing by candlelight listening to the radio on battery power. Last one was four hours but I was outside most of it and it was daytime. Wonder how long this one will last.
Thank goodness I keep well stocked with batteries and candles and camping gas!
The wind has picked up again and it's been hailing this afternoon.
Picked up a lot of fallen branches for the fire today.now nicely processed and drying ready for use. Been a busy day!
Thank goodness I keep well stocked with batteries and candles and camping gas!
The wind has picked up again and it's been hailing this afternoon.
Picked up a lot of fallen branches for the fire today.now nicely processed and drying ready for use. Been a busy day!
Is it me or was thunder and lcightning a thing of summers hyears ago. Thunder during the winter seems a new modern anomaly.
Here's some lunacy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51447226
weather where I am hasn't been too bad, thankfully.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51447226
weather where I am hasn't been too bad, thankfully.
Don't knock trainers I've enjoyed quite a few Lakeland winters wearing fell shoes. It's inexperience and lack of knowledge in the skills needed in those conditions that's the real issue.
However I would never wear fell shoes up there in winter. Possibly only because I don't know it as well as I do the Lakes. If you know your patch well, yourself and your kit there's just the skills left to worry about.
The most important thing you need in the hills in winter weighs nothing. That's skills, knowledge or experience. That applies to driving around in storms like these. My favourite learnt skill is basically the confidence to know it's not my day and the acceptance that I should bug out. It's kept me and others safe at times. Better an £80 taxi bill than going back over the winter stormy hills.
However I would never wear fell shoes up there in winter. Possibly only because I don't know it as well as I do the Lakes. If you know your patch well, yourself and your kit there's just the skills left to worry about.
The most important thing you need in the hills in winter weighs nothing. That's skills, knowledge or experience. That applies to driving around in storms like these. My favourite learnt skill is basically the confidence to know it's not my day and the acceptance that I should bug out. It's kept me and others safe at times. Better an £80 taxi bill than going back over the winter stormy hills.
PS round here there's floods, strong winds and high tides to worry about. My parents had to get home before the tide cut the road to their house. They only live near Arnside too. I've never known any family member needing to watch the tides like that.
Is it really ? Trainers and no map in February to climb the countries highest peak. Obviously they had the sense to take their mobiles with them to keep abreast of Facebook. What is the difference between lack of skills, lack of common sense, and gross stupidity ? DIscuss.
I suspect that Joss Naylor spent most of his time in the mountains in trainers (or wellies) but agree completely with your general sentiment.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...an-joss-naylor-wasdale?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Too many people assume that the conditions at the top of a mountain will be the same as in the carpark at the bottom and dress accordingly and get a nasty shock when the gain of elevation and or find themselves on a north facing slope where the path or scramble down is a sheet of ice and light is fading. Those guys were very lucky that they had mobile reception and their batteries held out and the MRT found them in time.
Carrying crampons, ice axe and the knowledge if how to use them should be the default option in in the mountains in winter unless you know the route and understand the conditions and are confident about the conditions.
The modest size and accessibility of UK mountains in global terms belies the fact that when they bite, they bite hard. The climbers from the “golden age” of British climbing in the 1950s-70s used to joke that the Himalayas were great training for the real thing - Scottish winter mountaineering!
I’ve been in the Elan Valley all day today and the wind whipping over the Claerwen dam was brutal - a colleague with a bit less ballast than I am blessed with was knocked off her feet!
Didn't make the point you're arguing against I made the point that it's not the wearing of trainers that's the issue but the lack of knowledge and experience that's caused their predicament. If they'd more knowledge they'd have stayed away from that trip.
I was also making the point that a lot of experienced people do get out in winter without a lot of the trappings of kit that apparently you need with you. It's often more important to have the knowledge and experience than oodles of kit. Kit is a poor substitute to knowledge.
I was also making the point that a lot of experienced people do get out in winter without a lot of the trappings of kit that apparently you need with you. It's often more important to have the knowledge and experience than oodles of kit. Kit is a poor substitute to knowledge.
Awoke to a snow day. -5C and no wind, a little snow or a lot, depends upon the moment.
Would be a grand day for a snowshoe walk along some ratty logging road.
The Sherpa Bears have ice claws for climbing.
My 60" long trailbreakers don't stress your groin at all.
All I need now are new boot bindings.
Would be a grand day for a snowshoe walk along some ratty logging road.
The Sherpa Bears have ice claws for climbing.
My 60" long trailbreakers don't stress your groin at all.
All I need now are new boot bindings.
Joss Naylor was an absolute legend and allround great guy. Apparently when at his peak a certain distance track athlete once answered a journalist who he thought was Britain's greatest athlete. He answered, without hesitation, that it was Joss Naylor. An athlete's athlete but down to earth.
Tough as nails. Broke his back as a kid I believe and that's caused a weakness in one leg. He is basically running with one good leg using the terrain to compensate. All the while keeping a hill farm going.
A mate bought a raffle ticket from the Wasdale MRT event in that valley. He won first prize, a day running with Joss Naylor. Being slow walker and not a runner he ended up having a great day walk in Wasdale area being shown the rarely seen side that only someone with JNs knowledge could show. By all accounts he was great company.
Sorry for the suggestion, I'm a big fan of his.
Btw he simply doesn't need a map in the lakes. I'm the same with about 80 to 90% of the NP. I rarely carry maps anymore. My visual memory of the land is all the maps I need. I've seen so many places in so many conditions I just know what to expect before I set off. It allows me to carry less kit. I would not recommend my approach to everyone though.
Tough as nails. Broke his back as a kid I believe and that's caused a weakness in one leg. He is basically running with one good leg using the terrain to compensate. All the while keeping a hill farm going.
A mate bought a raffle ticket from the Wasdale MRT event in that valley. He won first prize, a day running with Joss Naylor. Being slow walker and not a runner he ended up having a great day walk in Wasdale area being shown the rarely seen side that only someone with JNs knowledge could show. By all accounts he was great company.
Sorry for the suggestion, I'm a big fan of his.
Btw he simply doesn't need a map in the lakes. I'm the same with about 80 to 90% of the NP. I rarely carry maps anymore. My visual memory of the land is all the maps I need. I've seen so many places in so many conditions I just know what to expect before I set off. It allows me to carry less kit. I would not recommend my approach to everyone though.
I just wonder why they thought they could do this climb with such lack of kit. I tried to walk the pig track up snowdon in winter once. Once the track got slippy I turned round and came back. I had the sense not to go on despite having a lot of kit with me but no crampons. Despite good winter boots I decided one slip and disaster could occur in a second.
The chap I was with was eager to go on, but I was adamant we would go no further. As we were debating hotly the situation, mountain rescue appeared going up to rescue a family stuck further up. One with a broken ankle. I won the argument!
I think these lads should be given a big bill!
The chap I was with was eager to go on, but I was adamant we would go no further. As we were debating hotly the situation, mountain rescue appeared going up to rescue a family stuck further up. One with a broken ankle. I won the argument!
I think these lads should be given a big bill!
like not heading warnings not to go to the supermarket because of the weather. How do you account for idiots. 22 members of the Lochaber mountain rescue were out, and a helicopter because of "lack of knowledge" , these same 4 would probably play football on a motorway. Obviously wearing trainers.
Genuine stupidity has a cost.
Becoming much more popular here to make people pay for those risks that they make for themselves.
Just in the last 5 years, it has become obviously very trendy to go fully equipped with shovel, probe, Pieps beacon and Avalung.
The sled trail heads usually have a big arch/gate that tests beacon outputs. Even the climbers have all smartened up.
Becoming much more popular here to make people pay for those risks that they make for themselves.
Just in the last 5 years, it has become obviously very trendy to go fully equipped with shovel, probe, Pieps beacon and Avalung.
The sled trail heads usually have a big arch/gate that tests beacon outputs. Even the climbers have all smartened up.
These lads didn't have a whole lot of smarts. Suppose their phones hadn't worked. The mountain rescue would have been bringing bodies down off the mountain.
I wonder if they even had survival gear? As they were hypothermic I guess they didn't.
Unless you have real experience it's totaly foolhardy to attempt such a climb without maps and survival gear.
Even if I go for a trek in summer which isn't so often nowadays I'd always have gear to survive overnight. Let alone in winter.
Always a map and compass. If a fog comes down its so easy to get lost even if you know a place well.
I'd never ever rely on technology alone. Won't deny it can be useful but it can fail,batteries run out of juice signal failure etc.
I wonder if they even had survival gear? As they were hypothermic I guess they didn't.
Unless you have real experience it's totaly foolhardy to attempt such a climb without maps and survival gear.
Even if I go for a trek in summer which isn't so often nowadays I'd always have gear to survive overnight. Let alone in winter.
Always a map and compass. If a fog comes down its so easy to get lost even if you know a place well.
I'd never ever rely on technology alone. Won't deny it can be useful but it can fail,batteries run out of juice signal failure etc.
I think we are reaching more or less the same conclusion from different directions. I didn’t say that carrying full winter mountaineering kit and having the knowledge to use them should be a prerequisite for any trip into the UK mountains in the winter merely that it should be the default option.
If advice, experience, weather forecasts etc. lead you to take less kit then great no but IMHO it is better to have the kit and the knowledge of what is appropriate. If knowledge leads you to conclude that conditions require kit you don’t have with you then cracking on regardless (which I’m sure we have all done!
), is arguably worse than numpties with no gear and no idea! Sounds like you have enviable access to the Lakes but personally, I wouldn’t go on a serious walk there without a map - one of my fondest memories of the Lakes in winter was was getting myself off a very slippery Fairfield to within a few metres of where I intended in a blizzard with an almost total whiteout using just a map and compass. A challenging but enjoyable day with the right kit and knowledge.
If you can navigate from memory in conditions of almost total sensory deprivation where all features have been obscured then you are a better man than I and if you are reliant on smartphones etc for navigation if it all goes t!ts up then their poor battery life in cold conditions is a risk.
That’s what makes it fun here. All “features” are pretty much the same. The land is flat and the trees & brush in front of you look the same as the trees & brush behind you or to either side. Nothing but empty, flat woods for 5 to 50 miles in any direction if you’re in the middle of one of the State or national parks. Or alternatively swamp.
I've been making a quilt since Ne'erday (1st January) and each block represents one day's weather......today looks as striped as a zebra. Snow, sun, hail, sun, rain, sun, hail, sun, hail....and it's not even dark yet ! and oh, look, it's just clouded over again
Baltic cold when that wind blows too.
M
Baltic cold when that wind blows too.
M
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