Mark Kelly

This is a really quick post, a week has passed since the excellent Future Everything conference in Manchester and I  haven’t really had time to sit down and sift through some of the notes I made.

So instead I’ll add a couple of links below to other reviews / views I’ve found about the conference and also some Storifys that give a flavour of the tweets / comments on the days.

The title from this post comes from the packets of sunflower seeds that came with the delegate bag.. more of those later. And so did a bar of chocolate from the co-op. Actually, not much else, the real take-aways were all the ideas that the 2 days generated. Although a tad more free stuff is always good for a magpie like me
The sowing of seeds would also include those of cooperation, collaboration, Arts/cultural participation mediated by connected / social technology.

The schedule was full of interesting, thought-provoking talks and panel discussions. Themed around Future Everyone – how we cooperate (thanks for the free chocolate btw, Cooperative Free Trade), co-create, collaborate in this digitally connected world.

The first stand out talk for me was actually not about connecting, but disconnecting (sometimes) from the external ‘noise’ and connecting with your own internal tools / technology (as it was described):
Rohan Gunatillake talked about modern / evolving Buddhism under the catchy title of Generation-Wise. An appealing mix of history (I really had little idea about the origins and mutations of the Buddhist way) and geekery. Reflection and mindfulness? There’s an App for that. Actually, it was about connecting, sharing the fruits (if you wanted to) of those mindful moments back into the community with social apps and networks.

Next up and also a stand out for me was the chirp.io technology. Allowing Machines (smartphones in this case) to sing data to each other. Which is what birds, whales, people do anyway, encoding information in a melodic waveform. My science is sketchy and waveforms may not be melodic but you get the idea I hope. And this is more pleasing than the silence Bluetooth.

I think the team behind chirp are modelling other tech platforms on Animal Systems (hence the company name and talk title ‘Is a Butterfly a barcode?) .. well worth a look.

Uh oh – having started to list each session, I just counted ahead and there’s about another fifteen I could comment on, all really interesting and including the compelling 2nd day Keynote from @birgittaj. Added interest for me was that I’d written a year or so ago about Iceland’s use of socal media to reboot it’s democratic structures.

But I haven’t got time to comment on all the talks. Okay, one more – the Turing Sunflowers crowd-sourced / mass experiment from MOSI – take part if you can (see link below). I just planted a load and hope the summer weather provides some great specimens. And it was reminder of what a genius Mr Turing was.

As for the other talks – have a look at the website and the links below. And my tweets from a week ago as there are some links and views there. Or just search #futr on twitter.

I’ll just end by saying that some of the conference content was more sociological / Arts / political than technological (which is how it was billed anyway).. and not the ‘usual’ marketing-focussed or tech / geek focused (per se) events I tend to go to.

But that made for a great 2 days.

I think getting away from your desk and attending events / seminars (even short evening ones) is a good thing to do to get new insights and perspectives (that’s a bit obvious, obviously). But if you add to that events/ meets/ content that is maybe left-field to your ‘day job’, I think you get even more stimulus and insights. I’m not advocating Accountants turn up at Healthcare events or Psychologists attend Heating Engineering conferences (maybe I am actually) – but getting a fresh look at areas loosely related or slightly tangential to your ‘world’ is a good thing.

Related articles

• http://www.mosi.org.uk/whats-on/turings-sunflowers.aspx
• http://storify.com/FuturEverything/futureeverything-futr-2012
• http://storify.com/animalsystems/chirp-io-at-future-everything-2012
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2012/may/23/communications-audiences

This question came in via a recent PeerIndex survey I was sent and the timing was interesting. I think the social /  professional influence measurement tools are all still a work in progress. I think that getting Perks or Points or free stuff based on your score is sometimes nicely targeted, other times a bit of a blunt publicity tool for new products etc. And I think getting emails with a breathy ’hurry, you may be influential enough to get this free thing’ to then click through to and see ‘ ah, no, you dropped in influence this week, you don’t get in to the shiny zone’ are at best irksome and hopefully the mechanics used will evolve soon.

But what I also think is that they’re here to stay and are more importantly than the ‘free stuff’, are beginning to make a tangible difference to people’s livelihood.

That was something Glenn Lesanto mentioned during an event I was at at social media week. I can’t remember how the question was phrased but someone asked ‘just how important are influence scores, really?’ His response was (paraphrased), ‘seeing as potential clients are checking my Peer Index (I think it was, rather than Klout or Kred) score before they hire me — very [expletive deleted] important’.

And that’s the reason for this post. Same just happened with me and I recalled Glenn’s comment from SMW. I was with a prospect client a week ago and they said they’d read a report that anyone ‘in the know’ in the digital industry should have a good Kred or PI score. They didn’t mention Klout but it may have been in the same (to be sourced) report. So what was mine? Well.. off the top of my head (I said) it’s in the high 50′s I think for PeerIndex. And pretty high on Klout .. and, err.. I don’t actually know on Kred. But what about my year’s in the industry? And the fact I’ve trained others in digital marketing .. want to know about that? Which they did but that initial question stuck with me. Okay, that’s the first time I’ve been asked, off the cuff, what my Influence scores are. But, a sign of things to come? Putting aside lots of questions – what exactly are you / we scoring, is each platform / system doing the same thing or are they built for different goals (using different algorithms) – The big question is how exactly do they correlate with my ability to provide an effective service for you / your brand / your bottom line?
I’m not being defensive by the way, if they’re demonstrably robust and can help make decisions (like any good algorithm) then I’m all for them. No doubt there will be margins of error a la credit scores but overall they may be useful in the majority of cases depending on the usage. The usage scenario for these fledgling tools is important though – get it wrong about choosing free stuff to send to people.. some grumbles from those missing out but the margin of error isn’t so important. Get it wrong in selecting ’Influential candidates’ .. litigation time?

When I checked, my Influence scores have actually all dropped (although Kred has gone up, go me).  But I haven’t tweeted as much as usual, or written a blog post for a while. I’ve been stacked out launching a consultancy and (hurrah) picking up some really interesting projects. Yes I do need to find time to do the tweets and posts (which I enjoy and have ‘always’ done) but I obviously need to attend to them a bit more on the basis that the collective client psyche seems to have picked up on Influence Scores as at least one measure of your employability.

Related articles

• 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Klout (mashable.com)
• Do you know your Klout Score? Do you care? Why digital influence matters (janismeehan.com)
• Klout is Your Social Media Peer Pressure (or Pusher, if Applicable) (methodshop.com)
• Percollate: Making Sense of Social Influence Scores [Review] (searchenginewatch.com)
• Measuring Social Influence – Klout, PeerIndex, SocialIQ and Kred (digitalbrandmarketing.com)

On Tuesday I went along to a meeting to plan support around the 7 Days in June initiative. I’ve recently joined the Northern Soho meetup group and came across 7 Days in June through that.

Essentially 7 Days in June is about creative collaboration and co-creation- a bunch of people coming together to canvass views on a topical/burning issue, discuss findings as a team, develop ideas and then create (in a fixed timeframe..) content around that issue.
This year that issue (pertinently for me) is freelancing. Actually, pertinent to the whole economy – the freelancing sector has grown to now being about 1.4+ million people in the UK, with a huge  mix of skills and experience, contributing £billions to the economy. And what I liked about this particular initiative is that it brings students together with established freelancers.

Tuesday was a planning meet around the marketing and support of the whole thing – chaired by man with the plan Rob - @thewritevoice , and Northern Soho organiser @sarahcheal .. and as well as me in attendance there was Mike (@completeedits ), Sam from Lifestyle 360 , zahara (@zaharamiriam) and Anikah (@TweetyPieNeeks ).

So I’m going to lend a hand where I can to make it a real success. Have a look at the site for more information and if you want to get involved in whatever fashion.

One million people employed in the ecommerce industry in the UK.
Quite a statistic  - one I picked up on Tuesday night at an event hosted by the CIM Manchester team. And supported by Manchester Digital and sponsored by Orchard Recruiting,  I think I got that  right. Anyway, it was a good event.

I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a tech based thing (new developments in functionality, how to use video demo’s etc) but as it turned out, it was an overview from Tony Kane (‘a founding director of the Next Directory board, Managing Director of Kaleidoscope / Otto Versand group, Managing Director of Britannia Music and a board director of Universal Music group’) on the state of the nation now and in the near future. And the nation as it stands now is a nation of (online) shopkeepers. We look to be retaining that mantle for a while yet – going from those one million up to three million of the UK employed in eCommerce, in some shape or other, by 2020. That’s an enromous figure. So much so that I double checked my notes ..and the tweets from the night (on #futureecommerce).
The IMRG website (Interactive Media in Retail Group) has a figure a bit below this but I think it’s from last year “The digital commerce market provides employment for over 730,000 people in the UK [find out more]“. I couldn’t find out more as I’m not a member but it looks like a great resource if you’re involved in ecommerce in any shape.  Having said that I’m not involved in ecommerce specifically at the moment but have been in the past. The last full ecommerce project was the launch of a flowers online site for a major retail group. Like all ecommerce projects it had a massive Gantt chart involved – from branding/design to usability to integration (or not) of back-end systems and also fulfilment. And traffic driving in all its forms of course!

Tony was a great presenter , he clearly knows his stuff (look at those companies above) and he presented a whole load of stats and charts without it being analysis overkill. The one that was newest to me (and surprising - hence I’m going on about it) was one million people and rising involved in ecommerce. We’re obviously good at the ecommerce thing. It’s a term that covers M(obile) Commerce, S(ocial) Commerce, F(acebook) Commerce .. although there was some discussion around the fact that Facebook commerce per se hasn’t really taken off. If anything, retailers are pulling their shops back to their own domains.
And maybe it’s not so surprising we’re still a nation of shopkeepers in whatever guise, we do have a pedigree in distance sales, right back to the first mail order catalogues of Universal Stores (turn of the century I think).

Here’s an overview from the IMRG on the ecommerce industry (as well as being a bit of creds presentation for them):

As well as Tony’s talk, John Hinchcliffe talked about the 50+ female online market. As ex Marketing Director for JD Williams and Grattan John obviously knows the market inside out. If I had the start-up capital I’d be looking at a clothing or merchandise online offering aimed squarely at this and the older age ranges.

[Sideline fact (and age alert) - I remember planning out and building a customer orders / media analysis system for JD's way way back. It was fed data that had been hand keyed by temps from enormous piles of weekly sales data printouts (as the mainframe couldn't, at that point, talk to *the* marketing department PC.]

There was a whole lot of other topics covered , use of video (and its importance across SEO, customer experience etc), the Cookie law changes, growing ecommerce markets and more. I think the slides for the talks will be available possibly so I won’t replicate too much else here.

Just to flag some final additional stats, showing that as well as being a nation of online shopkeepers we ‘re also a nation of online shoppers (as compared to our neighbours):

77% of UK shoppers purchase entertainment products online versus 65% globally
74% of UK consumers buy holidays online versus 50% in Europe

This was a TEDx Bradford (#TEDxBradford) event (and thanks to @imran who runs great events an Steve Manthorp for hosting) as part of the Media Museum’s Life Online gallery launch.

And it was a really good afternoon.. lots to soak up and think about, all coalesced generally around the theme of A Life Online.
I think videos of some / all of the talks will be available soon*.

@cubicgarden has blogged about the event, my top talk was also Jane Macdonald’s ‘Tales of Things‘.

The Cubic Garden review of TEDxBradford.

* As I said I’m not sure other talks are ready to be viewed yet but in the meantime have a look at @timoreilly and his opening address:

5OEdy5HBGiI

His Mantra of ”Creating More Value Than You Capture” struck a real chord, an ethos I’ve always applied in my fuzzy logic / belief system of karma, altruism, collaboration, niceness.

Some of the talks were really nicely summarised by Richard Garside on his site : http://nogginbox.co.uk/blog/drawing-tedx-bradford.

One of my favourites from Richard’s drawings is here : I like the drawing itself but also the recycling of old and obsolete instruction books into mushroom fodder. And the fact that the illustration mentions Foxpro. I spent many a long night creating clients systems in that bad boy.

Related articles

• TedxBradford: your life online (cubicgarden.com)
• #LifeOnline is now open @mediamuseum – the Launch night (markkellynet.com)
• TEDx is Changing the World (tedxtampabay.com)
• Tedx Middlebury Videos (midd-blog.com)

I like Britain’s Got Talent. I’m a sucker for the format. I’m also interested in the rise of social TV (see a post on Social TV I wrote here before) but I’ve never really felt compelled to use the hashtag (#BGT). I take part in back / twitter channel conversations and sharing of views for things like Newsnight , but not BGT, too mesmerised / horrified / entertained in equal measure perhaps.
A lot of people do take part though, here’s a chart from hashtags.org to make the point :

Not surprisingly there’s a big on-air (as in realtime) spike for Saturday eve but a lot of lunchtime spikes throughout the week. I’m not sure when the show is repeated (whenever, if you have sky+).

Anyway, the thing that caught my eye with the show was the introduction of more ‘granular’ hashtags. So viewers have the chance not just to congregate around one tag (the show itself) but around some transient moments,  based on specific wannabes who make a good (or very, very bad) impression on the show.
I was going to use the example of #nowwithwings – for a particularly bizarre act – but a google search for ‘use of hashtags on Britain’s Got Talent’ brought me to the Big Mouth Media blog.

And they provide a way more detailed post than I’m going to here:
http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2012/03/28/tv-hashtags-bridge-gap-online-conversation/

So – go have a read, it’s a great post.

Another example would be the #NoName tag used for singer songwriter Ryan O’Shaugnessy, seen here a couple of minutes into this clip.

Ryan O’Shaugnessy on #BGT

I’m wonder if these granular / transient hashtags will be good for engendering viewer/tweeter  interaction or if they’ll dilute it – in that commenting on one particular act’s hashtag , then another straight after, means you get caught in small eddies of conversation not the overall show’s flow? Or if it’s a multiplier effect and keeps conversations going much longer than the backbone hashtag would. Probably the latter – a quick check on twitter shows #NoName is running and running. And overlaying use of these granular in-show tags would smooth out the spikiness of the chart above?

Related articles

• NBCU Gathers Who’s Who in Social TV (adweek.com)
• Twitter UK Tony Wang: Social TV happens whether broadcasters like it or not (nextlevelofnews.com)
• Early Googler raises $750,000 for ‘social TV guide’ tweetTV (thenextweb.com)
• Social TV gaining traction in the UK (freshnetworks.com)
• http://blog.uk.twitter.com/

I was at the opening night of the Life Online exhibition and galleries at the National Media Museum last night.

It was a great night, being able to celebrate with everyone else who has had a part in helping out , in whatever capacity, to get it all off the ground over the past few months (and years for some).

Particularly relieved and giddy must have been @tcwoolley, @r0b_shaw and the rest of the @mediamuseum team who have created a massive exhibition and lived and breathed it for the last year or more.
Also well chuffed I’m sure are the artists including Ross Phillips and @chriskemm.

I didn’t know everyone of course but pretty much all had either a big grin or a look of fascination on their faces whilst looking around the Foyer Gallery (the history of the Internet) and also the 7th floor temporary exhibition (currently [open source]).

I can’t do it justice in a quick blog post.. have a look at the scale of the galleries / exhibitions on the link below – and get yourself to Bradford!

http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/PlanAVisit/Exhibitions/LifeOnlineExhibition/PermanentGallery.aspx 

There’s a whole stack (naturally) of online resources also (that will keep growing)..

> Some film about [open source] on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/nationalmediamuseum/videos
> More film over on the Media Museum Youtube channel – including this great interview of Vint Cerf by Tom Woolley:

Tom Wooley talks to Vint Cerf about The Internet – past , present, future

And Vint amongst lots of others has contributed to the ‘Your Life Online’ companion / project website

I’m back there today at TEDx and Meet The Artists, best get going and get my geek on.

Related articles

• Life Online: Vint Cerf opens world’s first permanent internet gallery (video) (pocket-lint.com)
• Life Online gallery gives the internet’s origins the museum treatment (theverge.com)
• LOL – History of the internet at the National Media Museum (gobbledgeek.wordpress.com)
• What does a Life Online mean to you? (markkellynet.com)

Having written the last post about finding work within an agency, I just spotted that the IPA (mentioned in that post) are running an ‘Ad School’ this summer.

More details are on their site:

http://www.ipa.co.uk/Content/Ad-School-2012

It looks a great initiative – get stuck in!

Related articles

• erm, what is it exactly that Planners do again? (almostalwaysthinking.com)
• Creative firms’ jobs plan for school leavers (independent.co.uk)

So you want to work in an agency? 

For agency you can read advertising, marketing, digital marketing, design agency etc.. what I’m covering applies to all these fields I reckon.
Anyway – the reason for this post is that over the last year I’ve seen just how many email applications an agency gets on a weekly basis (think email mountain) – and just how many of those applications really don’t help themselves.

I’m going to be cruel to be kind here. I personally love to help aspiring writers, creatives, coders, account handlers get a break. I’ve helped a few people over the years and it makes me feel good. But I don’t need to tell anyone just how tough it is for graduates (and it’s almost exclusively grads or soon to be grads that I’ve seen emails from). It is appallingly difficult at the moment to get your first break.

So when you do get those few seconds of attention you need to do a few things to capitalise on it and get the recipient to <reply> or <forward> to a colleague – and not <delete>.

Of course there has to be a current vacancy / internship / work placement or strong possibility of one but that aside, you need to hit the mark with your first approach. So, these are my suggestions,  I haven’t referred to any ‘how to ‘ guides – I just wanted to pen a from-the-hip list that might help someone secure an interview in an agency at some stage.

1. Make sure you have an idea about the role you are looking for.

I don’t mean checking if there are any published vacancies (hopefully you’ll have done some homework on the agency) I mean what each role in an agency encompasses. It’s okay to not know the minutiae of a role but don’t send in a CV and ask me to decode what roles might be suitable for you. I haven’t got time to figure that out for you. If we met a seminar and you collared me then that kind of conversation might happen of course, I’m a nice bloke honest but via email .. nope.

Actually , if you’re not sure if advertising / marketing agency life is for you, have a look at this excellent tool from the IPA.

http://www.diagonalthinking.co.uk/

also , have a look here – a good intro to lots of grad careers and what is involved (including advertising creative, digital media etc):

http://www.arts.ac.uk/careers/studentsandgraduates/

I know this is for and from the University of the Arts, London.. but the web is all about finding info and inspiration wherever you can – get googling.

and another useful resource here from Creative Choices.

http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/

2. Please please spell check.

Amazing how many people don’t. (And yes I will have misspelled something in this article for sure now)

3. Keep the covering note short.

But don’t try to be too kooky or flippant. Pithy is okay. I know it is all subjective so sense check your cover note with a couple of people before you email 50 agencies with it.

4. Don’t spam.

On the subject of emailing 50 agencies (or more) at once: I’ve seen a couple of recent emails that have every agency in the country CC’d on it. The response from some straight back to the sender certainly wasn’t ‘sure, come in for an interview’.

If you openly email dozens in the same note , that says you haven’t tailored your approach and you havent really made that much of an effort. And the reality is that everyone wants to feel courted. And if you don’t have the time to tailor each approach.. at least BCC the recipients and write the email like it is aimed at each one. Not a ‘hi to -whom-it-may-concern’. And open email lists are bad form anyway.

more generally and not about email approaches:

5. Competitions and boot camps

Find out if there any grad competitions or grad training courses you could enter in your chosen field. Particularly as walking into a job straight from graduation is so hard now. As an example have a look at http://northernlights-training.co.uk/ ..

I think they are running another one this year. This is aimed at the North West but there may be a similar initiatives in your area.

6. Location

Check where the agency you are contacting is based. Telling me how much you want to work in London is cool – but in the case of the agency I was seeing emails for, the majority of roles were in Leeds. And explaining you love the idea of international marketing or have lots of under grad experience in international marketing is ace (I’ve ‘done international’, yes it is really rewarding) .. but have a look at an agency’s client list first, if you’re likely to be working on regional but great brands then focus on that.

7. Network, like mad. both online and off.

Go to events, badger folk like me and ask them advice. Or about jobs they may have heard of (not necessarily at their own agency, even if we don’t have current vacancies we’ll probably refer you to an industry mate who may be looking for someone).

If you get their details, follow people you meet at events on twitter or subscribe to their blog. So when you set yours up (see later) you can ask them to reciprocate.

I’ve had follow ups from speaking events or at seminars where someone has chatted to me and then followed up and they have either got a job out of it or at least got the chance to come in and see the agency (not many, but definitely a few over the years). The principle is there though – attend events, don’t be shy (everyone has networking nerves), get chatting, ask for a business card or even just a twitter name and follow up!

8. Profile.

On the subject of networking – get a LinkedIn profile.  It might be sparse to start with but get a couple of endorsements for any work experience or placements you’ve already had, it all helps your case.

9. Blog. 

Doesn’t matter what format, tumblr or wordpress etc. if you’re happier with short form then use tumblr. Just make it about something you are genuinely into and add a view / value on whatever you post. Photos of cats with no commentary doesn’t say much about you ( I have no issue with cats btw. Although dogs are much much better). It’s less about the SEO value for you and more showing you’re engaged / passionate and it adds colour to the ubiquitous CV.

10. Innovate.

Ignore the above. What do I know. Go for an innovative approach, forget email – send a physical mailer, record a short intro, make an ad and post a link to it.. whatever. Some of the above still applies though. Know your recipient (agency, agency type and also who may see it) as much as you can and judge the tone accordingly. Sending a crazy sock puppet may work for the creative director but not for the MD.

Way (way) back, I got a job by mailing poly-board chip butties to some agency account directors and creative directors (with the letter glued on the ‘bread’). It wouldn’t have worked for all the agencies I targeted though.

Good Luck.
You are talented and  deserve a break and if you’ve read this, you’ve been googling this kind of post so you’re serious about getting that agency role and I wish you every luck.
You’ll be the boss one day. Fact.

Disclaimer – none of the above is a request to apply to me for a role. Sorry. I really don’t have any opportunity to offer you one. I wish I did!

postscript:
I found this article via a link back to this post from Ezra Englebardt’s blog .. some additional great advice to those just starting out.

http://hottubcrimemachine.com/2012/03/26/how-to-become-a-planner-iv/

I was a co (guest) lecturer recently with research director Simon Shaw, both talking at The University of Huddersfield.
We got invited in by Dr John Bonner (the man with the plan at LiveLab to talk all things Usability with his 2nd year students. A great group and I enjoyed the afternoon.

Simon has just written about the visit here : http://cmym.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/usability-in-practice-guest-lecture/. This post is mostly a signpost to his piece.

What I found interesting (both on the day and in prepping the joint presentation) was the different angles we came from in the use of tools to explore usability (for websites).

My natural reaction would be to reach for tools / platforms like Tobii and / or Morae , Simon as a researcher is less ‘about’ the tools and more about the ethnography (I think I’m right in saying) and context of how / where people engage with those websites.
Both approaches can be used (in some instances .. we talked about the parameters or constraints of real life client timescales, budgets etc) and are aiming towards the same goal of course – to inform and / or improve a website design (design of interface / content / functionality..) that meets the business objectives

Anyway – Simon’s says it all far more pithily! Have a look.
And thanks to The University, Dr John and the students we met (a really engaged bunch) for an interesting afternoon.

Related articles

• UX Booth: Usability Fact vs. Fiction (usabilitycounts.com)
• UX design pro at PayPal says eye tracking can improve site design (eyetrackingupdate.com)

Part #1 isn’t actually about Rum at all. More of that in the 2nd part of this extended post. This is the ‘Let’s climb a Mountain on the way up to climbing some Mountains’ post.
The plan was to get our walking legs in after a few hours of driving from Marsden en route to Mallaig (to get the ferry to Rum the next morning). So we stopped near Glencoe and hit the hills (well, a Mountain).

This post is more photos than words as, one week on, I still have a really (really) aching shoulder and arm from traversing the Rum Cuillins Legs are fine. Arm .. strangely not so. Holing on too tight to some rocks higher than my vertigo-challenged head wanted to be perhaps. Anyway, more of that next time .. in the meantime, I give you: Buachaille Etive Mòr

I had to ask Team Leader / Organiser / Motivator (more in post #2) Ali a couple of times what this mountain, that we were looking up at after 6 hours of driving, was called. I’m so not a peak bagger by trade, I don’t really know my Munroes from my Corbetts. I think I’m made for long trails with, okay, some elevation, but not too much exposure to really quite enormous drops. In fact (on the way back down) I remarked “I’m more of a moors troll than a mountain troll – but that was good”. And so I am. Swift, pretty steep ascents are not my natural thing. And exposed high places entice out a monkey from my rucksack, who then sits there pointing out all the dangers to me whilst holding my head between its paws and rotating it swiftly around, so I start to feel a dizzy (and more of that in part 2 also).

BUT – monkey (and relative fitness) aside, it was worth the hike up; as the view at the top across to Ben Nevis and lots of other peaks was fantastic. And it even snowed a little for us on the top to add to the moment.

So that was Buachaille Etive Mor, If I was a fitter man I would have relaxed more into it but my preoccupation was one of “and we four more of these to do tomorrow?!” It was about a four hour round trip but the slog up was worth the views at the top for sure. And coming down we saw a herd of red deer gallop across the bog below us, a great sight to end the first excursion.

Next stop, Mallaig, an overnight hostel stop then the ferry to Rum!

Related articles

• The road to Glasgow, Scotland: the Highlands, Ben Nevis and Loch Lomond (nicfreeman.com)
• http://photographicviewscotland.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/the-best-roads-in-scotland-part-2/

A sky sodden with grim intentions. The grass-blasted upward sweep fuelled by white noise. You pulling ahead, like you always do, snout down. And the whole time – the static pop pop pop of rain on my  hood. Filling my ears.
Oh aye, poetry in motion (mine and Brodie’s, heading uphill). Actually,  really bad poetry, I know.

But I was getting into the poetry vibe and making up some stuff as I trudged (walked would imply a care free demeanour) up the slopes of Pule Hill on Sunday, in search of one of the Simon Armitage ’Stanza Stones’. My appetite had been whetted from the walk across to my Dad’s recently, when we saw the ‘rain’ piece that had been carved into some rocks next to the Pennine Way. I’d heard there was a piece up on Pule and being a local boy and also not wanting to go too far a walk I headed up there. I’ve read a fair bit of Simon Armitage’s work over the years and I like his writing. And it was actually good (perversely) that the weather was so awful.. I needed to get into a stoical mindset just in case the trip to Rum next week is in equally foul conditions.

So, we headed up the flank of Pule Hill  from the Mount Road side, not the side that is approached via a lay-by on the always-busy A62. The higher and more exposed it got the wilder it was. I was glad I had taken winter gear, the weather was disregarding the fact that May is so near! In fact it was so horrible that I didn’t want to stay too long on the top without moving - it really was too cold and wet for Brodie. Before we dropped down onto the quarry side of the hill though, I walked up to the highest point where there is one the Heritage Trail Marker Stones (#14 as it happens). I know this is a pet moan but I really can’t find a definitive guide or map of where exactly all theses stones are placed .. and why they are sited specifically where they are. Yes they all have views associated with them but I’m sure somewhere there’s a guide or key as to what each location signifies. Historically, geographically, geologically, sociologically even (industrial revolutions hotspots and all that). Anyway, no. #14 is probably a nice place to sit and look out on a drier day than we had!

Actually Brodie could have sat just below it for longer than me.. fixated as she was by some sheep and lambs far below us:

Back to the poetry.. We dropped down off the summit and walk north along the length of Pule Hill, along a fairly well defined path just below the impressive cliffs of millstone grit (note: will check my stone types later).

I wasn’t sure but I guessed the work would be within the large quarry area itself.. I couldn’t see it on the road-facing cliff faces  above me, so we walked up part of the rampart (where the old stone-laden trucks would have trundled down) and had a look about. When I found it I thought it was really good and arresting to see a chiselled typeface on such a large scale in a quarry.. and makes a change from the vacuous scratched greetings you normally get

Whilst I’m thinking , here’s a video giving you an explanation of the Stanza Stones project :

I really admire the skills of the carver, Pip Hall, very talented : http://www.piphall.co.uk/gallery/landscape.php 

A lot of people have been involved by the looks of it (and I hadn’t realised till I saw the video but that includes my friend Tom Lonsdale, Landscape Architect (http://www.placecraft.co.uk/).

Full details of those who have invested time and funds into the project are here : http://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/test/stanza-stones-key-partners/ .

And whilst I’m adding some links – one of the funding partners is Pennine Prospects. I hadn’t really come across the organisation much before but coincidentally they got in touch with me recently about the Walk and Ride festival happening in September in my region, which hopefully I’ll take part in. I like the website and the aims of it – and there’s some walks on there I’m going to make a note of. I’m not sure who did the photos on the header section but they’re great.

The umbrella group / raison d’être for the whole stanza stones trail thing seems to be the Ilkley Literature Festival and Simon Armitage’s part in that. I like Ilkley and have been to the festival in days gone by. But I’m not so sure about having the Ilkley connection both prominently and also kind of ambiguously displayed up in an old quarry in Marsden though (more of that in a minute).

The actual Stanza Stone poem installation / piece itself is tucked into the quarry, you have to have a mooch to see it. And it’s really good and ‘sympathetic’ .. e.g carved into the old stone, the poem itself evokes the winter conditions of the moors (it would read as well in a book of course but being in and off the landscape when you read it is pretty powerful). I’m all for this project and for getting ’Art’ into spaces used by many.
And the trail itself would be a good one to do at some stage to see all the Water based poems in their respective locations.

My camera phone doesn’t really do a great job but you’ll get the gist of the piece :

So , a really nice idea, skilfully executed.

But .. I’m really not sold on the other installation / intervention up in the quarry.
Some new stone (I think) has been brought in to make a curved wall with an integral seat as part of it. I really like the shape of the wall / seat and it is placed at the front of the quarry so you can rest and gaze across the moors (towards Ilkley I presume.. cognitive map says yes). But it kind of jarred with me for a few reasons – new yellow stone isn’t that appealing (I know it will weather in time), it reminds of the faux stone used in housing new builds. Bringing stone into a quarry feels a bit non-green, As in it takes effort / fuel to do that? Unless this was surplus stone from elsewhere and brought in by  horse / cart (not being sarcastic .. why not?), then that would be cool. And the words ‘Ilkley 45 1/4  miles” carved onto the front of it. I know (through post-walk research) that it refers to the literature festival and the trail you can follow from Marsden to there. But an information plaque about the whole project would have maybe been more helpful. And it kind of has an element of cultural imperialism about it. Aspire to travel to Ilkely! Why not mention where more local landmarks are? Yep I know it revolves around the actual Stanza trail project and I’m being a bit bah humbug now, but it felt a bit brash compared to the poem / stanza stones themselves and a pretty unnecessary addition I think.
Moan over.
Blame the weather.

But as for the stanza stones themselves .. I’d like to see them all.

Yesterday I finally did a route I’d looked at a while back but for various reasons not fully completed. And I had the best of the weekend weather as it turned out .. witness my slightly red forehead now

The route starts and ends in Marsden, taking in the Wessenden Valley and part of the Pennine Way into the Peak District and up to Black Hill. Then turning back to White Moss above Marsden and heading back down the Wessenden Valley. Although I changed the last part as I was getting pretty weary after a longer than expected bog-trot where the path disappeared for quite a while. More of that in a bit.

This map was created with the excellent Viewranger web / app service and gives you the details. I’m not great with the mapping tool yet and could probably lose some of the green way points I created. What’s great though is that the map is then synced to my phone to act as a GPS device – and it’s really accurate. As I found out when we did Scafell Pike and I found a path that was just a couple of feet away but not visible above us.

I modified the route slightly (to start on a higher path than they suggested) from one I picked up from another site: http://www.peakdistrictinformation.com/outdoors/walk1.php .
Also, here are some more details on Black Hill if you’re interested:

http://www.peakdistrictinformation.com/features/blackhill.php . Actually I’ve posted about a trip to Black Hll before : http://halfwayhike.com/2012/01/22/on-top-of-3-counties-a-schlep-up-black-hill/.

So, the walk itself:

It’s a fairly long schlep at about 12.5 miles (but felt like more on the bog section!) and I deliberately added a steepish (as much as you can get around here anyway) incline at the start to get myself out of breath early on. I wanted to be a bit more in the zone for an imminent trip to Rum, which will be with guys who are way fitter than me.

I had really good weather, much better than I expected and that probably made the walk (perversely) slower than it would have been – I’m a sucker for a photo opportunity! So if it had been raining I would have just ploughed on. Below are photos from the walk in chronological order, giving you a feel for the whole route I hope.

I’m lucky to have a footpath that runs next to our garden gate and straight up to the hills. It branches just ahead of the shot.. right to head straight to the Heritage Trail above the Wessenden valley.. or straight on up to some farm houses and for a steeper climb up to ‘the tops’. Which means, in effect, going in the opposite direction to the planned route.. But to then turn right higher up and start heading in the correct direction.

After about 40 minutes of walking and now on the high path, I stopped to swig some water and spotted a lovely red/rusty coloured hawk (maybe a Red Kite , not sure if they are prevalent in this part of the country?) hovering above the field to my side. I don’t have a good enough lens on my DSLR (I used that and the camera phone for these photos).. so I just grabbed an image of the area anyway.
Lots of the walls and culvert bridges have collapsed up there, a real shame but times change and sheep farming probably doesn’t justify the expense of rebuilding all that stone nowadays.

We saw surprisingly few sheep this time round..I think most are down in the lower fields with the lambs?
It meant the dog was less giddy than usual. What was funny is that when she saw this lamb (and she’s always on a lead, don’t worry).. she mewled like she does when she sees cats. She loves cats .. to play with (when she’s been close enough to any in the past). Cats and Lambs seem to be in a different (more maternal maybe?) category for her than rabbits!

After coming down off the Heritage Trail and joining the Pennine way we walked up to Wessenden Head then across the A635 to start the section up to Black Hill. And that meant passing the mobile food truck that is often parked there. We didn’t have a bacon sandwich this time as I’d brought food with me. And we (yep, the dog included) had had bacon for breakfast to set us up. I’m more than capable of having bacon sarnies twice in one morning but I wanted to crack on.. so straight past the temptations (and lovely smell, even from a few yards away) of the van and back onto the path heading south to Black Hill..

We had a quick lunch in a river valley before heading on (and up) to Black Hill. The sun was out and it got pretty warm out of the wind. In fact the wind was feature for much of the day but luckily the rain wasn’t
I shot a quick film..more to test out a couple of things on youtube (the embed video feature seems to sometimes work and sometimes not.. so I’m just adding straight links for the moment) so feel free to skip it.. but it gives you an idea of the countryside on this part of the walk.

We inadvertently flushed out a lot of grouse on the way up to the top, we stayed on the stone path but they were resting / hiding (or nesting) pretty close to it and we must have caused about a dozen explosions of flapping wings and shrill shouts of protest as we walked by. They made me jump every time, so much for using hiking as a way to keep my hereditary high BP low :-/
And squawking and flapping is not the cleverest tactic in my view, no wonder so many are bagged each year by hunters. If they stayed still we could have been within inches and I don’t think the dog would have noticed them.

The grouse zone was soon behind us though and the path to the summit of Black Hill was marked by a few cairns, probably useful in snow but the path was really clearly defined (being mostly paving slabs) as we ascended.

Before we crested the hill and on to the trig point I stopped to look out to the east.. with some great views. A really clear green lane could be seen stretching out down to (I think) Holmfirth.

The trig point itself was a lot more hospitable than the last time we were up at it, although it was pretty windy! And the clouds looked like they were ready to drop a load of rain on us at that point.

Another quick swig of water and then I tried to locate the correct path off the point and down / north-west towards the A635 again. But that path unlike the paved one near it, was really hard to locate. Mostly under water as it turned out. Note : the section coming off Black Hill back down to White Moss is very boggy. Even on a sunny day (as it was) the rain from a few days before made it very difficult to traverse in places. There are occasional posts sticking out of the peat on grass knolls as approximate path guides but caution is required. If it had rained heavily I would have stopped after the first few minutes as the area would have been a quagmire for sure.

Another quick film .. of this section of the walk before we hit bog-central.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifWKcxk87uI

Actually before we got to the really boggy part we came across some areas that still had accumulated snow from a few days ago.. showing how cold it can be up there.

And onto the bog section. No photos from here as I was too focussed on keeping Brodie out of deep mud/peat and me not up to my gaiters in the same. Which meant a lot of long leg stretches from grassy knoll to grassy knoll and a lot of traversing of saturated gullies. The posts mark out the general line to follow but you kind of have to zig zag a lot to follow them.. otherwise you area straight into a sludge pool. As I said (and is mentioned on another site I saw) this really is a route for sunnier / drier days (or hard frost/ice days) only. NOT to be tried in really wet weather or poor visibility imho.

Actually there was one photo I took on this section, I spotted a tray pinned under a stone, close to the path. It looked to all intents and purposes like cat litter?! I’m sure it’s part of a survey thing possibly used by Natural England  the Peak District National  Trust guys? Any ideas anyone?

After the bog jumping section and pretty slow progress we made it down to the A635 again and a short walk along that always-busy road then onto the path that crosses White Moss. It looks to me like the path has been diverted slightly. It used to have wood planking to bridge the boggiest sections, if I’m right, but is now pretty much all paving slabs like elsewhere on the Pennine Way. I’m not sure how the slabs are brought up this high on the (often boggy) moors.. possibly helicopter-ed in or on tracked vehicles I guess. One of the things that often strikes me as I write these posts is that I really don’t know much about the fauna, flora or man-made artefacts of these managed estates!

The map of the route shows that we wojld have turned right off White Moss and tracked (on a clear path) back down to the Wessenden valley and then walked along the reservoirs back into the village,. But I’ve done that section a couple of times recently so instead we walked past Black Moss reservoir on the Pennine Way towards Redbrook reservoir, turning right / north east there and heading down hill on Mount Road into the village. A slightly quicker final leg back actually as my feet were aching and a cup of tea was in order!

suggested links:

http://www.walkingenglishman.com/peakdistricthills.htm

http://www.deanread.net/blog/2012/03/08/peak-district-black-hill-from-crowden/

http://www.moorsforthefuture.org.uk/black-hill

This is the second time I’ve walked to my dad’s house, about 13.5 miles over the moors. This time Brodie Dog and I were joined by my sons Joe and Ronan. They’re the other two men in the post blog title. Actual men, both being over 18. Which is alarming as I can remember carrying them both in backpacks and it really (really) doesn’t seem that long ago.
So, 3 men rather than the usual one Man And His Dog. Which made for a more conversational hike (The Dog is pretty monosyllabic unless there’s food on offer). And it was great making the journey to my Dad’s with my two sons.

The original trip (the solo version) blog post can be found here .. just to give you some additional perspective on the walk. As with that walk, the return leg was to be by car, with my dad kindly ferrying us home afterwards from his house. I think in the post about the first Stoodley Pike hike, I was musing about the Roman road I (nearly) intersected at one stage. I’m glad to say that this time we actually ‘found’ it and a short section of the walk included walking downhill on its surprisingly intact cobbles. More of that later.

Here’s a map of the route – zoomed out to fit it all in and what you don’t get so much from this is that it’s pretty much moors the whole way. Although the light brown shading does hint at it of course. Maps are good like that. So, lots of moorland but you’re not in the wilderness as such – this walk traverses lots of the built environment.  From roads (and motorways) to reservoirs and pylons. Which means that it isn’t the prettiest of walks in places but it is an interesting one, reminding you just how industrious a species we are.

The hike started at around 8.20 on Easter Saturday, under fairly leaden skies but the forecast promised nothing more than a light shower, so we were hoping for just that.
We walked through Marsden up to the old Pack Horse bridge (Eastergate) so we could track across the bridleway to intersect with the Pennine way as it meets the A640.
Those folk who walk the long distance trail of the Pennine Way would have probably walked across from Standedge (west of where we started) to get to this junction but that would have added a bit more time onto our hike.
And the section across the moors from Eastergate (starting near the Hey Green hotel), to the Pennine Way at the A640, is a nice expanse of moorland.
It got a bit difficult in a couple of places actually, as the 12 hours of winter we had a week or so ago had dumped a lot of snow and had obscured the track, such that we waded through a foot or so of snow on some of the path’s  gullies.

I’ll describe the rest of the hike with photos, all taken on my camera-phone so not the best quality –  but hopefully you get a sense of the areas we went through.

The first stretch was (as above) a mix of saturated path and the remnants of snow drifts up past the March Haigh area of Marsden Moor. From here we crossed the A640 and joined the Pennine Way and we were lost in conversation and banter, so we were soon at the trig point up at White Hill. There were lots of ground nesting (it looked like) birds taking flight and getting quite shouty as we walked past, I’m guessing that was to distract us from where their nests were?
Something we discussed was that our collective knowledge (and mine should be the better, as the Good Parent) of the fauna and flora on the moors is pretty sketchy. Something I need to rectify I think.

After White Hill comes the huge satellite pylons above the M62 before you cross the high footbridge that spans the M62 – heading for Blackstone Edge.

Before we crossed the bridge we stopped to watch a helicopter sweep over (what you don’t see in this video is the M62 hidden in the steep valley below):

This bridge isn’t really one for those with a bit of vertigo. I did feel a bit weird halfway across.. probably because of the drone / constant white noise of the (always) heavy traffic below and the fact you are so high up.

After the motorway crossing you’re back into moors territory and after a short climb, amongst the rocky outcrops of Blackstone Edge. It was noticeably colder and windier at this stage, so we went down into the Blackstone ‘cliffs’ to take shelter for lunch. The cliff formation is pretty impressive., even more so with some minor  snowdrifts picking out the rocks.

After refuelling, I had the urge to make a little arty (as in, a homage to Anthony Goldsworthy) ‘intervention’ .. which is a grand way of saying a quick nature doodle. And nothing like his work really. But I’ve always made little sculptures or doodles on trips out. I’ll sometimes make rock balances or circular formations based on any natural materials to hand. Don’t know why, just something I like to do for any one coming upon it later on.

This was a simple circle that had some of the peat and fresh snow sat in a natural circular depression in one of the huge rock boulders.

We then picked our way across Blackstone Edge and down to the Aiggin Stone .. a medieval way-marker. And right next to what is reputedly a Roman road. I say reputedly, as various websites dispute this (and a couple of people I know). The cobbles and central channel are (I think) classic Roman road design but there is a school of thought that says this is also a medieval construction. I’m going with Roman.. I was enjoying the ‘in their footsteps ‘ vibe as we walked down hill on the short section that takes you onto the Pennine Way again.

From here it was downhill to join the A58 and the White House Inn, which you skirt around the front of, to get to Blackstone Edge reservoir. This Res is then the first of a series of waters you walk alongside (still on the Pennine Way), the last being Warland reservoir. It was just before there (if I remember the location correctly) that we came across a more permanent artwork on the rocks: Simon Armitage has created a series of poem carvings (carved by someone else) between Marsden and (I think) Ilkley, themed around Water and its role on the moors.
I keep meaning to walk up Pule Hill (which is local to me) to see the poem carved there. Now I’ve seen the Warland’s ‘rain’ poem in situ, I’ll have to plan a walk (or series of walks) to see the full set. Ever the collector.
Some more information about it is here. I’ve read some feedback that claims this project actually spoils the natural landscape. My view is that there’s nothing ‘natural’ about reservoirs or quarries, interesting ‘naturalised ‘ features though they are. And I like much of his work that I’ve read over the years, so its okay by me.  But it does raise questions about who decides what art is public and to a degree enforced and who has the right to alter features without a general public vote or consensus.

Warlands reservoir has some other carved stone work at one end , but this is from the 1920′s and I think was to proclaim that this was built for Rochdale Council Water Works.

From the northern end of Warlands Res you then head north-east and follow what is now a really well flagged part of the Pennine Way. I remember parts of this section being quite boggy before so some of the stones must have been laid fairly recently. We could see the Pike from here and we were all pretty tired at that stage. In fact we had a final snack break (Jelly Babies and a slug of water for me!) before the final push.
Brodie had slowed down a bit by now – I’ve noticed she’s getting a bit slower on these longer walks.. still giddy when we start out but definitely slowing down he longer we go on. She’s about 10 now so hitting late middle age maybe, shame to see it but who am I to talk, I had aches and twinges most of the way

There isn’t much in the way of climbs involved on the route but it is a bit of a slog between the Blackstone Edge and the Coldwell Hill section. The Pike is just above my dad’s house and we were all thinking of a drink and sit down at the end.

The views just before the Pike (near East Scout) are great (the Pike is over to the right):

Anyway (nearly there!), we got to the Pike and could see my Dad’s house – part of an old isolation hospital complex, now converted to houses.

So down we went, for (as it turned out) a really welcome bowl of beef stew and beers (for those ‘boy’s of mine) and a coffee for their old man who wanted to stay awake enough to keep his old man company on the drive back to our house. So, not the most picturesque trail in parts but the industrial heritage thing makes it an interesting one. And the moors sections are great.

Related articles

• Three men and a dog in a North Pennine bothy (backpackingbongos.wordpress.com)
  Suggested by the Zemanta plug-in but I had just read this post (And didn’t steal the title, I’d already written mine). It’s a great post and the photos are excellent.
  I need to get out and do an overnight with Brodie.. just to get her doggie pyjamas if for no other reason
• The 50 Best walking holidays (independent.co.uk)

As I out was on a walk on Sunday, taking some photos (below) and musing over why Pule Hill is the shape it is, I felt a bit like the guy from Close Encounters – focusing on his mashed potato mountain. The ‘mountain’ in this case was said hill, I’m not sure what classification of hill it is (I’d need to check the exact height) but mountain it certainly isn’t. I’m not obsessed by it as such but I kept it pretty much in sight for the whole of the walk and used it as pivot to base an improvised route around.

Anyway, back to the walk. After a couple of (really nice) busy weekends / trips away, I’ve missed the hills and giving the dog a long trip out. I’ve also been really conscious that I’m heading up to Rum in a few weeks time and I need to be a LOT fitter for that.. so I headed out on sunday for a leg stretch. I vaguely planned to end up Pule Hill and see Simon Armitage’s sculpture / poem , which I only found out about recently.
That said : I only had about 3 hours spare – the afternoon held a pre-arranged trip over to my dad’s (but I’m going to do the 5 – 6 walk along parts of the Pennine Way to his place again soon) so doing a decent walk and getting up to the top was a bit ambitious, particularly as I started by heading in the opposite direction.

I started out heading out of the house, up the footpath behind us and as mentioned, in the opposite direction to Pule, as that’s the easiest way to gain height for me.. up toward (but not as far as) Deer Hill reservoir to meet the catchwater path there:

The path was strewn in places with loads of spawn : not sure if it was Frog, Toad, Newt , Moors Dragon – any eagle eyed blog readers know?

We followed the path as it turned into the Heritage Trail, round to waymarker stone ‘number 9′. I still don’t have a definitive list or map to explain why these stones are in the specific positions they are. They seem to denote particular views (or historic events?) but I can’t find any info online or in leaflets that explains the spacing or location of them. Number 9 gives a great view over Butterley res across to Pule Hill though:

From here we headed south along the heritage Trail before we took the short and steep path down hill on our right to the Deer farm at Wessenden Lodge. The deer looked lovely in the sunshine, albeit in a fenced off space.
There was a short section walking back towards Marsden down the valley before we cut down a steep path on the left, which is the Pennine Way and then onto the paved section across the moors toward Swellands and Black Moss Reservoirs. This was pretty much the only part of the walk where we couldn’t see Pule Hill (had the mothership landed?! Quick! I had to get it back in view!! .. enough of the Close Encounters nonsense, sorry).

It was really tranquil on this section, the sun was out and thoughts of work/money worries (for another time) disappeared.. open spaces, wide skies and spring warmth kind of quieten the mind. Even the dog wasn’t pulling , less rabbit or hare scents maybe and certainly no sheep to feel compelled to chase (which is why she’s always on a harness and lead up there).

I grabbed some short ‘footage ‘ of the space up near Swellands.. gives you a feel for the area if you’ve never been there (the audio was poor so I added some music with Youtube’s new instant soundtrack thingy .. ever the geek):

Sweep across Swellands picking up Pule Hill

We cut around Swellands res and past another reservoir – Redbrook. Keeping that to my left I picked up a really faint track away from the well-worn path that seemed to aim straight to the bottom (south-facing) side of Pule. It got a little bit boggy in parts but we got to the base of Pule (and Mount Road) at which point I decided not to head up it but to complete the trip downhill and home.

I was running out of time, so the poetry stone and a general mooch around the top up there will have to wait.

Turns out I wasn’t the only hiking blogger using Pule as a waymarker or pivot this weekend – have a read of Paul’s Walking blog.
We seemed to have circumnavigated oposote sides of Pule in circular walks .. doing a figure of eight and possibly at the same time.

  Related articles

• Keep Our Rights of Way Open (stravaigerjohn.wordpress.com)
• http://www.walkridesouthpennines.co.uk/walk_inner_detail.php?id=558&area=9;

The other reason I’m excited is that one of my sons has been to Rum and his description of the island (despite the ticks) was captivating.. names like Trollaval are fantastic : Mountain Of The Trolls. In my head that’s a mashing together of the spirit of some of the isolated parts of Iceland we both saw and my childhood (and recent film-based) Tolkien recollections. And I saw Troll Hunter recently too, to add to my (probably inaccurate) imaginings of the strangeness of the place. Not sure if one will visit the bothy that I think we’re staying in .. but I’ll have my camera with me just in case. And not just Trolls but ghosts frequent the bothy too apparently .. even better

And judging by the photos I’ve seen from son Joe, on Flickr and on the blogs below, it looks to be a dramatic and beautiful place.

The second trip I’m planning and need to definitely, definitely get in shape for is the National 3 Peaks challenge which I’m sure everyone knows is 3 mountains in 24 hours. I’ll be doing that with and for a rough sleepers charity that I support called Simon on The Streets. More of that another time. I checked with my GP and I got the all-clear on the 3 peaks. I’ve climbed some big hills (that’s not a metaphor, well, it is a bit) in the last 18 months so I should be okay but it’s always good to check in with the doc. My blood pressure has regulated to a good level in the last few months – thanks to the medication no doubt but also by really cutting out salt, reducing the ridiculous amounts of coffee I used to drink and watching the processed food intake. Salt – don’t do it kids, it’s a killer.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to both trips!

More on Rum from a couple of great blogs I follow:

http://backpackingbongos.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/a-wilderness-slackpack-on-the-isle-of-rum-pt1/

http://writesofway.com/2011/02/19/a-fleet-footed-rum-cuillin-recce/

“Let’s go off road today” .. silent stare … Yep I talk to my dog but sometimes forget she isn’t Scooby Doo. Though she can sound like Chewbacca when she is begging for food.

Much of my walking is done in my own back yard, the moors and hills that form a horseshoe around my home town of Marsden. And pretty much all of that is done following well-trodden paths.

Some of them are paved (which can actually be.a.bad.thing as attested by my mate Steve http://steventuck.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/ouch/), some gravel and some occasionally water-logged and river-like. But all are well trodden and published. One or two stretches go way back past clog wearing times to Roman days. Fact.

But it’s good ring the changes sometimes and go off path, which is what I felt like doing last Sunday.

So Chewy and I headed up (on pretty much a road) to the quarries above Marsden near Dear Hill Moss. But rather than wind my way around one of the hills up high, I walked straight up it.. just to see what was there. I was corralled to some extent by the fence that marks out where the local shooting range is. I’ve seen people on the wrong side of the fence in the past, climbing some of the impressive quarry rocks. But you’ve got to be mad to (a) climb (imho) and (b) do that inside a designated rifle range space. Double adrenaline rush.

Anyway, keeping to the right side of the range fence, I made my own way up high. What was up there on the tops, above some of the published paths (like the Colne Valley circular, the Wessenden path and the Pennine Way) was another path, of sorts, in places.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. These moors have been worked and walked for a really long time. Lots of people before me had obviously fancied a mooch around on high, away from where the (sometimes pretty busy with mountain bikers and hikers) ‘proper paths’ are.

I’m assuming that a lack of paths up high would probably have been for historical reasons – other than sheep there would have been no reason for people to wander about on the remoter moors stretches. The quarries all have paths leading to and fro but obviously they point downhill.

But lack of paths means a relatively undisturbed environment for the fauna and flora .. and I was conscious that I shouldn’t disturb that. So seeing the outline of a couple of paths was probably a good thing .. I stayed within the constraints of their grass flattened routes whist still feeling I was in a wilder space. I didn’t tramp across spaces where birds may well have been nesting in preparation for all that spring brings.

All I could hear was the sound of wind in some of the winter-dried grasses. Actually – I did stray at one point when even the faint path I’d picked up disappeared.. and stepped into a boggy area , one leg went knee-deep in to brackish / peaty water. A reminder that things can get tricky up on high.

Finally, a couple of curiosities I noticed on the walk :

There was a stone marker (see photo) pointing back across the moors .. I’m not sure what it denotes though. “CA”?  Catchment Area (for water)?  “Curious Aliens” (another Yorkshire moors hot spot maybe?)

Also .. I noticed someone had neatly cut through the rifle range fencing .. a clean-cut, with the fence rolled backwards. Strange. Stranger still in that the fence itself actually stopped about 200 yards further along the moors! A short-sighted naturalist protester?

So, I didn’t truly walk wild – but it was a path less trodden. I navigated my way eventually back down to the ‘heritage trail’ path that shadows the lower Wessenden valley path.

Related articles

• The Pennine Way: Edale to Marsden (jonmaiden.wordpress.com)

I already have a pretty good day / rucksack and it has some nice features like the hydration pouch pocket but it is on the small size, so gets a bit tight in there when I add in stuff I want to take on longer hikes, like my DSLR camera and waterproofs etc. I was contacted recently by simplyhike.co.uk  as they’d seen my blog and liked it (cheers guys). And on the back of that they sent me the Berghaus Freeflow 25+5 rucksack to test out.

I spent some of today trying it out up on the moors. Okay, whilst you don’t really get a full ‘road test’ of any equipment in one day and / or one set of conditions, I’m really pleased with it. I’m off to Rum with some (much more hikier/ fitter) mates in May and it will be spot-on for that, as I’ll have more gear with me I think. Definitely my ‘big’ camera and maybe even poles (which the Freeflow has straps for, unlike my existing rucksack).

One really nice feature of the Freeflow 25+5 is that it has an adjustable back length system. I’ve had back issues for years on and off (schooldays rugby, mountain fall, bad posture and too many pies : in that order) so this caught my eye. Again, too early to say if this ergonomic feature will really help my intermittent back issues but it did feel really comfortable once I had it set up how I wanted it. It also has padded shoulder straps with something called EVABreathe foam – which should mean less overheating / perspiration in warmer weather. And it feels really light – 1.4 kg according to the labeling.

Finally a quick word on simplyhike.co.uk : The rucksack itself could have come from a range of online retailers of course but what was genuinely nice about getting it from them was the delivery service. Because we’re out during the day the courier (DPD) couldn’t leave the parcel, so one of the customer service people at simplyhike (Becky) asked me what redelivery options I wanted. And liaised with the couriers to leave the parcel the next day in a safe place. Better than some delivery services I’ve used where you have to drive to another town and depot to pick up a missed item. So top marks on that one. Finally – and again not related to the product as such but I like the simplyhike website having product videos on there (e.g for the Freeflow rucksack : http://www.simplyhike.co.uk/products/Berghaus/Freeflow25Plus5Rucksack-JetBlackCoal.aspx#Videos). No, they haven’t asked me to say that, I just liked that feature!

The walk itself was really nice today – crisp clear air and blue skies – roll on spring!

I had a quick break before heading on, at a viewing point known locally as The Three Trees. Because there are three trees overlooking the valley here. Only one in evidence with this photo of Brodie though. And this isn’t a great ‘testing out some kit’ type photo and definitely not an action shot but the Freeflow rucksack is in shot also

This post could be a tale of two hikes. One a social outing, getting to know new people, sharing the challenge (and fun) of taking on one of the highest mountains in the UK, in winter.

The other a personal journey, raising money in memory of my Father in Law and also tackling an old demon (more of that later).

Firstly , a big thanks up front to Steve (http://steventuck.wordpress.com/ ) for organising it again. The weather can be unpredictable and a section of the walk has claimed some lives in the past so Steve made sure everyone was accounted for throughout the walk and had radios shared out between some of the leaders. The path we took was the ‘easy / tourist’ Llnaberis Path (in summer) but like all mountain paths it can be dangerous in winter – it isn’t easy.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdon#Llanberis_Path.
There were some people out on a definite Sunday walk in jeans and trainers but I don’t think I saw any of them at the top. If they were – major kudos for their chutzpah or plain stupidity.

We needed those radios as it turned out. The cloud was really low in places and as the party spread out, I for one lost sight of others on a couple of stretches.
In fact I lost sight of people in front and behind me at the stretch where we crossed a fairly steep cambered path – with an ice field to one side that eventually leads down to cliffs. (see the Wikipedia link above for more info). Which leads me to that demon – fear of falling. In the morning I’d relayed, in jokey fashion, my anecdote of falling down a mountain ice field (in Switzerland) as a teenager, this was to Lisa and Mac who I’d given a lift to.

But as I got to the snow covered path above the (Clogwyn Coch) cliffs section, I really did have a  ‘moment’ .. just me, the fog and a slope that in places would have had no traction, if I had slipped down onto it. I know how that feels, not being able to stop with waterproofs and ice combining to hurtle you downhill at increasing speed.  A fast ice field descent was very much filling my head to be honest.  I didn’t have cliffs at the end of the slide years ago, thankfully .. but .. ‘You’re not laughing now eh?’ I thought to myself.

So, I waited until I could hear some people behind me in the fog, ‘got a grip’ and carried on.

As well as that psychological blip (which wasn’t there last year as the snow / ice wasn’t an issue) there were a couple of really tough stamina sections.
The Llanberis path is a long haul up to the top, I know people run up it but I had to dig deep on a couple of the steepest sections and paced myself with jelly baby reward interludes. I would sound more Mountaineer-like if I said Kendal Mint cake, I know.

The snow at the top was about a foot or two in places but was mostly compacted ice on the well walked parts. Still, a bit slippy to negotiate. Oh yes – a quick follow-up review for the Hillsound Spikes I bought recently – they didn’t ball up with ice or snow at all and were really helpful on the descent off the snow-covered summit. Top marks from me on those.

The weather cleared a bit on the way down so I got to appreciate the surroundings.. the way up was all head down effort but its always good to raise your eyes and see where you are!

I didn’t walk with a particular group on the way back down but what was nice was finding myself in a small group of some welsh speaking folk. To be honest, because of the snow and ice and being in a post-summit daydream I thought I was back in Iceland. Durr, it took me a moment to get my ear in and realise it was Welsh – the sound of a celtic tongue was lovely to hear. Welsh is one of the languages sent out into the stars to say hello to Aliens, by the way, (via Voyager I think) – random fact for you.

When we came off the mountain some of us stopped at the Pen Ceunant Tea House which is right at the base of the path. A really friendly little house / café and I refuelled on local beer and fruit cake.

Then (there’s a theme here) we sorted out boots etc at the car park before heading onto Pete’s Eats in Llanberis. Also a great place and the post-mountain chat was loud and friendly over chips, eggs , beans etc.

I’ll let some photos I took do the rest of the talking, but first -  a thank you to all those who sponsored me via the Just Giving page I had set up in memory of Ian, my father in law. I raised just short of £300 for the British Heart Foundation.

I also took along some Chinese take away (yes, cold) which I ate when I got to the summit. Ian really liked a take away and its something I associate with old family holidays and his treat for everyone when we visited.
Crispy Beef in (spicey) OK Sauce if you are interested. That kept me warm

Some photos from the day:

Other links

For much better photos from one of my hiking compadres (Jeffrey Bowman), have a look here http://peaksandflow.tumblr.com/

http://asnood.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/snowdonia-national-park-this-is-why-i-love-the-great-outdoors/

http://morganwiltshireblog.com/2012/01/04/starting-with-a-bang/

I’m heading up Snowdon at the weekend so I thought some snow spikes would be prudent.

I’m not a proper / climb K2 kinda mountaineer, definitely a hiker but the conditions on Snowdon at this time of year can be tough, treacherous even.
Snowdon last year was okay without crampons / spikes but in hindsight I didn’t know that and should have had a pair stowed away in case.
I fell down a mountain once via icy slopes.. don’t want to do it again thanks

So I wanted to be better prepped this year but I didn’t think it was worth getting hard-core crampons that wouldn’t get much use at other times.

I asked around and the Hillsound Trail Crampons (spikes) looked a good solution (and thanks to @JeffreyBowman for the tip).

I did look at some “micro spikes” options (Grivel, Pogu) but I judged that for Snowdon and the possible snowfalls and / or ice, micro spikes could be a bit too, well, micro.

Anyway, we just had some decent snow on the moors around me, so this Sunday was the time to give them a testing. And to try getting them on and off – without being at the top of a mountain

Firstly, they fold away really well, don’t weigh much at all and will go with ease into my rucksack. They don’t come with a stow bag though, which is a shame. The spikes look like they may quickly rip through the (spare) old poncho bag I had to hand.

Getting them on: They’re really easy to fit on, the rubber upper section stretches nicely around your boot with easy to grip tabs (even with gloves on) and the velcro top strap kept them firmly secured.

The paths on the tops were pretty icy in parts but they gave me good grip. And I gave myself  the added ‘stress test’ conditions of going up and down some steep snowy slopes, with the dog pulling ahead in her usual unpredictable fashion.

There’s nothing like 18Kg of excitable sheep-sniffing dog to test the digging-in ability of any boot or spikes! And there were a lot of sheep hidden in the shadows of some of the steep valleys..

My only niggle is that one of my boot soles got partly balled up with hard ice after trudging through some deeper snow for a while. I needed to stop and clear it off a couple of times. It could have been that I hadn’t ensured the rubber upper support was as taught as it should have been but it was a bit disconcerting to have it clog up. Everything else about them was great though. They could make the difference between getting to the summit / trig point on Snowdon or not.

More info on the spikes here : http://hillsound.com/2products/crampons_overview.php

I bought mine from Amazon as it was the easiest option (with my account all set up) and only a couple of £ either way (at £49) on costs compared to other sites.

Related articles

• Sensible Crampons (becomingoutdoorsy.com)