Outdoor Capital of the UK Blog
Want to know the latest about your favourite outdoor activities? Get an inside look at what's happening in Lochaber with our blog.
Everynow and then the team tears themselves away from the Outdoor Capital
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Loch Linnhe view on Tues 20th March
Lisa and the great crate challenge!
The Outdoor Capital team at the Outdoors Show Sat 17th MarchSometimes, just sometimes we can bear to tear ourselves away and last weekend myself (OCUK Project Director) Lisa, (OCUK Project Officer) Ben from Rockhopper sea kayaking and Frazer from No Fuss Events headed down to Birmingham for the Outdoors Show. We met lots of people who had already been to the west highlands and islands and quite a few who hadn't. We gave away three cool Outdoor Capital prizes (campfire cookbooks, biking goody bags, maps, ccompasses etc etc), and generally had a nosy around what was new in the outdoors world.
Lisa rose to the Boy Scouts 'crate challenge', retiring with war wounds after her team stacked 11 crates and then crashed to the floor. The record was 18 crates high - believe me that's scary.
Whatever you think of Birmingham; and we liked the great Indian food, friendliness of the people plus the dignified civic buildings and funky modern ones, Brum isn't a beautiful city so I was glad to get back to the Highlands and snapped this pic of Loch Linnhe on my way into work on Tuesday.....it's snowing today (Wed 21st) and Jane the OCUK adminsitrator is up on the slopes at Nevis Range so fingers crossed this cold snap lasts until the weekend.
For more info on ski-ing go to the Outdoor Capital website.
Anna - OCUK Project Director
posted by ocuk @ 11:04 AM 0 comments 
0 Comments:
Sometimes we are the Indoor Capital!
Friday, March 16, 2007
Fearn (above) checks out the Ice-Factor indoor climbing wallSometimes the best made plans of mice and men.....etc etc.
My cousin and her two kids came up for the weekend from Perthshire. They were raring to buff up their snowboarding skills, so it was with some trepidation that I looked out of the window on Sunday morning. On Saturday the weather had been pretty stormy and I was hoping it might calm down for Sunday, but things didn't look good out there. Optimistic Susannah, Fearn and Zac set off for Nevis Range before 9am but winds were too high for the gondola to run. At 10.30am, after hot chocolates, cappucinos and the papers in the café by the car park we decided to call it quits and head down to Kinlochleven and the Ice Factor. Here no matter what it's doing outside you can get active in an indoor capital stylee: which we did.
Susannah, Fearn and Zac got shown the ropes (literally) by myself and a friend and after a brief introduction went off for a climbing lesson with an instructor. Meanwhile Ken and I spent two hours on the ice wall - which was great fun and pretty strenous. My technique definately improved - I never climb anything that steep outside!
Collapsing with more cappucino (is there a theme here?) everyone had a rest in the café. 13 year old Fearn polished off a full sunday roast (she's tiny - where does she put it?) the grown ups chatted whilst the kids continued to climb using the auto-belayers; really nifty devices that mean you can climb without a partner (meaning responsible adults can, once they have checked the kids are attached OK, lounge around with -yes you guessed it - more cappucino's). I am not sure whether it was the climbing the kids liked or the fact that the the auto-belayer lets you launch yourself off into space to get down - pretty much like flying!!
So from a dubious start the day was a good one.
For more ideas of what to do when the weather lets you down, click through onto the 'rainy day' section of the Outdoor Capital site.
Anna
posted by ocuk @ 9:55 AM 0 comments
0 Comments:
Belated Blogging!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
At the start of the route
I am lost blogger without my digital camera! A tumble whilst ski-ing meant it had to go to have the technological equivalent of open heart surgery so for a few weeks I was back to old fashioned film technology - hence the lateness of this post.
On the 2nd March I finally got to do Golden Oldy on the west side of Aonach Mor - it's a super grade II. Long, with a definate alpine feel, great mountain setting, at no time is it scary but the exposure is such that you need to think a couple of times; we moved together on the majority of the route.
We took the first climbers gondola from Nevis Range finished the route by two and andhad time for coffee and cake at the Snowgoose mountain resturant at the top gondola station before heading home. Now that is what I call a civilised mountain day! But we couldn't quite forget we were in Scotland - we had great weather all the way up the hill but once we topped out, the weather closed in and we had to walk on a bearing to get off - spurred on by the thought of those delicous cakes! For a quick link to weather conditions go to the Outdoor Capital's weather page.
Despite the mild weather at sea level people are out there doing things - check out Alan Kimbers site for more current news of what is being climbed.
Anna
posted by ocuk @ 10:03 AM 0 comments
0 Comments:
Archives
