See http://www.topwalks.com/tgoc2011.html Day 11 for map
Distance: 27km (Cum 266) [Mike 25 - Cum 249]
Ascent: 1965 metres (Cum 10220) [Mike 400 - Cum 7485]
Time taken: 6.8hrs including 0.7hr stops [Mike 5.9hrs incl 0.6hr stops]
Weather: rain all day, and quite windy.
Challengers encountered: Roger B - all day, numerous in Ballater.
Others encountered: nobody daft enough to be out walking, other than Challengers.
Flora and Fauna: the crows were flying backwards
Best bit: a hot shower at Ballater camp site
Worst bit: wearing waterproofs all day (again) but at least we are dry.
The rain started around 4am, and the wind gradually increased, on this our eighth day out eleven wearing full waterproofs.
Nevertheless, it's a lovely valley walk from Loch Builg to Ballater, and with the 'weather' mostly at our backs, we still enjoyed it.
Roger joined us for the entire walk, which was conducted in wind and rain, without sufficient respite for a brew stop.
Roger and I trotted up Craigendarroch (I'm pictured there) whilst Mike found his way to the camp site. We followed, after calling TGO Control, where Roger Smith sounded stressed. We found out why when we got to the camp site. Trees had blown down where Challengers had been pitched last night. So we are not camping. We are in a big room in the camp site office. About a dozen of us. It'll be noisy!
Elsewhere, it seems Challengers are stranded with even some low level routes being impassable.
We are looking forward to a leisurely evening with Markus, Silke and Roger, as well as numerous others, in the Alexandra, where Bill Strang tried but failed to reach us - sorry not to be seeing you Bill!
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
4 comments:
Hi Martin
Good to hear that you are safe and sound (and having just watched the news, good to hear you're indoors tonight!) Well done for Days 1-11 and I hope you enjoy the rest of the Challenge and that the weather starts to get better for you. See you in the Lakes at the end of next week!
Lyn x
Hi Martin
Glad to hear you did Craigendarroch again and that your out of the weather tonight, been blowing dogs off chains here all day !! Good luck to you and Mike for the remainder of the challenge. Cheers Eddie
hi Martin,
Have been trying to text the weather for you today but for some reason it would not go.
Anyway i'm sure you will have it by now.
Looking better for thursday but deteriorating again friday.
If you crossed passes early in the day you would have got over. I was low on the roads in the end and trees fell on the road about 800m away from me. Branches broke and it was hard to keep upright at times in the glen on the road in the afternoon. Wild day monday.
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