4 Boasts

What an absolutely crappy week this has been. I have been sinking beneath an ever growing mountain of work with a constant stream of people hassling me for things I haven't managed to do yet.

On Tuesday morning I came down stairs to find a magpie on my living room. Bloody big thing it was! The cat was chasing it around to no avail (being as it was bigger than the cat). It must have got in through the cat flap. I finally managed to get the thing out of the patio door (but not before it shat down our curtains) after about 10 minutes of struggle - and get myself off to work.

Lucy informed me that it is bad luck to see a lone magpie (something I was not aware of) and this rang true the next day when I crashed my car on a roundabout I have crossed a thousand times (incidentally, for the last 18 months I had been referring to it as 'the roundabout of death'). Then I spent the whole morning trying to figure out (via about 10 phone calls) who the bloody insurers were for my company car (even our finance director didn't know) as it had just changed the previous week.

But hey, I have managed to line up quite a few interesting bits of time off in the next six months. Each and every one of which I am excited about for different reasons.

In February I will be undertaking a 5 day winter mountaineering course. I recently sold my kidney on eBay to pay for boots, crampons and goretex jackets and am very excited about putting them to good use! I got the following email through from the course instructor today:

"Tower Ridge is a route that I would choose for the course but its a long route, so you will need to still be fit enough by day 4-5 of the course in order to go for it. Try to do as much airobic training bettween now and your arrival." I was hoping to get through it on strength of mind alone. I didnt realise I needed fitness!!

I was seconds from posting up a picture of Tower Ridge and then realised that both my mum and Lucy read this blog and after viewing the pictures - If I post them up I may not be allowed to go!

In May I am heading to Lake Garda and the Dolomite in Italy with Lucy, my friend The Nurse and his other half. He is my regular climbing buddy and we are going to tackle some via ferratta routes before retiring to the lake for some relaxation (and maybe a visit or two to Milan / Verona / Venica)

The best way I can describe Via Ferrata is that its like mountaineering or climbing but with fixed wires and ladders. We did some of it in a past visit to the Tatras in 2007.

In July we do the Hadrians Walk in aid of the Joseph Salmon Trust. I have been enstrusted with preparations and leadership of Team Bandicoot. We are going to be a small team (I am hoping for between 12 and 15 people), but we should get on great and there is nothing I love more than romping through the countryside in the sunshine. Conversely to the Pennine Way last year - we will also get some good nights sleep in hostels rather than tents which will be welcome for most (though secretly I would rather camp).

In late July / August, Lucy and I will be heading to Lebannon for a week - for a wedding in Beirut! This is somewhere we would probably not have chosen to visit (as there are so many places in the world we want to go), but I am really looking forward to it and it will be really interesting to get an inside view of such a different culture.

Apparently we will be spending some of our time in a small border village where we have to get signed in and out. The hills are supposed to be amazing here too, but the warnings about land-mines have kind of put me off somewhat.

So really I cant complain.

Also I just spent half an hour blogging when I was supposed to be working.

Adirondacks

As mentioned in my previous post, I managed to sneak away for the weekend to Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains following a trip to a factory I am working at, close to Montreal.  

The trip basically consisted of me, delayed by an hire car employee who had lost his keys, and by US customs, arriving at the mountains at around midday, and then trying to rush round what was a pretty arduous route as fast as I could in order to make it back before sunset (as I had pretty much no equipment/compass/torch etc).

When I arrived I tackled the Algonquin peak, which at 1,500m above sea level is actually higher than anything we have in the UK (though it didn't feel like it as I think I may have started a little higher than you would do with, say Ben Nevis). Due to the time constraints it was pretty thigh busting on the way up (as I had accidentally chosen the steep side for the ascent), and ankle-breaking on the way down. 

After staying in superb(ly cheap) hostel type accommodation in a local lodge with a random party of 50 year old birthday revellers, I managed a quick ascent of mount Jo the next day before a little shopping in Lake Placid and a the long journey back to the UK.

The amazing thing for a European in New York State in the Autumn, is most definitely the colours. Although I was probably two weeks early to get the full brunt of the autumn reds, There were still some amazing opportunities for photography. Though I felt I never managed to nail that killer shot (considering the scenery around me), largely due to the fact that much of the walking was in heavy bush, I was still fairly proud of these ones:

The View from Algonquin Peak

Outside the Lodge at Heart Lake in the Morning

The View from Mount Jo (if someone could have just cut that damn tree down...)

Heart Lake ... Again

A Chipmunk Near Charleston Lake in Ontario

I am not a great lover of photoshopped photos (bar a little colour enhancement), probably due to the fact I don't own a copy or photoshop (or know how to use it). But I did a little tinkering with a couple of photos I wasn't quite happy with in iPhoto:

Team Bandicoot Update

Its kind of a little pointless writing this as the majority of my limited readers (limited in number, not in their reading ability) are also readers of my brother's site over at All That Comes With It so will probably be aware of what I am about to write. 

Dan has blown cover and announced that in July of next year we will be taking on a six day hike across the Hadrians Wall in the north of England. The walk, for the Joseph Salmon Trust will commence in Bowness on the West coast and will wind its way along Hadrians Wall taking some quite dramatic scenery and some historical sites along the way.

For the walk we have decided to et up two teams. Mainly because we want to be able to raise as much money as we can for the charity, which means having a large group of participants hassling a lot of non participants. However in terms of group size we are limited by the range of accommodation available along the way. So Dan will go with one group (randomly named Oscelot) from East to West, whilst I try to organise another from West to East to ease the burden on hostels etc. The groups will meet in the middle on the third day for a healthy game of rounders or perhaps a bacon butty or two.

I was actually planning not to tell my group about some of the bunk-houses and inform them that they were going to have to camp, but that has kind of fallen through now, so I am going to have to relent and allow a few walk comforts.

The team name 'Bandicoot' has been inherited for the West to East rabble for reasons unknown to me, though I think I am happy to stick with it as it took us nearly two weeks to come up with a pub quiz name (and the Nurse ended up getting that from the internet) so having a name ready decided will relive a little stress.

So, what now. Oh - we need some walkers! Dan (envying my initial recruitment joy) has already made moves to try to push for 'Oscelot' membership via his extensive readership, and by the looks of his recent comment list is doing pretty ok with it too!

I do have one trump card however. I work in an an environmental consultancy full to the brim with twenty somethings who thought it would be a good idea to do an environmental science degree thinking that this would lead to lots of exciting work outdoors. Then they joined a consultancy and had their hopes buried at their desk in a large pile of Environmental Permit Supporting Documentation and Environmental Management System Procedural Guidance. Hence, frustrated walking / climbing types are in abundance!

I plan that to be my recruiting ground.

For any who haven't seen it, the walk website has been set up by Dan here, and here is a parting picture of Hadrians Wall (as stolen from the internet):