Autumny

 

February Snow

 

Winter sunrises

 

Tour of Britain

 

Easter holiday weather

 

When the paper packaging is as good as the toy inside...

 

Spring springing

 

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus

 

Really quite cold

 

Frozen loch

 

Freeze thaw effects

 

Open ended play

 

A walk in the dark

 

Deeside Knitwits 2020

 

A86 catching the evening sun

 

Moody autumn sky

 

Still busy

Busier

Being kept on my toes by a very busy young man.  Hardly a moment to stop and think about resurrecting the blog.  But in those moments I have considered whether it might be interesting to do so.

Still busy

Busy

Winter drinks

We've had a few Cairn o' Mhor wines before now, so finding a bunch on offer we stocked up...

A nice day out

in GMC land

Planning

Entries online at SiEntries

Gardening Fail

So, we had this Purple Sprouting Broccoli.  It never sprouted, so we ate the leaves as Spring Greens.

Turns out, there was a reason why it never sprouted.

Socks

Sometimes, when a company sales rep comes to visit to give us our product training they bring presents.  Or rather, items for us to use and then hopefully sell better to the customers.

The rep from Bradshaw Taylor tends to come armed with Icebreaker socks.  I've had a pair of running socks and a pair of midweight hike socks on previous visits.  They are good quality and nicely made, but they haven't fitted my feet quite right.  I wear them for kicking about, the hike socks are lovely and warm for wearing with winter slippers, but can't use them for running or walking as they are the wrong shape in the toe box (or, my feet are the wrong shape for the socks...) and the excess fabric bunches up and rubs.

This time he came armed with new multisport socks.  To be precise, the Womens Multisport Ultralite Micro but in bright pink, not the grey version on the website.  These are very light weight for a sports sock, with no cushioning at all, however there is a cushioned version.  They have a ventilated area on top of the foot and lycra in the instep to give a snug fit.

They are a different fit to the others I've had - they fit my feet.  I wore them on a Cosmic run at Cheyne Hill and no problems.  I thought I might notice the lack of cushioning as I use fell shoes which don't have much cushioning either, but I didn't.  They are little short in the ankle and I got a bit of heather down them, but they make a Mini version with a higher ankle cuff.  I've worn them to cycle to work a couple of days too.

There's a little bit of wear to the heel of each sock and some black lycra threads starting to show, so I'll have to see how that fares.  Generally though, they are comfy and I am contemplating using them for the Durris race next week.

I have also had a box of Tesco Naturally Powered non bio powder to test as well.  So the filthy, muddy, wet running kit went in the wash with that.  The verdict on the powder is that it doesn't dissolve and wash through the drawer well enough, but the cleaning is fine if you add it direct to the drum.  Hopefully Tesco will fix that.  See below for before and after wash pictures of the socks.  I didn't expect the white writing to stay white, and it didn't, but otherwise the rest of the peaty mud has gone and they smell washed.

Muddy

Clean

Hill running's a small world...

So, checking Highlander results for the Cosmic website I stumble upon a name I recognise.

One short google later and there it is, in an old fell running club newsletter.


Another blogger's husband, a Cosmic and someone I went to school with.

Dangerous overtake of the day awards

This afternoon going jointly to West End Electrical, Michael Kerr Joinery (not the first time) and MH Carriers. Special mention to Dragon Plumbing for not overtaking quite so closely, despite being on the phone.


Best today?  Grampian MacLennans

Pet owning

I am am now a pet owner.  I own, or am owned by depending on how you view the situation, two cats.

 The tabby one is incontinent after being run over, but is otherwise the perfect cat.  The black one wees on purpose.  They sleep, eat and demand attention.  They have made scratch marks worryingly high up the front door and destroyed the landing carpet.  But I like them.

Glaciers

Ngozumba glacier
From moraine bank at Gokyo, approx 4800m
Looking south

This glacier is melting.  University research scientists from the US and Norway are studying it to see how and how fast it is melting.  The melt water is forming a lake which the moraine may not hold back forever.  If the moraine dam bursts the water will flow down into the Dudh Kosi threatening villages and towns a long way down.

A BBC news article on this research is here, and makes for interesting reading.

Dudh Kosi, below Namche

The Dudh Kosi valley is the main route up from Kathmandu to the mountains, and includes Lukla and Namche Bazaar.  Hopefully, as most of the settlements are built on the valley sides (to avoid the worst of the spring melts and monsoon floods) many will escape.  However, history records the potential damage - a glacial lake outburst flood in 1985 destroyed numerous bridges and houses and a hydro plant at Thame (a few miles north west of Namche). See here for an aerial photo, and here for further information on that flood and other future threats.

A BBC audio slideshow with images from Glacierworks is here, and illustrates the extent of the melting.  The scale is difficult to appreciate, even with their shot of a climber.  In my photo above the glacier is around 2km wide and the ice cliff visible is probably over 100m high, but it looked like you could just pop down and wander about.

Transport 2

Once above Lukla there are no roads.  There is no way of driving into most of the higher valleys in the Solukhumbu district of Nepal.  This means that if you want anything taken up there it has to be carried, and if it's a lot of stuff then it has to go by yak train.

Big, hairy and smells of yak.

Domesticated yaks come in a variety of colours.  The dark brown colour like the one above is pretty standard, but they also come in shades of brown, white, beige, piebald and skewbald.

Lower down, that is from Lukla to the Namche area, your stuff won't be carried by yaks, but by dzopkios.  These are a cross between domesticated yaks and cows and are much better suited to the lower altitude.  They are a little smaller than yaks, but you still don't want to meet one on a bridge.

Dzopkios (munching on our sign, under my bedroom window)

When you do encounter a dzopkio or yak train on the path, you get out of their way.  They're pretty docile, but they're very powerful animals with pointy horns that only concentrate on where they're being driven to.  People have been knocked down mountain sides and even eviscerated by yaks that have accidentally bumped into them.

Dzopkios carrying our kit bags up to Namche

Yaks are driven in groups of about six, usually by one driver.  The drivers for our trekking parties were all men.  The women I saw driving trains seemed to be connected to their own cottage industries, carrying  their produce between villages.  The drivers encourage their animals along by whistling as they walk with them.  This is almost as constant a sound on the trails as the bells the yaks wear around their necks.  Yaks that misbehave are shouted at first, or given a smack on the behind if they don't listen.

It's advisable not to end up following a train as they kick up a lot of dust.  The drivers wear scarves or buffs covering their nose and mouth.  One of our group leaders pointed out to us that this is why it isn't a good idea to use a hydration bladder with an uncovered bite valve.  The main constituent of the dust is dried yak poo.  After a couple of days everything I owned was covered with a thin layer of dust, and smelled of yak.  Where yaks pass through town though, the poo is collected and dried.  It is valuable both as a fertiliser (every house has a veg plot) and as fuel.  In Sagarmatha National Park it is forbidden to cut wood for fuel to prevent deforestation.  This means that yak poo is now used for heating fuel, rather than fertiliser, leading to problems with the supply of vegetables.

Thirsty yaks

Transport

To get into the mountains from Kathmandu, you can fly or drive and walk.  Most people fly.  The drive to Jiri and walk from there adds an extra six days to each end of your trip, and most westerners don't have that time.  Our trip was organised to maximise time between 3000m and 5000m for race acclimatisation.  So we flew.

The Kathmandu - Lukla flights were suspended for a week because of bad weather not long before we went out to Nepal, so we were hoping that it would improve.  The weather was good enough to clear the backlog, but fog was still plaguing both airports.

The day we were meant to fly Kathmandu airport was fog bound.  We arrived at the airport at 6am and waited until 2pm for the flights to be cancelled.  They don't fly after 3pm anyway, because it gets cold and dark before a round trip can be completed.  We spent an extra night in Kathmandu and tried again the next morning.  We were lucky, the fog lifted after we'd waited just over an hour.

Once the flights are running, everything is done at a run.  Hurry to the bus, hurry from the bus to the plane, plane's taxiing almost as the last person sits down.  Hand luggage goes on your knee, there's no lockers and under seat storage is forbidden.

We flew with Agni Air in little twin engine short take off and landing planes (Dornier Do228), six flights in total for our group and all the kit.  The route climbed up over a mountain pass and then along the valleys level with mountain tops.

The reason for needing short take off and landing (STOL) planes becomes clear if you google Lukla Airport.  It has been named World's Most Extreme Airport by several TV shows and numerous You Tube clips.  The runway is short and steep.  There is a cliff at one end and a retaining wall holding up half the town at the other.  The approach is directly towards the mountainside.

The planes land, stick the props in reverse and make (what feels like a) handbrake turn on to the apron, following the yellow lines.  It's then hurry, hurry again as the plane has to get back to Kathmandu for the next load.