tamsin.moye.me.uk

Ste, Adie and I went to the Cairngorms for 3 days with Ron Walker of Talisman Activities to learn some rope work skills and have some fun snowholing.

Ron did his own blog updates for the rope work day and the snowhole expedition. We had awesome weather, especially on the final day to walk back out, then spent hours in the pub (thanks for the Olde Bridge Inn recommendation, Ron!) debating the finer points of optimal snowhole configurations! I think we’re now bitten by the snowholing bug and fingers are crossed that there’s enough snow about at Easter to test another layout

Marky, Roz, Adie and I walked the Chamonix to Zermatt Walkers’ Haute Route. We started in Champex, having walked the first 3 days of the route from Chamonix as part of the Tour du Mont Blanc a couple of years earlier. This is not the easiest route through the Alps, but an incredibly spectacular one, with high passes to cross most days, steep-sided valleys, amazing views of glaciers and lakes, and the Europaweg to finish off. Whilst away I did online blog updates whenever we had 3G connectivity, which also show our GPS position at the time.

Over 42 days Adie and I walked the Haute Randonnee Pyreneenne from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, taking the highest route through the Pyrenees. We crossed the French / Spanish border numerous times and walked through the ski resorts of northern Andorra. Whilst away I did online blog updates whenever we had 3G connectivity, which also show our GPS position at the time. It’s an awesome, but very challenging route – only for the hardcore.

Camping at Dale Bottom Farm, with Marky and Roz, we went up Blencathra, but along Hall’s Fell Ridge rather than Sharp Edge, which was probably longer and more fun than Sharp Edge anyway. We then wandered along the ridge, taking in the views before a stroll across the tops and back down the valley to the West. Easter Sunday saw Marky and Roz heading home and Adie and I managed bacon and egg sandwiches from a trangia… Fantastic weather and a bit of mild sunburn to show for it

Following the christening of crampons in a white out to summit the UK’s highest mountain last March, we headed out for the UK’s 2nd highest, Ben Macdui in the Cairngorms, Eastern Highlands, Scotland. We staying at Aviemore SYHA, which is one of the best Youth Hostels I’ve stayed at, and headed out from Cairn Gorm ski centre car park at 9am in the sunshine with a forecast of 70% chance of cloud free summits, to ascend into thick cloud, cold temperatures, an increasing wind, soaking rain, and poorer and poorer visibility until we could no longer even make out the footprints at our feet that we were following. We made it there and back though – in fact we made it all the way out without even digging out the GPS, and just walking blindly into the white on a compass bearing. 3.5 hours each way if you fancy it.

Ste, Adie and I went up to the Lakes for a weekend to make the most of a rare heavy snowfall in England, and to test out the crampons and axes. Had some technical car issues on the way up meaning we arrived at lunchtime on Saturday and hence just went for a short stroll up to Angle Tarn for lunch just in summer boots (to find it spectacularly frozen, and not a patch on the place we’ve paddled/swum in previous years!), before returning to Patterdale for beers. Sunday we managed a nice loop over Hart Crag and Fairfield (suggestion in March’s Trail magazine). No real snow below 500m, but well worth the trudge in winter boots as we found some decent deep stuff on the tops (see sunken axe pics!), and pretty hard in places, so we were grateful of the crampons and the boots to put them on. On the descent off Fairfield we could look down on Grizedale Tarn, and across up Dollywaggon Pike onto Helvellyn – a stark contrast to such views on previous visits. An exhausting but awesome weekend.

Adie, Ste and I headed up to the Cairngorms, leaving a car in Aviemore and a car in Braemar to attempt an ambitious trans-Cairngorm trek. We had some nice weather although low cloud came down for the latter half of the week. Starting at Braemar and walking the eastern peaks is incredibly remote, compared to the well-walked Cairn Gorm / Ben Macdui area and the Braeriach ridge. We found some fantastic wild camp sites during the week, experienced some sub-zero temperatures on the tops overnight, visited the newly-furbished (now with chemical loo) Corrour bothy, and made it back out to Aviemore within the week. We might not have conquered all of the peaks that we were aiming for though

Eating cheese in a mountain hut in France as we neared the end of the TMB last year, with a Turkish dude who didn’t like cheese, led to us finding out about the toughest long-distance trail in Europe.
Adie, Phil, Pink and I walked the 180km trail with 10000m of ascent over 16 days, south-north (Conca to Calenzana), saving the most fun and spectacular parts to the end, including the Cirque de la Solitude (day 12) and a day’s detour to take in Monte Cinto (2706m, day 13), Corsica’s highest mountain.
A challenging but incredibly fun walk which I would highly recommend, along with the local chestnut beer (Pietra) and Torra if you can track it down.

Adie and I got in a final bit of pre-Corsica practice with a long weekend wildcamping near Loch Lomond, hiking up over Ben Vorlich, Ben Vane, Ben Ime, and Beinn Narnain.

For May BH we headed towards Langdon Beck and Dufton to walk up past Low Force, High Force, Cauldron Snout and High Cup Gill – some of the coolest bits of scenery I remember from walking the Pennine Way back in 1995.
High Force is reputed to be the highest unbroken fall of water in England. (OS – Explorer OL19 and OL31)