Graeme Lawton » Mont Blanc 2009

Old Man of Coniston again

Graeme — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:34:59 +0000

Phil and I went to the Lakes with our better halves and snuck off for a day. We set off from the campsite at Coniston Old Hall, walked up the Old Man across the ridge and back down. The weather started out as truly misserable, but just after we summited the cloud blew over and it turned into a glorious day!

Old man of Coniston

Graeme — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:45:51 +0000

Well I missed out. Phil, John and Craig went away for the weekend to the Lakes and climbed The Old Man of Coniston. From all accounts, and the photos the conditions were great…. not. I was still jealous, I really wanted to be there! Can’t wait for our next adventure but we are all really busy at the moment.

On another note it looks like we might be attempting the Bullock Smithy, 56 miles in 24 hours. Love it!

Too Early…

Graeme — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:54:57 +0000

For some reason, someone thought it’d be a good idea to meet at 7:30 this morning to go for a walk. We only walked about 8.5 miles, but it seemed much further! I don’t know why, but this morning seemed a killer. We really have got our work cut out.

We parked up near Wingather rocks, and proceeded along the ridge up to Shining Tor, which was a nice gentel slog for a few miles. Then we dropped down to Errwood resevoir and along the side for a while and then up into the forest. We stumbled accross some ruins of Errwood Hall which looks like it might have been quite impressive in its day. We then continued along the side of the ridge and then up over the top and down into the valley, up the other side to the far side of Wingather Rocks and then back down to the cars. Excellent Stuff.

Lyme Park and Bow Stones

Graeme — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:49:25 +0000

For our next training mission we had a time constraint, so we went a little closer to home. Lyme Park area was the target. This time Craig and John C came with us. As they are much fitter than us this helped keep up a good pace.

We set off from Disley train station and walked to up the road behnd the church to the back of Lyme Park. Up the ridge, and along the edge to Bow Stones. We then followed it down to Kettleshulme amd then back round and up towards Bow Stones again. Then down through the wookds in to Lyme Park, a quick ice cream whilst watching some very strang Morriss Dancers and then back to Disley. About 12 miles in all.

Kinder Scout

Graeme — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:21:12 +0000

It has to have been the windiest day of the year so far, when we decided it would be a good idea to begin our training. We climbed Kinder Scout which is about one tenth the hight of Mont Blanc, but it’s a start.

We parked up in Hayfield and walked past Kinder Reservoir up to the ridge, accross to the summit, down to Edale Cross and back down to Hayfield. It took us about 4 hours and illustrated how utterly unfit we are! Still, I certainly enjoyed it, and I think Phil did too!

Mont Blanc Crazy

Graeme — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:09:21 +0000

Okay, so Phil and I have decided to have a premature mid-life crisis. We want to climb Mont Blanc, so we’ve got lots of training to do. It’s only the 11th most prominent mountain in the world, that’s the hight from bottom to top, as apposed to the hight above sea level.

I’ll try to post regular updates about our training progress, or lack of! We are planning on climbing Kinder Scout next weekend.