Saturday 5 March 2016 – TGO Challengers’ Snake Reunion Walk

After some ‘interesting’ journeys in fresh snow, with the Snake Pass road pretending to be shut, about 14 'Hardy' souls set off at 10.30am from Fairholmes, by Ladybower Reservoir, on this year’s Saturday Reunion walk.

We soon reached the Upper Derwent Reservoir's dam. A gentle pace was adopted, even by Graham Brookes, to accommodate the desire of Alan and Chris to compose award winning images at their leisure whilst the rest of the group provided a slalom course for mountain bikers.

Good views up the valley were marred only by the intermittent nature of the sunshine and the tendency for the snowy horizon to merge with the colour of the clouds above the horizon, but blue sky did feature quite strongly.

The far point of our walk was the bridge beyond Cold Side, to the north of Howden Reservoir.

There were good views downstream, and upstream to the River Derwent and Cranberry Bed. No cranberries to harvest today!

We decided not to continue further up the Derwent Valley, and headed down the road beside Howden Reservoir, keeping a wary eye out for Lancaster bombers re-enacting their Dam Busting raids. It was here that they practiced.

Lunch was taken either by the roadside of by a crawl up the snowy bank to a grassy verandah with a nice view through the trees.

Soon after lunch, all but a group of five continued down the road and back to Fairholmes and an early bath back at the Snake Inn.

The five outcasts took a rising path through slurpy snow beside Ditch Clough, to Alport Castles.

Eventually we reached Alport Castles and admired the wide ranging snowy Peak District views.

There's some interesting geology in the vicinity of Alport Castles, namely The Tower and Little Moor.

Many pictures were taken on the lovely afternoon, albeit the snow was melting fast as we strolled across the pasture.

We enjoyed views north east to the Featherbed Moss/Back Tor area where our original walk was planned.

Snacks were taken. Cake and shortbread was available in considerable quantities.

After an hour or so on the tops, Ladybower Reservoir came into view and we commenced an easy descent back to a slightly slushy Fairholmes.

Soon afterwards we adjourned to the varying luxuries of the Snake Inn and Colin the campervan, where Mick and Gayle's café was doing a roaring trade, aided by our own cake and shortbread contribution. Andy Walker, looking as if he had just returned from an Arctic Expedition, soon smelt the cake and tried in vain to dent the stocks.

Here's our route - 19km with around 500 metres ascent, taking 5.5 hours.

The Snake Inn provided its usual hearty meal and a convivial evening was enjoyed by all, including a number of visitors for the evening who had ignored the discouraging signs for the Snake Pass, which continued its pretence at being closed.

There’s a 45 image slideshow here. Click the first image, then ‘slideshow’ for the full screen annotated slideshow.

Previous ‘reunion’ reports are here.

Commuting along the Bridgewater Canal

This morning’s picture shows the once muddy towpath of the Bridgewater Canal between Timperley and Brooklands, being used as a much needed commuter route for cyclists.

Well done those who have converted the muddy path into a (mainly) dry path. Cyclists should however be alert to the fact that this is a place where it should be safe for dog walkers to let their pets off the lead, so appropriate courtesies should be deployed.

Hopefully the whole of the towpath will eventually be renewed. The section from Altrincham to Lymm is currently a mud bath.

Graffiti from the Southern Half (12)

“Ahoy there. What’s that white stuff up in the Northern Quarter?”

“Surely not snow in Timperley?”

“And where’s this place?” “….we used to have one in Valparaiso, but an earthquake got it.”

Graffiti from the Southern Half (11)

We are now back in Timperley after another uneventful journey from Ottawa overnight on Monday.

Thanks go to Ken and Helen for putting us up putting up with us in their basement for two and a half weeks.

The picture above takes us back to early November, in Buenos Aires at the start of our South American trip. This huge mural on a building that was near our America Del Sur Hostel was a very convenient landmark whenever we became a little disorientated.

Monday 29 February 2016 – Kingsmere to Fortune

Today there was a forecast for freezing rain, so we bravely headed out to P7 – Kingsmere – in the hope of beating the rain, which had also fallen overnight, leaving a glassy veneer on everything, including the branches pictured above. Freezing rain is not good for trees.

As it turned out, the day was warm, with blue skies. Helen dropped us off at Kingsmere and drove to Fortune, meeting us at Huron Cabin for lunch, after which we all skied back down Fortune Parkway to P10.

Sue and I did the loop to Champlain Lookout while Helen and a courteous Frenchman sorted out the fire. All in all a most pleasurable 14km ski, with about 300 metres ascent.

Because of the poor forecast, all we took by way of cameras was my waterproof Lumix, some of the results of the use of which are shown below.

On the way home I bought some heated mittens. Duh, shouldn’t I have done that two weeks ago? The joke is, with all the batteries they need, I’ll have to shorten my wax pocket!

Sunday 28 February 2016 - Our Last Full Day in Ottawa

It was snowing again so we decided on a day at home whilst Ken whizzed around the 51km Freestyle (Skate Ski) Loppet*. He’d planned on only doing part of it due to his cold, but the conditions were good and he got round the whole course (the same course as the classic loppet in which we took part in 2012 – see link from yesterday’s posting) in a bit over five hours.

He kindly collected Sue’s bronze medal for coming third in her age category yesterday. She was as surprised as she was pleased!

So all we managed today by way of exercise was a 4km stroll down by the Rideau River with Helen.

That left us with time to finally get around to judging the entries in the Austrian Alpine Club’s 2015 photographic competition. There were lots of nice images to choose from, especially in the landscape/general category. Unfortunately we can’t publish them here, or even reveal the winners, so you’ll have to put up with more of my snapshots I’m afraid – today’s having been photoshopped in an effort to make them more interesting, scenes by the river on a cloudy day being of limited variety…

Thanks go to Ken and Helen for their input during the judging process.

If you do enter a photographic competition, please do pay attention to cropping your images, which should preferably have their main subject in focus. Take yourself back to the days when you slaved over chemicals in a darkroom, with various gadgets to lighten and darken certain areas and to print just the part of the image you wanted to look at.

This may be the last posting from Ottawa as we go home tomorrow.

* The Freestyle Loppet was won by a Frenchman, in Ottawa as a waxing technician for the French World Cup Sprint team, who started in the second wave two minutes behind the elite skiers. The ‘elite’ Norwegian who came over the line first was not impressed!

Saturday 27 February 2016 – The Gatineau Loppet (51km Classique)

In days past, our Canadian trips concluded with the two day, 160km, Canadian Ski Marathon (of which we only ever managed around 100km). These days our final long ski of the trip has come to be the Gatineau Loppet, a 51km race.

I first did this in 2012 (report here) and Sue and I did it in really tough conditions last year (report here). Those reports give a good indication of what the event is all about so there’s no need to repeat the words here.

I applied three layers of blue wax to Sue and my skis in the hope that it would get us through the race. That just about worked for me – well it must have done because despite some loss of grip I was still going along fairly quickly at the end. Sue wisely added a bit of lilac wax after 30km to give her some grip up the long hill to Huron Cabin. (This year’s route was the same as last year’s – P17 to P2.)

Meanwhile Ken was struggling with a cold, and had his own waxing problems. I was surprised to see him at Huron, from where he sped off on his newly waxed planks, finishing a few minutes ahead of me.

Here’s how the four hundred or so skiers get to the start after leaving their transport at the finish.

It was a relatively warm day – minus 5 to minus 15C, depending on the wind chill. I took a few photos at the start. Here are the ‘elite’ skiers, of whom number 60 is the last person on the trail. He eventually finished in last place – position 358 out of 433 entries, so 75 people either didn’t turn up or missed the 30km cut off (mainly the former).

The Finnish entrants in particular seem to have been very optimistic about their predicted times, which dictates where you start. Here’s the second wave setting off, a few of whom we passed later on.

The conditions were great. After a couple of kilometres I knew the cut-off point at 30km would be passed with lots of time (nearly an hour, as it turned out) in hand, so we could enjoy a relatively energetic ski in lovely conditions on great trails without having to worry about ‘busting a gut’ to make the cut off.

Sue and I started right at the back of the field, in the knowledge that we are two of the slower people taking part. Very quickly you settle into a rhythm and find yourself going along quite comfortably at the pace of the person ahead. There’s no point in carrying any food or water as that is provided at 10km intervals.

During the entire race I had no need to open my bum bag, and I took no photos – the two layers of clothing – icebreaker top and RAB vapour rise smock, long johns and fleece trousers – were fine, with the smock’s zip being used as a regulator depending on the wind, which at times was quite brisk, leaving us to contend with falling leaves and spindrift every now and then.

Towards the end we became aware of other events taking place as part of the same ‘festival’. There are shorter ski races that attract slower participants. These people got in the way, as did the fat tyred bikes who were engaged in a race that crossed the ski trail. But there was just about room for everyone.

It was good to get to the finish in 5 hours 18 minutes, a little behind Ken, and a bit ahead of Sue, (and nearly an hour quicker than last year) where a team of people were removing our timing chips and handing out medals and this year’s ‘gift’ (the event costs over £50 to enter) of a headband.

We all took advantage of the free meal for skiers in the school cafeteria, after which Sue and I lounged around whilst Ken had the massage that helps him wind down.

On the way back to the car, Sue and I adopted the same pose as last year (see header photo) and Ken tried to eat his medal.

Here, for the record, are a few screen dumps extracted from the results pages.

Full results should be here. It appears that Sue and I were the only two Brits taking part this year, in this international race!

And whilst Sue doesn’t often contribute to these pages, she has written a little on Facebook on this occasion:

Conditions for this years 51km classic ski Gatineau Loppet were good, with mild temperatures and good grooming. Starting just after 9am yesterday, in wave E, we enjoyed fast descents, frosting on the trees, and plenty of Gatorade at checkpoints. A strong breeze sent leaves and twigs into the tracks, but was helpful when blowing from behind! A brief re-wax at 30km saw me with good grip to the end, in 5 hours and 41 minutes, 3rd out of six women competing in my age group! Martin took 5 hours 18 minutes. For comparison, the winner took 2 hours 27 minutes!