Navigating

This Weeks Stats & Diary

Its been a week of non-stop navigating both on activities & as we approach our 2010-2011 year end at the Centre.



Stickle Tarn & Pavey Ark - you can imagine what the vis was like!!


27/02/11 Campcraft Session - got my Terra Nova Solar tent out for a practise run today
26/02/11 Lord's Seat & Broom Fell; Navigation Practise (approx 5 miles & 1500' ascent)
24/02/11 Pike o' Stickle; Harrison Stickle & Pavey Ark; Navigation Practise (approx 6 miles & 3000' ascent)

	Run	Bike	Walk	(all in miles)
This week	0	0	11	11
This year	47	58	42	147
		Ascent (run/walk) this week		4500
	This Year			16430

Lord's Seat & Broom Fell
With: on my own
Weather: clear; cool; fresh NW wind; good vis

This corner of the lakes beyween Whinlatter to the south & the A66 to the immediate north is not an area I have visited before. Grassy hills with lots of forrestry - not really my favourite. However, I needed to do a session on 1:50,000 maps (used landranger 90) & this area suited my purposes / the time available. I parked up at Wythop Hall & worked my way up Lord's Seat via several features before crossing the saddle to the summit of Broom Fell - small hill - huge cairn! Great views to Skiddaw as its summit cleared of cloud. Returned across open fell via a couple more features - successful day, nav worked well.

Statistics: approx 5 miles; 1500' ascent; 2 Wainwrights

Broom Fell Summit

Approaching Lord's Seat

Pike O' Stickle; Harrison Stickle & Pavey Ark

With: on my own
Weather: atrocious - cool; visibility continuously less than 20m above ca. 300m

My objective today was to really test my navigation, as such no complaints about the conditions - the visibility really was low. Set out along Dungeon Ghyll heading towards Pike O'Stickle quite a stiff climb - continuously estimated distances from feature to feature all the way up. Found Pike O' Stickle summit at second attempt - you really couldn't see it & then set off into the wilderness to find a stream confluence - got there ok. Picked out a path junction to get to next & then Harrison Stickle summit where vis was probably at a low. Quite bizarre: at this point out of the mist emerged Brendan & Sarah Robson - just married on Saturday! They are regulars at the Centre but I've not seen them for about a year so it was good to catch up. From here picked out a nearby ring contour before heading off to a tarn close to the "summit" of Pavey Ark. Found the tarn successfully & helped out a hopelessly lost party who were relieved to be set back in the right direction! Headed off in search of head of Bright Beck which I used as a handrail down to Stickle Tarn & then back to the car. Barely used a path throughout - all done on compass; pacing & by following contour features. I did make a couple of mistakes but was able to identify them & correct - well pleased with the day.
Stats: 6 miles; 3,000' & 3 Wainwrights

Stickle Ghyll - with ample water

Centre Life (www.blaithwaite.co.uk)

Early Spring is always a really special time of year at Blaithwaite. The first signs of new life are all around & the first few rays of warm sun build expectation for the summer! That said it is one of the busiest times of year: we are approaching financial year end with all it entails & we are trying to complete projects before the year kicks off in earnest towards the end of March, no matter how hard we try to plan this phase there always seems to be some reason why it doesn't work out as planned - this year the exceptionally cold winter has impacted our schemes somewhat!

We currently have long term guests in residence - a missionary group part way through a twelve night stay in the Stables. Whilst the weekend saw a returning Church from Manchester enjoy a relaxing weekend of fellowship in the Main House.