BONNERS WEEKEND!!!

This year, the weekend got off to a slow start, owing to the fact that Josh who was the designated mini bus driver had a job interview that morning, thus we sat around on the grass for few hours before he turned up (we had only just decided to crack open the beer!). We arrived at the church hall where we were staying and some people went off up Blencathra, while me and Amy went for an explore around the village and met Heather, Rob and the others who had come up late. I and a few others cooked tea that night for all 20 of us which was quite an achievement, by this time it was about 10pm so most of us went to bed as we were having an early start the next day ... others (Toby and Joe) decided to go up Blencathra, in the dark. The next day, we met Bonners while we were circling a roundabout just outside of Keswick ... (funny times) and everyone except me and Matt went off to Raven crags with him. I and Matt set off up the Honister pass on our epic climb up Great Gable. After the walk in, we geared up and waited for a group of three to pass. The multi-pitch was 3 pitches, we did Engineer slabs (VS* sustained). I carried both our rucksacks as it was a hard climb for Matt to lead. There were a few tense minuets in the chimney on the second pitch which was very polished, and on the slab on the last pitch which was smooth except a lot of very small finger pockets. Anyhow, we topped out and fell ran off Great Gable as we needed to meet the mini bus at 7pm.

Standard meal with Bonners that is ... thi food and a group photo ... epic man ... horrible feet though. The next day me and Becca got up at 6am to cook breakfast for everyone, and then I, Matt, Joe, Strugs and Rob headed off to St Sunday crag to do Pinnicle Ridge, although conditions were misty and we couldn’t see a lot for most of the time, it was a most enjoyable scramble. Being grade 3, we used a rope on a few tricky and exposed areas. All in all, a hard, but very enjoyable and successful weekend, a true club (and famous mountaineer) bonding trip.

''Back in the saddle again ...'

Home week - Back home in England, me and mum spent two days washing all my clothes and unpacking all my papers and Canadian treasures while I regaled many stories from the year. I saw a bunch of my friends on the Saturday at my surprise party which I had known about for about a month. Jon’s 21st party was good fun too and I basically just spent the week catching up with friends and family.

Lancaster month - Having moved in with Amy and her house mates, I settled into a new work routine. AKA; out into the field, back to the library and so on. This mad month was broken up with a few climbing trips including the Chris Bonnington weekend and a visit to Robin Proctors’ Scar which incidentally, is located at the valley entrance to my field area. I also spent a lot of time celebrating the end of the year with certain climbers and members of my course, a typical night entailed a visit to Grad bar with Strugs, Gary, Sam and Brennan or sitting on Bonny steps or in Strugs and Brenan’s kitchen with a few pints. The climbers went to the Carlton for the annual pioneers bar crawl one Wednesday, all of us dressed in bright lycra and wearing harnesses. I won’t say too much about my field work apart from that I’ve had a few successful outings with either Sam or Strugs as my field assistant, and we usually manages a pub tea and a pint every now and again to celebrate a hard day’s work. My dad even came up one day to see what all the fuss was about; he had a kip in the field while I was hard at work looking at rocks.

Mapping Field Trip in the Cannadian Bush!!!

Okay, so this week and a half is contains my last Canadian memories ... it was kind of bitter sweet, although it defiantly ended on a high. We took two minibuses and two cars up north of Lake Huron to Whitefish Falls near Espanola ... a ‘fine paper town!’ where we stopped off for food and drink supplies. We stayed in log cabins on a small river out of Lake Huron. The first day we spent driving around the area stopping off at lots of small sites to get to know the area and its geology. On the second day we were assigned field partners and given a traverse to complete from the roadside through 3Km of bush, swamps (where I almost lost a leg) and cliffs. having done a fair bit of navigation in the past me and my field partner made it out alive only one degree off our initial north bearing which we were to keep for the whole 3km, although we were looking very bedraggled. After sorting out with the local natives about aspect into our field sites for the next week we returned to the cabins and all had a BBQ and a well deserved pint with the very laidback professors. Over the next week or so we were up at the crack of dawn and out into the bush to map our areas. I was the designated communicator in my area (area D) and had the challenge of trying to understand the awe full reception on the walkie-talkie between Patricia, Laura and Oz as they bush-waked and canoes around the islands to rescue us in our hours of geological need. I won’t go into all the detail of mapping as I would need a whole new blog site for it. We spent the evenings transferring our field map and notes to our office copy and then meant up with the rest of the group for a social drink and chill out or a reading of the original fairy tale book which are more like horror stories.

Back to the bush ... me and my field partner spent the whole day terrified of bears about 2km into the bush tracing out the sandstone/argillite contact in blistering heat. on the 5th day ... we woke up to a full blown blizzard, abandoning the mapping, we drove out to the islands for a day’s fiend trips which proved to hazardous driving and most people were unprepared for the unforgiving conditions so we turned back after the first few sights as we couldn’t see the rocks for all the snow, ice and horizontal hail and gale force winds anyway. The rest of the week the weather was back to being hot and we finished our mapping in enough time to start having mid afternoon maps … sandstone can be very comfortable =].

IT'S 'MY KIND OF TOWN ... CHICAGO IS'

With the year drawing to a close, I packed up my bags for Frank Sinatra’s kind of town ... Chicago. The travelling there was a slight epic, although I’m not complaining about the many interesting stop offs we made all through Michigan state although I don’t think I shall be returning to Detroit any time soon unless I develop the need to be stabbed down a dark ally. I only had a few days in the city and spent it wisely ... or a wisely as my studying shrived body would allow me. Collin and Gina who I was staying with provided me with a great base for my explorations in a beautiful apartment building on the outskirts of the city centre. I spent the first day exploring the southern end of Chicago including a lot of Lincoln Park and the zoo along the river which took me out of town to the suburbs and the baseball pitches.

The second day I took myself for a scenic walk down Michigan Avenue past the Chicago beach and down the main shopping street. I met with Gina ho was working in an elite hotel just over the bridge and then learnt all about the city’s history and arcutecture on a boat tour for a few hours. That evening I went down to the Ferris wheel (the first one ever built in the world). I headed back to Canada the next day and slept most of the way.