TR: Across the Wirral and back

Judith wrote:
Snip

Quoted message said:

I saw a red, black and white bird fly past then heard the distinctive
rap-rap-rap-rap of a woodpecker. Usually when I walk this route I get
mobbed by cattle but there was none around today. Being a (veggie!)
townie I don't even know when cows are born. Same time of year as
lambs?

All year round depending on what fits in for the farmer concerned

Quoted message said:

Today's walk was 22km and took 5 hours 30 minutes including a banana
break. My first day's TGOC route is also 22km but I'll be carrying a
lot more and covering rougher, and hillier, terrain so I think I'd
best keep up the preparation!

Judith

Good Luck
ttfn
Jane

The message <[email hidden]>
from Judith <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Today's walk was 22km and took 5 hours 30 minutes including a banana
break. My first day's TGOC route is also 22km but I'll be carrying a
lot more and covering rougher, and hillier, terrain so I think I'd
best keep up the preparation!

But how much ascent? It is height gain that is the killer particularly
with a load on your back.

--
Roger Chapman

PS Best of luck with the TGOC.

In article <[email hidden]>, Judith
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I need to do as much walking as possible in the next few weeks as I
warm up for the TGO Challenge. Today's walk was a quick jaunt out of
the frontdoor to Parkgate and back (to Bebington).

The walk started badly when I found a dead dog at the side of the
road. It had no collar on, and I didn't recognise it, but another
passer-by was going to 'phone the Council to try to find the owner.

Early Sunday morning is always a nice time to be walking. The lanes
were still empty of cars but there were dogwalkers and cyclists out
and about.

I mainly followed paths over and beside fields and everywhere was
muddy. I got caught in a ferocious hailstorm but was soon dry as the
strong wind seemed to be changing the weather by the minute.

I saw a red, black and white bird fly past then heard the distinctive
rap-rap-rap-rap of a woodpecker. Usually when I walk this route I get
mobbed by cattle but there was none around today. Being a (veggie!)
townie I don't even know when cows are born. Same time of year as
lambs?

The chipshop in Parkgate is usually too much of a temptation but,
fortunately, I had forgotten my purse so had to make do with a banana
from my bag.

The rainshowers continued on the walk back but they were never heavy
or long enough to bother getting my waterproof out of the bag.

Today's walk was 22km and took 5 hours 30 minutes including a banana
break. My first day's TGOC route is also 22km but I'll be carrying a
lot more and covering rougher, and hillier, terrain so I think I'd
best keep up the preparation!

Judith

A lovely TR Judith - very honest (is that the right word?) in style,
written as it happened as it were.

Thanks.
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, Roger
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

The message <[email hidden]>
from Judith <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Today's walk was 22km and took 5 hours 30 minutes including a banana
break. My first day's TGOC route is also 22km but I'll be carrying a
lot more and covering rougher, and hillier, terrain so I think I'd
best keep up the preparation!

But how much ascent? It is height gain that is the killer particularly
with a load on your back.

Yeah it's those ascents that spoil a nice hill walk :-)
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 19:34:11 +0100, Roger <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Today's walk was 22km and took 5 hours 30 minutes including a banana
break. My first day's TGOC route is also 22km but I'll be carrying a
lot more and covering rougher, and hillier, terrain so I think I'd
best keep up the preparation!

But how much ascent? It is height gain that is the killer particularly
with a load on your back.

I'm attempting to recalculate my ascent estimates as they seem to
differ from those of other people doing parts of my TGOC route. I
used MemoryMap which calculates Total Ascent and Total Descent for a
route ie a day's walking in my case.

I'm not sure how accurate MemoryMap is, but I find it quite tricky to
manually count contour lines on the map. I soon forget whether that
last line was an "up" or a "down" and I have to start counting again.

The TGOC organisers insist that routes are submitted with daily
distance and ascent totals and, apparently, they get some wildly wrong
estimates.

I'm now going through my route and trying to work out which are my
"easy" days and which will be more difficult. As you say, the ones
with most ascent are more likely to be tiring compared with the long,
flat days. My approach will be to start early and take it easy;
there'll be plenty of daylight (if not sunshine!) so there's no need
to go rushing anywhere.

Quoted message said:

PS Best of luck with the TGOC.

Thanks.

Judith

W. D. Grey <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Roger
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

But how much ascent? It is height gain that is the killer particularly
with a load on your back.

Yeah it's those ascents that spoil a nice hill walk :-)

Too true, Bill. Today's gruelling expedition took us 4.3 miles through
rugged terrain in 2hrs 8mins, with 76 metres of ascent. My companion
was "shattered" at the end of it. I may have to dump her . . .

She had the bloody walking pole, too. Kept going round in circles
until I showed her how to use it on alternate sides like a single paddle
canoe.
--
Gordon Harris

W. D. Grey <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Judith
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I need to do as much walking as possible in the next few weeks as I
warm up for the TGO Challenge. Today's walk was a quick jaunt out of
the frontdoor to Parkgate and back (to Bebington).

The walk started badly when I found a dead dog at the side of the
road. It had no collar on, and I didn't recognise it, but another
passer-by was going to 'phone the Council to try to find the owner.

Early Sunday morning is always a nice time to be walking. The lanes
were still empty of cars but there were dogwalkers and cyclists out
and about.

I mainly followed paths over and beside fields and everywhere was
muddy. I got caught in a ferocious hailstorm but was soon dry as the
strong wind seemed to be changing the weather by the minute.

I saw a red, black and white bird fly past then heard the distinctive
rap-rap-rap-rap of a woodpecker. Usually when I walk this route I get
mobbed by cattle but there was none around today. Being a (veggie!)
townie I don't even know when cows are born. Same time of year as
lambs?

The chipshop in Parkgate is usually too much of a temptation but,
fortunately, I had forgotten my purse so had to make do with a banana
from my bag.

The rainshowers continued on the walk back but they were never heavy
or long enough to bother getting my waterproof out of the bag.

Today's walk was 22km and took 5 hours 30 minutes including a banana
break. My first day's TGOC route is also 22km but I'll be carrying a
lot more and covering rougher, and hillier, terrain so I think I'd
best keep up the preparation!

Judith

A lovely TR Judith - very honest (is that the right word?) in style,
written as it happened as it were.

Thanks.

I also enjoyed it, Judith didn't allow the training side of the walk to
push out the descriptive content.
We saw some hailstones today...
--
Gordon Harris

The message <[email hidden]>
from Judith <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

I'm attempting to recalculate my ascent estimates as they seem to
differ from those of other people doing parts of my TGOC route. I
used MemoryMap which calculates Total Ascent and Total Descent for a
route ie a day's walking in my case.

Simple arithmetic is beyond all too many of todays youth. :-)

IIUC all variations of digital mapping we can get work on a height grid
rather than actual contours so will tend to underestimate height gain
but then so will manual extraction from the map.

Quoted message said:

I'm not sure how accurate MemoryMap is, but I find it quite tricky to
manually count contour lines on the map. I soon forget whether that
last line was an "up" or a "down" and I have to start counting again.

That's not the way to do it. Effectively you only count the up. The down
can look after itself. At the end of the day the difference between
ascent and descent is the difference in altitude between start and
finish.

If you are walking ridges it is really easy. Just establish the height
of the cols and peaks and a few trivial calculations will give you the
bulk of the ascent. Then add in the drop* for any wrinkles on the
ascents and the rise for any wrinkles on the descent.

For undulating ground it gets a bit tedious but it is still only a
matter of identifying every section of significant ascent.

*Count the contours crossed and add one. The added one is to allow for
the dip below the lowest contour and the crest at the top of the
wrinkle.

--
Roger Chapman

Coming from the same neck of the woods as Judith, I can imagine the walk she
had, and also the intermittent hailstorms that occurred that morning. Late
on Sunday morning I was on the beach on the West Shore at Llandudno/Deganwy
also heading into various squalls, but then all of a sudden it cleared up,
the sun shone, wind ceased, and a brilliant afternoon. You may recall that
mid feb last year, I mentioned how early the hawthorn was in leaf here in
the Wirral, not so this year! The same hawthorn bush has only now come into
leaf some 7 weeks later. On another aside, there's a cracking walk near
Chester at Aldford. Starting from a lane close to the Grosvenor Arms, you
continue via a myriad of different paths to Coddington, on a circular route
returning via Middle Beachin farm area. There are all sorts of permutations
with regards to alternate paths, loads of wildlife, mallard, teal, swans,
herons, pheasants.My two Spaniels think this area is complete heaven, with
the added advantage in the winter of the Dee flooding, creating inland
lakes, especially if you head down away from Aldford to the river from
Churton.
You also, in the thick of Winter, come across, but not on a Sunday, odd
grizzled characters, usually with a shotgun under one arm and a swag bag
across the shoulder....

Robert

"Judith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I need to do as much walking as possible in the next few weeks as I
warm up for the TGO Challenge. Today's walk was a quick jaunt out of
the frontdoor to Parkgate and back (to Bebington).

The walk started badly when I found a dead dog at the side of the
road. It had no collar on, and I didn't recognise it, but another
passer-by was going to 'phone the Council to try to find the owner.

Early Sunday morning is always a nice time to be walking. The lanes
were still empty of cars but there were dogwalkers and cyclists out
and about.

I mainly followed paths over and beside fields and everywhere was
muddy. I got caught in a ferocious hailstorm but was soon dry as the
strong wind seemed to be changing the weather by the minute.

I saw a red, black and white bird fly past then heard the distinctive
rap-rap-rap-rap of a woodpecker. Usually when I walk this route I get
mobbed by cattle but there was none around today. Being a (veggie!)
townie I don't even know when cows are born. Same time of year as
lambs?

The chipshop in Parkgate is usually too much of a temptation but,
fortunately, I had forgotten my purse so had to make do with a banana
from my bag.

The rainshowers continued on the walk back but they were never heavy
or long enough to bother getting my waterproof out of the bag.

Today's walk was 22km and took 5 hours 30 minutes including a banana
break. My first day's TGOC route is also 22km but I'll be carrying a
lot more and covering rougher, and hillier, terrain so I think I'd
best keep up the preparation!

Judith

In article <[email hidden]>, Gordon
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

She had the bloody walking pole, too. Kept going round in circles
until I showed her how to use it on alternate sides like a single
paddle canoe.

P'raps the battery had died :-)
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk