Well, having missed out on the ukrw Winter Skills Expedition (number 17 was
it :-)) I decided to try and learn some of the basics myself. I had lined up
a climbing pal to help me out if enough snow arrived in the Dark Peak, but
sadly he wasn't available today. So I decided to try some of the exercises
from Trails "Snow Academy". Yes, I know, trusting Trail to teach me anything
might be a bit risky in some peoples eyes, but I doubt they wrote the
article themselves anyway. In fact you can still download it from
Trailroutes if anyone is interested in more winter skills study.
http://www.trailroutes.com/articles/Trail%20Winter%20Skills.pdf
I thought I was going to miss out on the snow, having been out of the
country the last two weekends and back at work this week driving through the
Peaks wondering if the snow would last until the weekend. I needn't have
worried, being able to see Shelf Stones from the back of my house it was
clear this morning that there was plenty left on the high peaks.
So I set off from Old Glossop around 9am heading for Shelf Benches and found
a nice patch of snow to practice on; gentle slope, no rocks sticking out of
it and an easy run-off. The snow was pretty icy and hard enough here that it
would collapse under my weight and quite slippy too, so it was on with the
crampons and spent a while walking up, down and across the slope. Then onto
self arrest, slid down the slope a couple of dozen times in various
positions until I was confident in being able to stop myself successfully.
All of this took about 1.5 hours and I was pretty tired by the end of it, so
I had a coffee, an Alpen bar and a bit of a rest.
www.gosney.plus.com/Practice_Slope.jpg
The plan was to head over to James's Thorn and the monument to a couple of
the many planes that crashed in the Dark Peak during and after WWII.
www.gosney.plus.com/James's_Thorn.jpg
A group of three behind me with their dog flushed out about three hares on
the way up, but none came close enough to get a good shot. Found an
interesting steep pull up to the top, had to kick post holes and plunge the
axe shaft in up to the head to help me pull up the slope. It was probably a
bit steeper than I would have liked not having attempted such an obstacle
before (not so dissimilar to a visit to the Ice Wall at Xscape last year!)
and the weather was starting to close in by now.
www.gosney.plus.com/Ascending_James's_Thorn.jpg
Took me half an hour to pull up to the monument by which time the snow was
coming down heavily and it was blowing a hooly! Got a quick look towards my
target of Shelf Stones before it disappeared in a white out.
www.gosney.plus.com/Monument.jpg
The snow then turned to hail and with the strong wind was quite painful on
the ears, even through a hood and fleece hat, and I couldn't turn into the
wind at all. This persisted for about half an hour, by which time I decided
discretion was the better part of valour, being a relative winter novice,
and decided to head back down. Cut north and then west to avoid descending
the slope I'd come up, I could really have done with my Aldi Ski mask at
this point heading into the wind, but it was still in a drawer at home,
before heading back towards Old Glossop.
Spotted a chap practising his skiing technique as I went back down! All in
all an interesting, pretty successful and thoroughly enjoyable day.
www.gosney.plus.com/Skier.jpg
Regards,
Richard G.