Categories: just-life
Date: 15 August 2005 14:12:01
Now I like heading out to the hills when I can, and I have a great urge to climb things when I see them. I infact scored a yes for all ten in the "How to tell if you're a climber" from Return of the Nephilim;
1. You've wondered whether it is possible to get from your bedroom to the bathroom without touching the floor.
2. You've wondered whether it is possible to get upstairs/downstairs without touching the floor.
3. You've tried both.
4. If you failed, you've spent a long time pondering how to do it and trying it.
5. You see a building with pronounced grooves in it or raised brickwork and think "that building is climbable."
6. You carry your shopping basket with as few fingers as possible.
7. ...and then do the same with the carrier bags on the way home. Usually one per finger per bag for as long as possible.
8. You can't look at any vaguely vertical surface/edifice without evaluating it for climbability.
9. When the weather is fine, you want to be outside. When the weather is rubbish and you are trapped inside you start doing 1-4.
10. If it wasn't for the often rotten stonework, church buildings would be brilliant for climbing on.
and so I was flicking through my hiking magazine and they had the Top 10 Via Ferrata routes for the Italian Dolomites. For those who don't know what Via Ferratas are, they are high Alp routes with fixed cables and ladders to allow those who aren't mountainers can get the experience of "Exposure" while being fairly safe. Needle Sports has a bit of information and a few pics.
Now this looks like great fun, and I think would make a great long weekend for a couple who liked such outdoor sports. So my problems range from not being able to speak Italian, not having any of the equipment needed, not having the timeor the money to go and being single.
But I have hope!!!!
Now, my magazine also suffered my wrath, after coming up with a "tick list" for Snowdonia. I'm not against tick-lists in general, The Lakes have The Wainwrights (214), Scotland have The Munros (over 3000ft, 284) and the Corbetts (between 2500-2999ft, 220) so it's only right the Snowdonia has it's own.
I just disagree with the list. They are described as Snowdonia's Top 103 Peaks (all of which are over 2000ft). Now, some of you may have read when I mentioned the Welsh 3000er's, the fifteen mountains in Snowdonia that are over 3000ft. Trail have come up with a sixteenth.... yes, they've found a whole extra mountain!!! Oh no they haven't, it's a spot hight on a ridge....... it isn't even a peak!!!!
So, I looked up as many of the mountains as I could. I was able to look up eightlyone of them and decided that twelve of these eightyone weren't peaks and shouldn't be counted. And there's there's another four in which the reaccent is between 30-35m, and in my opinion that isn't enough to be another summit. So I've lowered the ticklist down to eightyseven.
Of course, I am a bit on the sad side........