Hillwalking

[isha]

Ye didn't even see the steps, 500 fairly steepish, narrow, uneven yokes

[Dec A Wash]

Managed today to do a bit of a classic combination of the Wicklow Mountains, which actually straddles both Dublin and Wicklow: Seefinn, Seefingen, Corrig and Seahan. We were gone home long before the rain finally arrived along the east coast!

[CelticRambler]

This is an aspirational post. Am parked up for the night right on the border of Alsace and Lorraine, hoping to get an early start in the morning, and maybe even see where I'm going. Outside temperature is currently 0°C (altitude 1139m - exactly 100m higher than the summit of Carauntoohill) with a risk of light snow showers overnight and rain tomorrow. But that's not what the forecast was when I checked yesterday, or the day before.

With a bit of luck, the "low cloud" will be sufficiently low for me to be above it for most of the trek.

[CelticRambler]

Well, it wasn't so much a question of being above or below the cloud, but right in it. Visibility when I woke up was about 100m, clearing to about 200m between sleety squalls. Photos will have to wait till I've got a better signal, but after seeing five groups of walkers turn up this morning and set out despite the weather, including a pair of women "of a certain age" I felt I had no further excuse, so packed my lunch and headed off. Not entirely sure yet what distance the circuit was, but jeez, the middle third was hard going! A 500m climb up the bit of cliff that isn't used for abseiling ... and a last few hundred metres heading straight into a sleet-laden northwind coming over the summit.

But d'you know humans are a quare species! A group of studenty types were caught unawares by the notices posted everywhere at the starting point saying "these five paths are closed for the winter due to their inherent danger". But they decided they'd take their chances anyway and headed down the first 10m, only to be faced with a tarp strung across the track advising that the trail ahead was closed for the "tranquility of our native plants and animals". So they turned around, had a quick strategy meeting, then went down the road a bit to the old access point, which has been totally bricked up to a height of about 1m20 ... and climbed over the wall. Wha' ?

If ye were determined to risk life and limb on the trail, ye could have just walked around the plastic barrier! I know from my earlier researches that the other access was deliberately blocked because the local authorities felt the path beyond gave a false sense of how easy the later stretches of the trail would be, so the new access (with the tarp) was constructed with a 45° slope and some big feck-off-with-your-flip-flops rocks and roots as a taste of what's to come. But only a taste - the real route is serious business (supposedly one of the most dangerous "Grand Randonnée" trails in France) and I decided to leave it for another time. If the vertiginous not-closed sections I travelled are anything to go by, that was a good decision.

[isha]

My fear of heights needs a therapist after just reading that.

[CelticRambler]

Rambling around Le Hohneck, Saturday.

It's taken me several years to understand that the Vosges is one of those parts of the world where the phrase "if you don't like the weather, wait a while" applies (although "walk a while" might be more appropriate), but even after several excursions around the region, I'm still caught unawares by its visual intensity. Yesterday yielded a particularly good example.

In real life, with no filters, at the same time and at the same point on the trail, to the left was a perfectly colourless black-and-white vista:


and to the right, greens and oranges so saturated that they were almost fluorescent:


Further along, it was the purples that stole the attention - and the pure transparency of the water. All the stones you see in the centre/bottom-left of this photo are submerged

(There was no troll under the bridge, I checked. )

Contrary to what one might think, this is not the "Sentier des Roches" (the Path of the Rocks)

- just the common-or-garden kind of stones that you wouldn't even be bothered taking photos of, but have to climb over anyway to get to the top.

And once at the top, on a wintery November afternoon, you're rewarded with ...




The panoramic view to the North


And an equally panoramic view to the South


And frozen fingers.

And nowhere to shelter from the biting, sleet-laden wind long enough to swig a cup of coffee from your flask.

Nothing for it, then, but to take the "tourist" route back down to the cosy warmth of one's camper for a deferred picnic in comfort!

[CelticRambler]

Sunday. What a difference a day makes, as they say, or in this case a night.



The same moss-covered rock, as shown in the second photo above:


But applying the "walk a while" principle, I was soon in greener pastures specifically a fairytale "rushy glens" landscape I'd passed through yesterday, at the top of which I'd crossed paths with a sprightly little woman (in her sixties, I'd guess) who told me that one of the supposedly forbidden paths was quite passable - she'd just come down that way.

Of course, that was then, this was now, but ... ... ... see that faint squiggly line just below the dip in the ridge-line? That's it.Yeah, looks fine to me.


The easy bit:


Isha, look away now


The not-so-easy bit


This time, I did not stop to take photos at the top, as I already knew that there was an even stiffer, colder wind than yesterday waiting for me as soon as I reached the crest, and so it was. Quite impressive, really, how very sheltered the leeward side was right up to within about 25m of the top ... and then whooooooooooooooooooooooossssshhhhhhhh I opted out of a second visit to the summit, given that I couldn't see it from there - about 500m away.

Once again, the return to base was quite ordinary by comparison, so not worth getting the camera out; and I still don't know how many kms I covered - but the boots got a chance to show how well they cope with mud and free-flowing water (very well).

[CelticRambler]

Specifically for KHD - now that's what I call a root-ball:



(day sack positioned for scale )

[KHD]

Specifically for KHD - now that's what I call a root-ball:



(day sack positioned for scale )

I would definitely do my back in trying to plant that!

[isha]

Lovely photos.

I think this little video on Twitter would fit in here. I don't specifically know why the guy sharing it would say anything about Richard Hammond, I hardly know the guy, beyond knowing he had a bad car accident. But the video itself is very moving and interesting. And connected to hillwalking!!

[CelticRambler]

The Black Forest isn't really all that black when you get close to it ...


And not much blacker when you're deep inside it, more of a deep emerald green:


Not quite Niagara Falls, or even Powerscourt, but quite pretty in its own way


The living and the dead - spot the difference


Up above the clouds so high; clouds that weren't there in the morning, but go a long way towards helping you forget that there's a whole world of capitalist industry waiting to suck you back in on Monday. Oh, and reduce driving visibility to a few tens of metres when you have to return to "ground level" that evening.

[CelticRambler]

Well, for once I was glad of my smartphone and GPS this weekend. Feckin Germans. The French are pretty bad when it comes to directions (particularly for driving) but, for the most part, on hiking trails they don't just lay out various symbols on the defined trail, but also place "nope, not this way" marks on what might easily be mistaken for the next stretch of the path.

Not the Germans though. "Follow the blue diamond" says the guide. What feckin blue diamond? There was one on the first signpost, then not a single one on the zig-zagging trail up the side of the mountain - and if you happen to think that the well-trodden path ahead is The Right Path, because the zig, at 270° to your current trajectory, to was well hidden behind a mass of vegetation and can only be seen when approaching from the other direction, well ... tough.

And then you (finally) get to the top and, oh look - there's another blue diamond. Whoopy-fekkin-doo.

[KHD]

Well, for once I was glad of my smartphone and GPS this weekend. Feckin Germans. The French are pretty bad when it comes to directions (particularly for driving) but, for the most part, on hiking trails they don't just lay out various symbols on the defined trail, but also place "nope, not this way" marks on what might easily be mistaken for the next stretch of the path.

Not the Germans though. "Follow the blue diamond" says the guide. What feckin blue diamond? There was one on the first signpost, then not a single one on the zig-zagging trail up the side of the mountain - and if you happen to think that the well-trodden path ahead is The Right Path, because the zig, at 270° to your current trajectory, to was well hidden behind a mass of vegetation and can only be seen when approaching from the other direction, well ... tough.

And then you (finally) get to the top and, oh look - there's another blue diamond. Whoopy-fekkin-doo.

Did you forget your map again ?

[CelticRambler]

Did you forget your map again ?

France being France, the shops here don't sell maps for that part of the world because it's on the other side of the border.

And Germany being Germany, the names on the signboards bore absolutely no relation to the names on the giant map in the carpark (which I did study carefully before setting out ... )

Anyhow, all's well that ends well: I had hoped to do about 12km; not a lot really, but it would also include going 1km vertical. In the end I clocked up a very satisfactory 18km and 1400m up/down.

[CelticRambler]

Faced with snow and ice, I wondered about getting a set of walking sticks (the "Nordic walking" type) ... I'm still thinking about the sticks, but can't quite persuade myself that they'd be more benefit than cost. One of the things that seems to be considered important by reviewers is how easily you can fling them out of the way when you fall (note: when, not if!) so as not to make the situation worse. Hmm ...

As a "by the way" point, I finally stopped thinking about getting a pair of walking sticks and last week invested in the cheapest I could find, if only to stress-test them to the extreme so I'd know what to look for in a decent pair. 12€ for the pair. This weekend was their first outing.

Well ... hmm ... everyone says they're great for relieving the stress on your knees and your thigh muscles. I must have great knees, because they didn't make a blind bit of difference (that's probably the dancing! )

But they did make a huge difference to the strain on my shoulders. This might be because I tend to hold my backpack's shoulder straps while I'm walking, which pulls me into a slight hunch; with the sticks, I had something else to hold, as well as having something to push against.

Overall, I didn't find them to be of any great help on flatish paths with less than about a 20° slope, and they were a nusiance to carry (and, even collapsed, too long to fit in my bag) ... but on the 45-60° slopes, it was a different story altogether, and I definitely appreciated the benefit of having two additional points of contact, on one section in particular where the slope was 45°sideways, across the path!

The ground was surprising dry and ice/snow free this weekend, so there was limit to how thoroughly I could test the sticks, but for their bargain-basement price, they seem to be pretty damn good, and I'm not entirely sure why I'd want to pay ten times the price for something I might only use once every three months.

[CelticRambler]

Some pics from Saturday, starting with a definite "forestry" theme:

"Standing tall, all alone ... )


Rowan berries


How it starts (I presume these plastic things are to stop deer from nibbling the growing tips of the saplings):


How it ends. They'd hardly notice if a few went missing, would they ... ?


Would be helpful to have one leg longer than the other when walking these slopes ...


... not that the "flat" paths are significantly easier on the joints:


Heaven on earth?


Could just be heaven! ... or a view of the Jura across a sea of cloud.


The county boundary, on the summit. I'm sure it was vertical, back in the day. The adjacent districts' crests are carved on opposite sides of the stone, and there's a line scored across the top of it to indicate which way the border runs from here. Follow it and you'll find the next stone ...


Time to go, which was a shame, as it looked like the sun would have burst through a gap and treated me to a spectacular lightshow, if only I'd had enough faith in my night vision to get back down those slopes in the dark!

[isha]

How do you add images here, CR?

[CelticRambler]

Upload them to https://postimages.org, copy and paste the "direct" link from the subsequent dialogue, and wrap [ img ] tags around each one using the picture button.

I have an account with postimages (free) so it saves my upload settings from one session to the next. Nothing fancy, just the dimensions to which the images should be resized. To streamline the process, I have a folder on the computer labelled "pics to upload" into which I place whichever photos from the phone or proper camera I want to use, then select the whole lot and drag-and-drop them onto the upload page.

To reduce upload time even more (because postimages applies your chosen dimensions after it receives the file), I usually resize (and re-name) the original images from their 4000-odd pixels to 1920 x (whatever) on the 'puter, and save them into the aforementioned upload folder.

[isha]

Thanks a million.

[isha]

Just testing...Wow! It works! Awesome

[isha]

Testing again! Because woohoo!! And it is a photo from a recent walk over the hills

[KHD]

Lovely photos CR & Isha. I wonder is that hawthorn still alive thats turned over, looks like half the root system is still in the ground!

[isha]

Lovely photos CR & Isha. I wonder is that hawthorn still alive thats turned over, looks like half the root system is still in the ground!

I will check in Spring. It's a very windy place.

[CelticRambler]

Lovely photos CR & Isha. I wonder is that hawthorn still alive thats turned over, looks like half the root system is still in the ground!

Is it just me, or do you too have an urge to shove it back into an upright position?

[CelticRambler]

Okay, so this is bending the defintion of "hillwalking" to breaking point, but when you already live at 300m, going down to sea level is like negative hillwalking ... isn't it? I didn't really do that much walking, either, as this was more of a field trip for the camera I'd just picked up, and a chance to breath some Atlantic air, but in any case, some souvenirs of my trip to the beach from a couple of weeks ago.

Out early in the morning, just after high tide. Literally nobody else in sight as far as the eye could see, north or south. Nothing but sand, stones and shells


Oh, and massive lumps of charcoal - the aftermath of the devastating forest fires that affected the area just behind the dunes last summer


Still, where the trees have been wiped away, fresh growth springs anew


And where it doesn't, interfering humans think they can make stuff happen ...


Racing the waves at low tide (these little feckers run really fast! )


After-school activity: lets go play in a sandstorm!


Those interfering humans again


Sun-worshiper or King Canute?


And this is (one of the reasons) why I didn't go swimming