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Published: December 11th 2010
ILONA>>>>>>
After buying alot of winter gear for me, such as ice axes and moon boots!!
we finally could set of to lake district, this fantastic national park is where you keep on longing back!
we check in to a old rotten hotel with a central location, an unfriendly skinny geeky boy hands over our key,,
we go out for a beer and some food near by, and then early to bed, the wet carpet gave off a funny smell in the room, and weird noises went off in shifts all night as it does in old houses, so after a crap night sleep, we got up at 5 in the morning, to be the first hikers out!
it was freezing cold this morning, so we lost the feeling in our feet straight away, then richard gets us up the wrong mountain, that turned out to be the mountain from hell!! i was busting for a pee, all this adds up to a bit of bickering =)..
after spilling out our koffie water and almost setting the grass on fire, we starting to see the fun in it, and then the sunrise came!
RICHARD>>>>>>>
we watched the sunrise for a
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day 1, early start,while and the chill came out of the air a little, we carried on up over the first ridge into a strong wind and deep soft snow, eventually we reached the top, took a few photos and headed off over to the next valley and onto sharp edge, ilona didnt really realize what was in store ahead!!!, come to think of it neither did i! after our descent from hell ( waist deep powder snow ) we decided on a food stop, After 30 minutes sat in snow with a numb arse and a storm cooker with about as much power as a tea light candle, we attempted to chew our pot noodle semi raw.....not funny.
As we were crunching through our noodles we noticed the team in front of us taking a long time on the ridge, conditions did not seem perfrect.
we packed up and head for the knife edge ridge, i was in front, Ilona behind, our crampons scratching through the powder snow....no ice anywhere!! its hard to decide whether the crampons helped or disabled us but this was not the place to take them off and find out!!! the second step on the ridge is bad
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long way to go!
no idea whats ahead... and awkward, lucky for me i forgot to mention to ilona that this section had seen 66 accidents and 10 fatalities in 20 years!! Not the place to try out a new pair of crampons....sorry!
anyway, eventually we reached the end of the ridge and i could see in Ilonas eyes she was happy about surviving, as we looked like an elephant on rollerskates across that edge.
ILONA>>>>>>>>>
so after surviving that epic, we only had a 3 hour walk back to the car, downhill on another ridge, our feet and backs were broken, in total that day we walked for 8,5 hours and 1200 meters in hight,
overclass practice for backpacking,
on the way back in the car, we almost crash with another car coming down on the wrong side of the slip
road , we getting worried that death is out to get us that day, richard starts boxing the inside off the window in our car, to scare the crazy driver, im sure he got plenty scared,
back in hotel, no time to get pretty, we are 2 hungry and thirsty wolves heading for the bar,
we orderd the giant portion of guolash with a large
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sunrise! base ball bat sized baugette each and a good pint, (the next 3 nights we had our meal there, we discoverd that there was alot of different choises on the menu, but they all looked exactly like that guolash we had the first day,including the pie???, good buisness idea!!) and out of date meat i expect.
RICHARD>>>>>>>>>
day 2 we went up around 7 (a sleep in!) heading for some ice climbing to test ilonas axes, we where tipped off that a good route was only 20 min away from a car park!!! yeah whatever!!
After driving down icy hills and staring at each other wondering how the hell we could drive back up the hill later (now if a girl who lives in sweden and used to drive a truck in Norway winter is worried then i am s**t scared!)
we arrive at the car park and pulled on our even heavier packs containing climbing equipment, and walked for 3 hrs to the climb, jumping into, or falling into a couple of rivers along the way. wading through knee deep snow the day after an 8 hour epic is not our idea of fun, i was worried about
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man setting grass on fire with gas burner! a goulash related toilet emergency that was brewing, and the lack of spare underpants i had forgot to pack!!
we reached the mountain a little to late for us to do a full route, we half decided just to play about on a frozen waterfall for ilonas first time on ice climbing, however we noticed a good line up a large crack in the mountain face and off we went.
ILONA>>>>>>>>>
it was my first ice-climb experience and richards first time to lead a ice route, for this day he bought 3 new fancy flashy tools to use to secure the route as he climbs, he uses only one of these on the way, so when its my turn to climb up, i have to take this tool out, as it was, richard must have thought it was a big risk that he could come of this mountain, so he nailed that damn thing to the wall with all he was worth!!,
it made it a complete nightmare for me to get it out, 20 minutes later and with deep frozen hands, i said to myself this might not be my thing, i also shouted to richard - what
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man watching coffee water tipping over! retard put this gear in? knowing very well who it was, i couldn't see him, but i know he was smiling!! after smashing halv the waterfall out with my axe, i got richards precious new flashy gear out! finally i could continue climbing,
arriving cranky to the top, finding Richard to be equally cranky, since he slipped and almost fell off the ledge when building a belay! again happy to be alive we continue further up, this time more enjoyable, even though richard got caught up in his own gear and almost fell backwards! ha ha all great fun!
RICHARD>>>>>>>>
we reached the top packed our gear and had to find our way off the mountain as it was starting to get dark, warming up quickly and the snow/ice was melting rapidly (the quickest i have ever seen)
we traversed across to a dead end and had to re trace our steps, i was beginning to think we may have to abseil back down the route. as the snow pack was braking away in big chunks, we didn't really fancy snow block surfing off the cliff below..
Eventually we made it back down to the car very very exhausted,but
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fantastic wiew! in good time as the clouds rolled in and it started to rain, but with only half of the route we wanted to do, done, but it was a good day and we learn t a lot, (mainly keep off the Goulash)
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Richie Carr
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The Good old Lakes...
I do miss the lake district a lot even though i'm right at the foot of the rockies..!! some cracking pics there mate... enjoy singapore and post some pics when you get chance..! Rik