Monthly Archives: July 2011

Weekend away with Neighbours and Babies

Saturday we drove over to Laggan to all go mountain biking at Wolftrax, it is a purpose made trail centre with a good base at the bottom so we can all take it in turns to look after the babies whilst the others go around and do loops in roughly an hour on the bikes.  The weather was kind and the trails were amazing.  It was great to be able to bike with Lara again and she has definitely has alot more confidence and skill with her riding from air maiden a few weeks ago – she was flying over the drops without flinching and had a massive smile on her face.

 

Lainie was the true hero of the day, having never really done much mountain biking before to coming along having a go , doing it with no worries and loving it!  Euan was a happy man with the prospect of a wife who might be converted into a mountain biker?!?!?!?!  Who knows.

After we had all done enough loops and were knackered, we drove back to Aviemore our base for the evening, we drove around all of aviemore’s camp sites and to our amazement they were all full!  we all ended up staying in a hotel and had quite a novel evening in a hotel bar / restaurant pretending to be civilised!

Sunday was time to introduce the babies to the hills properly – with babies loaded up into rucksacks in there thickest and warmest clothes ( the mountains in Scotland are still a cold place even in mid July!) we set off up into Corrie An t’Sneachda. 

 This corries is really easy to get to from the Cairngorm ski station car park and is an easy wallk usually taking under and hour.  Ellis soon fell asleep and was not appreciating the views!

We all sat down next to the loch and had lunch and had a good chat looking at the cliffs and surroundings, we pointed out previous conquests of ours whilst puffing out chests.  The babies seemed to be happy as Larry (who ever he is) and sat and took it all in, had some lunch and went about their ways business as usual.  Scott, Euan and I left the girls to do a quick tour up and around Fiacaill Ridge and later met them back at the car park. 

The ridge can be seen above – Euan had not done too much scrambling in his life, so to satisfy the fear and nerves of the wives we roped up together for safety and scrambled up the ridge.  There are some pretty exposed positions on this ridge and Euan did them all with no worries, even stopping for a gun show!

A true hero! we shall be taking him with us into the hills for some more of his gun shows as they were awesome!

A great weekend playing in Scotland – only to be slightly dampened by thinking of going back to work tomorrow.  Have to earn some money to pay for that hotel!  All of the pictures can be seen by CLICKING HERE

Chilling in Peaks with the Australians

Ben and Amanda are over for Chris’s wedding, so what better way to warm ourselves up for the big occasion but to spend a week in the Peak District.  Amanda did a great job and hired us a little barn near Rushup edge in the middle of nowhere. 

We met them in Hathersage and after going for a quick bite to eat in the Outsider shop (we didn’t manage to get out with out buying some new stuff – that shop is never a good idea to go into) we went up to Burbage North to do a spot of climbing and bouldering.  Below are Ben and Amanda reacquainting themselves to Gritstone – this was done with rather a lot of swear words and grunting ( I have to raise my hand and confess I added to the obscenities as well).

The Next day Ben and I went biking whilst the girls relaxed in the sun, I forgot how good the biking is in the peak district.  It was a littel odd having to make sure what we where riding on was legal (in scotland we can ride anywhere and have much better access rights).

It was great riding with Ben again, my old riding buddy and best mate had returned from Oz to once again ride with me and try and better each other on the ups and downs ( neither of us acknowledge this though! )  we returned to the girls grinning ear to ear and then quickly changed to get going back to stanage to go bouldering for the afternoon (after lunch and a couple of cheeky pints).

I forgot how rough gritstone is on the old finger tips and all my finger tips fast turned a nice shade of pink and everything became super sensitive to touch ( washing up that evening was a sore affair!).  Another realisation that the bouldering really isn’t that good up in Scotland near us and we really enjoyed it and wished for better bouldering near to us.

In the evening the girls went out for a bike ride whilst Ben and I cooked for them, when I say Ben and I, I really mean Ben cooked and I sat and drank beer watching him chucking in the odd supportive comment on his spice choice.

Ben and I spent quite a bit of time with the girls explaining the route we had for them on a map and in words for them to follow, when they got back (which for a start was a surprise as we were expecting a phone call to come and pick them up from somewhere lost) but on asking how got on they sheepishly told us that it wasn’t till they were half way round that they realised they had ridden the loop the wrong way around!  The girls claim it was down to bad verbal explanation of the route!

The next day we took it in turns to do a big loop from Hope, up over to Ladybower via “the beast”.  The girls went first, then Ben and I did it.

The Beast is am awesome rock strewn decent that tries at every opportunity to throw you off the bike if you let your concentration slip.  Once at the bottom smiling like a special child, we both recount stories of near death and how awesome we were, we set back off back up and over into the edale valley where we thought a mid ride pint was in order for.

After said pint we had a large road climb – having not realising what a mid ride pint would do to us we both steadily weaved our way up a steep climb wondering when we both become such massive light weights!

We got to the top and rode up Rushup Edge and by the time we had got to the top we had both sobered up again for the amazing decent back to the farm and the girls.

I spent the rest of the evening playing with Baby Ellis who had been a great baby and enjoyed being dragged all over the Peaks with us.

We all agreed it was a great few days and we all thoroughly enjoyed having our love of the peak district rekindled.  Shame it is so far away.  We packed up our stuff and headed East to the Wedding of Chris and Vicky, our excitement levels rising for the big day…

Air Maiden

Yes I got that right, it is a spin off form the amazing 90’s metal bang – Air Maiden is a female only MTB competition.  With all the passes I have been getting out I thought only fair that Lara gets to do some stuff as well.  We went down to Glentress for lara to take part in Air Maiden,  a two day mountain bike event, day 1 is a training day where they get coached on their skills, and day two is a competition to see who has progressed the most.

They were trained in jumps, cornering, drops and all general trail skills.

There were 50 women taking part with a huge variety of abilities.  Some would show most men up – others would get  a run for their money from toddlers…..

I spent the weekend walking around taking pictures of them all with Ellis on my back.  She quite enjoyed being on my back and was happily chatting away at everything when she was asleep

I think Lara did great, she progressed loads, got a lot more confident and even at the end faced the big kicker

Above is her first go at it, being led in by Polly who knew how fast to go so giving Lara the confidence she is going the right speed ot clear it.  She did it with ease and I was extremely impressed with her, she loved it and did it a few more time until she called it a day due to being tired.

We spent that evening camping again with Ellis and got a great take away curry – Ellis I think is starting to enjoy camping  – she definitely likes her little tent, she sits outside in it and plays and watches the world go buy happily sucking on her feet.

Sunday came with competition day.  Nerves where obviously high all around, the girls go measured on 4 runs, one of jumps, one of skinnies and drops, one of berms and then the big kicker.  Was a great atmosphere with all the girls cheering each other on and whooping and screaming.  Was great to see them all having a great time and supporting each other, something you would never get quite seen at a male event.

Above is Lara on her race run flying over the jumps.  It was a great weekend watching Lara having fun on her bike and playing with my camera looking after our daughter.

Enjoying the long nights up here in the North

There are many good and bad points about living where ever you live, one of the good points of living in Aberdeen is that at this time of year it doesn’t get dark until around 11pm.   This makes it possible to go out and play in the hills after work.  Over the last few days the “loving wife” has let me go out and play.  A few days ago, Andy and I ventured to Clach na Beinn to go climbing .

The last time I climbed outside was when Lara was 4 months pregnant on afterthought arete, tonight was to be a bit of a mission to get my head back into it.  Was great fun but I soon remembered why it had been so long since I had been up to the crag to climb, it is the roughest rock in the world and the climbing is not that pleasant!  Alot of jamming your body into cracks and wriggling up etc. 

Still Andy was very patient and was very encouraging, it was a great place to be after work up there on a hill top, the clouds where rolling in and out over adjacent hills and we were lucky not to get them where we were.  I led two climbs then Andy had a turn at leading a route of his choice.

A lovely night was spent swearing at rock and getting disco leg.  When we looked at our watches wondering what time it was …… we were stunned to see it was nearly 10pm!  Time to pack up and hot foot it back.

Just as we packed up the cloud came in over the hill and we jogged down the hill back to where we had stashed our bikes and went home to bed.  A great evening.

Last night was of course “Thursday night boys bike night”.  With these long nights, again it is great to go slightly further into the hills and explore new trails.  We parked at Pass of Ballater car park and set off up to below Morven,  the views where great climbing upto Creagan Rhiabhach looking over to Lochnagar and Mt Keen

From here we followed a path below Morvern Eastwards and then spent a little time trying to find the path we wanted to get on to descend.

Amazingly when we left Aberdeen it was being bombarded with massive showers of biblical proportions but we managed to avoid all off these and it never rained on us once.  Once we found the descent it was awesome apart from the odd bush jutting out into the path at head height that you just had to go through and take the whipping!   After this we climbed back to the top of Cnoc Dubh and went down the ‘roller coaster’ to Loch Kinord and then back up through Burn O’Vat to the van – a good 35km ride after work.  We just managed to get last orders at the local once back in westhill, tired we happily drank beer.

I love these long nights!  only another 2 or three weeks till the nights start drawing in again though …….  Better make the most of them!