Snowdon horseshoe

Datum:

04.10.2009

Scafell Pike with Mum

Datum:

29.08.2009

Bank holiday weekend was spent taking Mum on our annual trip to the Lakes together; this weekend was unfortunately not blessed with the most fantastic weather ever, and on the Saturday we drove to Seathwaite from Borrowdale youth hostel to join several other parties of walkers who were making the trudge up to the top of England's highest despite the miserable and dreary wet weather. Surprisingly my Mum, even though not a hiker - didn't complain once. Even I didn't find the walk up Grains Gill particularly inspiring with the lack of views, but we carried on anyway. By the time we'd passed Sprinkling Tarn and gotten up to Esk Hause the wind was blowing really rather strongly and I was cold enough to need to put on extra layers. Probably wearing more on the summer bank holiday weekend than I sometimes >>>

Hamperokken

Datum:

05.08.2009

Tourcharakter:

Wanderung

I did this trip with some friends during the EISCAT workshop being held in Tromso. Since there was an afternoon free without any seminars or talks and the weather was forecasted to be warm and amzing all week, we were all psyched up for doing a mountain hike, especially since the three of us had climbed and summited Mont Blanc together only a few weeks earlier. Hamperokken was our destination of desire, and we managed to convince a few other workshop friends to join us too, which was also quite handy because they had a car after having driven from Sodankyla in Finland to Tromso. It was quite an unpleasant start to try and get up and out of the forest and at times too unenjoyable to want to carry on with the hike, especially since the temperature was in the 20s and there were lots of midges around >>>

Mont Blanc

Datum:

15.07.2009

Tourcharakter:

Hochtour

© Hannah Vickers Wednesday, 15th July 2009 Bumming around in the morning and generally not rushing around was quite nice after 2 days of early starts. In fact, 10am actually came round pretty quickly and we were soon met at the apartment by our guides Hannah and Anthony to make the drive over to Chamonix (yes, it became something of a joke that there were actually three Hannahs in a group of 6). The general plan was to have lunch in Argentiere and then continue to the Aiguille du Midi station in Chamonix. Surprisingly it took less time to travel by car than it did when we took the Mont Blanc Express train, despite all the switchbacks in the road which probably made the route longer. It was about midday by the time we parked up in Argentiere and we sat at some park benches to eat our sandwiches. Chamonix was >>>

Weissmies

Datum:

14.07.2009

Tourcharakter:

Hochtour

© Hannah Vickers Having a day trip to the Weissmies meant that we could carry relatively light rucksacks and there wasn’t too many things to have to think about packing. So at 6am, we bundled back into Anthony’s Audi and drove down to the Tamoil garage at Sion to meet Hannah, our other guide and also split up into 2 cars which would be a lot more comfortable for the journey up to Saas Grund. It was a dry, slightly overcast morning, which was getting gradually sunnier as we progressed further east and up the valley again. Saas Grund wasn’t particularly high up, and we were going to take the Hohe Saas gondolas up to the station at about 3100m, which would place us quite nicely for the ascent to the top of the Weissmies at 4027m. We left the Hohe Saas station about 20 minutes after jumping on at Saas Grund, >>>

Pigne d'Arolla

Datum:

13.07.2009

Tourcharakter:

Hochtour

© Hannah Vickers Sunday, 12th July 2009 It was a nice, fresh morning we woke up to but it looked like it was gradually becoming more overcast as the morning drew on. Anthony, our guide, pulled up at the chalet at about 9.50am and our first stop was a gear hire shop in Les Hauderes, a couple of km down the road. Tobbe needed some proper boots and crampons, and Dan also needed to hire crampons. My chesty cough was still giving me much hassle, so I waited outside while they sorted out all the bits they needed. Once we'd driven to Arolla and parked up we began the walk in to the Dix hut. Mont Collon dominated the views at the top end of the valley, which stayed pretty much to our left. The air was warm but not too intense. At about halfway to the hut we reached a nice grassy plateau and stopped for some lunch. It >>>

Mont Buet

Datum:

10.07.2009

Tourcharakter:

Wanderung

© Hannah Vickers Thursday, 9th July 2009 It was a beautiful morning to wake up to. Blue skies, minimal cloud on the mountain tops and fresh air. Hanna and I had the room with the view too, which meant we could step out onto the balcony and look straight up to the Aiguille du Midi – what more could you ask for? We met up with Dan and Tobbe at 8.30am for breakfast, so there was plenty of time for us both to shower before that. Unfortunately the 7.50 Euros breakfast proved a little disappointing. Apart from the fresh bread, croissants and coffee, there wasn’t much else on offer to satisfy our hungry hiker’s stomachs! Nevertheless, after we’d finished up in the dining room, we left a bit of kit behind in the hotel and set off for the train station, via the supermarket, to stock up on some food for lunch >>>

Langdale Pikes to Grasmere

Datum:

25.05.2009

A very steady and pleasant ascent of High Raise, apparently the most scenic viewpoint in the whole of Lakeland. The route took me up in warm sunshine from Landale youth hostel over the undulating plateau of Dow Bank-Lang How-Castle How up towards Sergeant Man, a nice little top shortly before the rather more dull shoulder that leads onto High Raise. Its not an interesting mountain itself to climb, but you do indeed get very good views all around; west towards Great Gable and Scafell and more closeby the drop down into the Langstrath valley, then north to Keswick, Skiddaw and Blencathra and the Drewent fells ot to the northwest. And east gets you the views of the Helvellyn ridge stretched out from Clough Head all the way down towards Fairfield and Rydal Fell near Ambleside. Great stuff. From >>>

Wastwater to Langdale

Datum:

24.05.2009

I love this route to bits! Despite having had a rather miserable hike the previous day, this one was amazing. Great weather, and great views and greater company - which was more of an unintentional thing. Started off from the Wastwater YHA, made my way back up the tedious tarmac road to the northern end of Wastwater, and from there began the steady but popular route of ascent up Scafell Pike which runs along Lingmell Gill. Its pretty OK, nothing amazing though and it starts to flatten out after Hollow Stones. From there though its a somewhat loose climb up a gully to reach the col bewteen Scafell and Scafell Pike, but you're virtually at the top by the tim you get here. A nice gently slope up to the summit and here I was joined, as I expected by a lot of other hikers. All of us were happy faced >>>

Ennerdale to Wasdale

Datum:

23.05.2009

There's not a lot to say about the weather on this day except that it started off in heavy rain with an unpleasant hike up rain-soaked grass to Steeple, where I got a bit lost so I have no idea how I got to Pillar. Somehow I had some luck in passing some other hikers who pointed me in the direction of Pillar so I followed their vague directions and found myself reassuringly up on its summit in yet more rain and with absolutely no views to speak of whatsoever. Nevertheless I carried on in the direction of the descent I thought I should be taking. Turns out it took me down the wrong side of the fell and back on to the Ennerdale side of Pillar, but at least when I got to this point it had stopped raining, the cloud had lifted and I could actually figure out where I was and where I needed to get >>>