Mam Tor, Edale, Peak District

Well yes I am sunburnt and a little tired now after a little stroll :) The organisation was slightly better than last time.. i.e. I wasn't eight hours late this time and my clutch on my car behaved.. However I did faff a little and began my journey out at about 08:35 (5 minutes late) lol.. anyway I went off to pick up Ben and we faffed there.. lol Ben was making last minute footwear decisions.. and telling me about his day in Evesham before.. We made our way a little further and picked up Helen P.. who allegedly been waiting for us for 15mins outside her house :p all ready we set off towards the Peaks via the usual, stone, leek, buxton route.. get regular updates re peoples positions.. i got ben to phone helen e to make sure that they had got out of bed... lol only to get a helpful text message shortly later saying we are lost.. oh dear :)



Anyway arriving at the Winnats Pass Car Park, Alex, Fran and Sarah had been waiting.. a rapid round of phonecalls to find out where people were.. Richard had been driving around Castleton for an hour lol.. Helen E and Tom were somewhere in Castleton in a random car park.. at which point I had to move a car over to Edale for later.. So Alex and I did that.. semi-hoping on my return the remaining five people had turned up.. lol.. ant and another helen - thats three helens arrived so now only 3 to arrive.. at this point establishing with helen e that they were in castleton and walking in the right direction.. and rapidly approaching midday we finally all got to gether - not too bad an hour late :)



We decided to have a gentle walk because it was getting a bit muggy so we headed towards Mam tor, via Treak Cliff Cavern.. after a slightly going the wrong way we corrected and walked up to the pass between Mam Tor and Lords Seat.. noticing the variety of coloured paragliders launching from the top. I reckon there was maybe a dozen of them at this point circling around.. A quick ascent to the top of Mam Tor we grabbed some lunch at the side.. and watched the mist rise of the hills to give us a lovely view of edale. I saw what I thought was a baby paraglider, expecting a dare-devil tott to be taking to the skies.. then realising it was a kite lol..



The sun blazing now, we started to move off as we were all getting a little bit sleepy and we headed back down to the pass and back over Lords Seat. Following a few discussions relating how important bum jokes were value to a relationship we reached the the summit and it was blue skies :) and the beginning of reddening skin too..

After another short rest we began to head west down to where the path crosses the old pennine way and turned noth heading towards edale. Decision time and enusing other commitments we decided the pub on a nice summer afternoon would be a good option, so we made our descent back down to edale via Chapel Gate, where I took a few snaps of some roses and thistles. Also admiring the view :)



At which point our party split, where the drinkers went to the pub and the drivers went back to the car..



Driving back up through Winatts Pass I did my usual random photos out of the window, I decided to park the cars in the car park furthest away from the pub car park genius.. After being convinced that I should try the local home brew in the country fare which was going on, I caught up with the rest to wind the walk off with a lovely refreshing drink in the pub :)



Summary:

Better than last times organisation.
Nice sunny day
Pub was definitely needed at the end.

Snowdon Mountain Hut

Ok that was a little bit of eventful weekend.. now all is fine - well except the bank balance.. i'll explain further in a moment..So as it came by the first myspace outing I had a hand in organising... ok alright yes i've met a few of you before.. but the first time the walking group I set up has met up.

The original plan was to drive up on Friday night, Chris and Richard had all ready got there by then.. but Matt thought his car a classic old tank of a volvo was going to breakdown (oh the irony) so he decided to wait till the next day and pick up a hire car and another passanger - natasha..

Myself and the jester, decided to leave in the morning. Monkey and penguin also hitched a lift... It was such a beautiful day as we journeyed up towards snowdonia.. blue skies everywhere.. building confidence that we may get some pretty decent weather... we decided to stop off at Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.. and stretch the lags, a comedy video was dispensed,

We passed some tame ducks and continued across the aqueduct which gave really good views of the valley..

After a short while we strolled back to the car.. and then the noises started..

Yes pulling back out onto the A5 - the car was not accelerating properly.. it was reving and mcnevving.. starting to get a little worried.. we managed to keep going and got to betws-y-coed where we stopped for some food and supplies.. Betws-y-coed has lost its appeal to me now.. maybe because i've stayed in many of the b&bs and drank and eat pretty much everywhere in the small town.. anyway back to the story.. well discussing with phil the odds about making it to the hut in the car or home.. we agreed that the hut was probably doable.. we managed about two miles out of betws and the car screamed to a halt.. not taking any more we were stuck on a rather steep hill and on a bend.. with little choice to get out and push.. i ordered my passenger to comply.. he did funny enough and i stayed sat in the car - aren't I a meanie. anyway phil uttering the words you can push and steer you git.. we pushed the car into a small forest commission car park..

as we informed everyone what happened.. and got the breakdown people out.. the guy turned up was very welsh.. the guy who turned up was character straight out of league of gentlemen or something - couldn't understand a word he said.. had half of his teeth missing.. but he was a lovely chap.. phil obviously taking in source material for his next sketch.. jokes aside - I was relieved my weekend wasn't a complete disaster as the breakdown geezer said he could recovery the clutch destroyed vehicle back to brum without me..

So what do we do now? Well we got a lift back to betws and went to the pub of course.. a few pints here and there - as phil and I chatted to this group of people from yorkshire.. they had three lovely dogs - who were quite friendly!! anyway mr butcher aka la wetboy was well on his way and showed up a few hours later with natasha and we made haste to the mountain hut.. grabbing some erm not so nice food on the way - steak pies better than the thai curries we finally caught up with chris and richard. Who probably thought we weren't going to show up at this point..

Matt gave richard a lift back to the hut as his legs were a little weary after the days walk he had done with chris.. oops the bag of wood I bought which sat on the back of matts hire car leaked - had as much water as wood in it and drenched the back seat of his car... oh dear..

Anyway after the food was eaten we made it back to the hut which was quite basic but cozy enough as richard had got a good fire going.. anyway at this point lots of silliness such as climbing up the ladder to the bunk beds upside down - which noone managed - but matt gave it a good go.. singing of various degrees of talent was heard.. some silliness about nuns and ninjas at one point i seem to recall.. you get the idea - whiskey and beer fueled...

We all managed to turn in about 2am.. making sure the alarms were set.. we got some sleep.. the lads in room 1 and the other two in the lovers warren next door.. The only stirrings in the night was erm one of our group not being very well and a chorus of snoring.. i didn't hear anything.. until monty python rang in the morning...

Jumping out of bed, looking out of the window.. honeymoon hangover period in full swing - i made some tea.. phil was beer banged destroyed and the others stirred into action.. after an hour or so we headed for the hills at about 9am.

We decided to walk up from Rhyd Du - and carry on east towards the bottom of the southern ridge up to snowdon.. some of us, actually probably us all - were feeling the ill effects from the night before.. but we struggled on - it was such a lovely morning - really fresh - really clear.. really crisp..



we stopped by some of the quarries on the way up the base of the ridge - where we had a little rest - and i decided to investigate this waterfall - that sorted my head out when is stuck it under there!! then after some mindless chucking of rocks into a quarry hole and some pistacho nuts we journeyed on to the base of the ridge.. at this point Phil and I remarked that we had been hear a year ago.. at the same point where you can look down into the valley where the watkin path is.. and remarked how lucky we were today with the weather!! we began the ascent up to snowdon now in earnest from 500m to 1085!! we went up along this beautiful ridge - you could see for miles..



you could make out holy island on the other side of anglesey clearly.. the deep blues of the sea.. and some mist clinging to a valley far to the east.. I also noticed the reflection of the clouds in the lakes below.. We managed to get to the crowded top - note this route is the 3rd hardest way up - but i'd guess most people at the top walked up either the miners track or the llanberis path - the easier routes up - there was very little wind - so a walk over crib goch would have been pretty amazing that day... anyway the first thing i noticed at the top was the cafe had been completely demolished.. no burgers for phil.. then there were loads of seagulls trying to pick up all the food bits left over from the walkers.. only admiring the views for a short while as a few clouds had come in now - and when the sun passed behind them.. there was a noticeable dip in temperature..





we turned back and went back down the way we came for a brief distance.. before we stopped for lunch - where we shared some oggies, wagon wheels and bananas!! i forgot my flask (old man I sound) but tea up there would have been nice!! Phil momentarilly having a back spasm which was midly amusing for the rest of us.. we made our way back to the car.. mostly coming up with ideas for a house party - erm lets just say not very pc ones.. lol..

Tired legs amongst us we went seperate ways and made the journies back home.



So there we are the first myspace 'lets go for a stroll' walk completed.. many thanks to chris for sorting the accomodation out.. hopefully looking forward to seeing a few more faces next time :)

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Thats all folks... :)