Lake District 2015

After the IRW rocket event, I went down to the Lake District for a couple of days walking in the hills.

On the first (half) day I did a quick trip to Aira Force, which is a bit touristy and famous, but it's somewhere I'd never been, despite going right past the car park several times on previous trips.

On day 2, I walked from the old sawmill almost by the edge of Bassenthwaite Lake (the only "lake" in the Lake District), up to the summit of Skiddaw.  The day started off beautifully, but then near the summit, rain showers would come and go. That meant that the last pitch up was basically in the rain cloud, and rather exposed.

Hmmm!  Shame there was no stunning view from the top of Skiddaw...

On day 3, I walked from Glenridding up past Greenside Mine (but on the other side of the river)...

Up to to Red Tarn, and from there took the side diversion to the summit of Catstycam...

Before tackling Swirral Edge (on the right) up to the summit of Helvellyn...

I had previously reached the summit of Helvellyn (from the YHA) by bike (OK, there was much carrying on the way up), via Raise, White Side, and Lower Man.

But this is looking back towards Catstycam and Ullswater from the top of Swirral Edge...

Did I really just climb up that?  It was more of a scramble than I had expected...

More pics on picasaweb/google+

Next time I shall try to reach the summit of Scafell Pike. I had pencilled that one in for this trip too, along with some other low level walks in case the weather was too bad, but there was not really enough time.

MTB Austria and Liechtenstein

I'd visited Liechtenstein before, but on the hike part of the trip, the weather was bad and the snow and landslides prevented the completion of the intended hike in the mountains. So I decided to use up one of the long weekends and have another go. This time, the weather was much much warmer and sunnier.

On one day, I did a bike ride (CX bike this time), starting in Feldkirch (Austria), riding along the Rhine to Vaduz (Liechtenstein), and crossing a few times in to Switzerland. The day started with a bit of a rain shower, but it soon cleared up.

Vaduz is not a massive place (and I don't think it's even the largest town in Liechtenstein) for a capital city. Only took a short walk around the town, but next time must get up to the castle etc.

The second day, I repeated a hike from before, but had much more success. No snow and no landslides this time. It was basically a round trip to/from Malbun (the only ski resort in the country).

The rest of the photos can be seen here.