A moment of reflection before Doodle Week!

*Buttermere on my flickr page*

Wordless again

1000 Photos! (plus some more)

Guess what? Yep its another photography post! Heh.

I have had a digital camera for nearly a year now, my first ever proper camera. I only had shitty disposable ones before that. I have to blame the blogging somewhat for my photography obsession, seeing such great photographs all over blog world just made me want to take more photographs and not just shit ones.
I love taking the camera with me hiking and then being able to share the landscape with you, whether you like it or not. Its a photographic memory collection for me and proof that the blood, sweat and tears involved in hiking is worth it.
What you wont find are many photographs of me, I absofookinlutely hate having my photo took, with a passion. The only photos that are about of me, are ones that I have took of myself. Its something I am getting over. Its somewhat amusing, considering how much I actually like taking photographs.
There are now 1000 photos on my flickr account and that is nowhere near how many photos I have actually took. Well actually by the time I have finished this post there will be more than 1000, as I have just uploaded some more.

*Claire's Flickr*

Another sunny spring like photo

Welcome to my new photo blog! Okay only joking. I am a poking fun at myself for my lack of writing and steady increase in posting pictures instead of words.
This is basically because the words are going onto paper for my counselling homework and my brain is feeling somewhat frazzled.
The last two photos that I have posted were taken on my first hike this year in a place called Sedbergh, which you can read about by clicking this link.

*click here*

Oh and what do you think of the button links above the posts?

Spring is sprung

All that writing and research for my previous post has knackered me right out, so I thought a bit of photo therapy was in order.

Ominous clouds

Another devilish view

Cant be arsed writing

Yes I have turned into a lazy just throw up a picture blogger, MEH!

More photos from this hike here 

Wordless in Wales

More found in this set on flickr here

Hiking in The Devil's Kitchen

To see more photos and these photos individually visit my flickr page by following this link:
Twll Du photos on Flickr

Welcome to Twll Du which translates into the black hole in Welsh, but in English it translates into The Devils Kitchen. It refers to the narrow cleft which you can see in the top right hand photograph. It is found in the hanging valley called Cwm Idwal which is in Snowdonia, Wales.

I have been to this place quite a few times, even with school,as its an area that was formed by glaciation and is absolutely beautiful.

In those past visits I had not attempted any hiking. So its starts as a lovely nice stroll, then its a rather tough scramble to the top. You will see that if you watch the video located at the bottom of this post.

Unfortunately once we did get to the top in one piece, the devil decided to come out to play and we were battered by hailstones and a little snow flurry. Although that did pass fairly quickly, the clouds came down fast on the mountain tops and visibility decreased. This meant it wasn't safe to carry on as we weren't familiar enough with the area for that to be a wise decision.

This also meant I didn't get to see some rather cool rock formations, but I will be going back so will get them next time.

The scramble down was worse as it was a lot more slippery and I had to hold onto to the mountain at some points. No doubt you will be amazed to know that for once I did not fall on my arse, a miracle I know.

The Devil himself appeared in the form of a mountain goat on the scramble down, but stayed still long enough for me to take a picture. A fellow walker told us that one of the mountain goats butt you if you don't feed it. That would of meant goat curry if the furry blighter tried that with me.

Even though the weather spoilt some of walk, overall it was still a gorgeous place and I am looking forward to going back in better weather.

The video is filmed with the same camera that I use to take the photographs, a canon powershot A630. I wish I had a good quality hand held camera but at the moment this does the job.

As its an ominous place I went with ominous music to set the theme, also you could hear that I was out of breath at times, so that had to be edited out.

I forgot to say that the music is by Matthijs Vos, which I found on Jamendo thanks to my chum Tech Fun aka JD. It is track seven, Strings Adventure, and from your comments it definitely adds an eerie factor to the video.

The Devils Kitchen

I am meant to be hiking today, as in Friday, but the weather is pants so I shall know in a few hours. I suppose if you plan to go somewhere called the Devil's Kitchen its never going to turn out well.

Will update this post to say whether I have gone or not :)

Update! Yes I went and the weather was pants! But I got some cool photos and video clips. Now I am sweaty and need a shower, but I am too tired.

Another update: The photos and video took longer to edit than I thought, but they are done now. Just need to have that shower and write up the post, so in other words tomorrow the post will appear.

More on the mine bulilding.

Well you seem to like the shot of the old mill I posted the other day so I thought I would post some more about it. I don't know what possessed me to write mill, when it is in fact a disused mine building! The area of Trefriw is well known for woolen mills, so that fact must of stuck in my head. So on doing a little bit of research the area has lots of metal mines dotted all over the place and this particular site was probably an old lead mine.
Most of this area is owned by the forestry commission and these buildings are made safe and left to nature.
The photographs of the mine building were taken on hike number two this year, if you want to read more about it Click here. There is a short video and the mine building is in that video at the beginning, not the best quality but better than nowt.



If you look at the photos, you will see the words 'Danger' and 'Keep out' which I obviously ignored when wondering through the place with my camera. I would not recommend anyone else to do that, as you never know when you could slip to your doom down a mine shaft.

Wooden

When I go hiking, I am always in seemingly treeless places. There are in fact quite a few trees but when your going up a mountain the trees tend to disappear.
So when it was decided that this week in PhotoHunt the theme would be Wooden, I thought what better than to post my favourite tree photos.

*Remember to click on my face to see more hiking adventures*

Hike Two, hot, sweaty but not muddy.

Yesterday was another glorious day in the world of hiking, I know its annoying to those of you surrounded by snow (haha). It was actually icy, but the sunshine took away the chill factor and well to be honest, the hiking gear and thermal undies helped too.
I have not been to Wales since we attempted this walk the first time round last year and I am definitely heading back to this corner of the world soon. The walk was from Llyn Geirionydd & Llyn Bychan to Llyn Crafnant. I cant pronounce it (its Welsh) without sounding like a Klingon.
To start the walk you have to find the car park which in itself was tricky and you have to force others drivers to reverse around corners in order to let you pass. Once at the car park, we discovered it was deserted, not many brave folks out today.
If you look at the mosaic above you should see a building, that was part of a disused mine which you will see in the video below. It says 'keep out', but of course I ignored that. It was a lovely spot to start the walk. The video is not the best quality and due to my naturally clumsy nature its not safe for me to walk and hold camera for any length of time. Hopefully you get an idea of the lovely scenery that we walked through.
The walk was 9.5 miles / 15.4 km graded as Moderate. The ascent was 1900 feet / 576 metres, but we may of added on a wee bit too that (due to incompetent map reading, again).
Although the hike was beautiful, it was not complete success as yet again the damn five bar gate alluded us twice! this happened last year too. It is mentioned in the directions, but we have never spotted the ruddy thing, so therefore must not have completely gone the right way again. That means we will be going back again to conquer it once and for all.

Notice in the title it says 'hot,sweaty but not muddy' this is in fact a lie. I was a bit muddy but I did not fall on my arse this time.

Click the link below to see the rest of the hikes photos over on my flickr page.

*More Pictures HERE*

Hiking is worth it.

Free Willy!

Quite a few of you witty/mad/perverted and crazy folks have jumped on the I Love Willy bandwagon and proclaimed him to be a free willy when he is out on hikes with me. I can't tell you what my hiking buddies think of me bringing willy, because it involves a lot of swearing and exclamations of WTF!!! They don't understand the world of blog and that everything in life is bloggable. I know what your thinking, WTF! am I doing hanging around with these people for? Its a good thing they can drive and make me nice sandwiches.
Today I am off hiking again for part two of the great getting it right this time challenge. This is where we attempt to not get lost when on previous attempts we have, today's second attempt is in Wales, this one.The previous attempt, so while I am off conquering the hills you can gaze at this photo from last week.

So while I am foot loose and fancy free in the hills , check out the others from this weeks PhotoHunt.

A few blisters popped later....

As you can see from the photos, yesterdays hike was indeed worth it! Even the pus filled blister i have just popped, hasn't diminished how beautiful it was yesterday.
I shall start from the beginning of this adventure so you can appreciate the full wonder of it, as i forget that people actually want to know where i have been and not just stare at my awesometriffic photos ( i am rather chuffed with them).
I awoke about 2 minutes before I was getting picked up and had to drag my still asleep/dead body around the house, legs half in pants, half out, whilst brushing my teeth and making coffee. My chums arrive on time, the buggers, so i open the door and use various hand gestures to communicate that i was running late.
Once i finally got my shit together, i dumped my stuff in the car boot and onto Sedbergh we went. Sedbergh is located in North Yorkshire (England) and its not the first time i have been to this particular spot. Every time we, as in Aly, Chris or me, pick a walk its normally a random thing guided by where has the best weather. This walk was a return to conquer a past failure, Sedbergh had defeated us on a previous adventure, due to bloody fog! (Previous attempt). With this in my mind, i wasn't looking forward to this walk at first.
This is the roughly the path we followed The route, sometimes we go slightly off track. It was a ten mile/16.3 km slog , graded moderate (my arse). The ascent was to the dazzling height of 2300 feet / 697 metres.
As yesterday was my first hike of 2008, you could say i was a wee bit out of shape, okay a bloody lot! Aly and Chris both have kept up with fitness like stuff, i on the other hand hibernate for winter. So while the start of the hike was great, i was even happy. The towards the middle bit where we had to ascend up the side of that bloody waterfall, I could of quite happily died. Aly and Chris wanted to kill me because I apparently had a face like a toddler about to throw an almighty wobbler. I hurt so I could feel like that if i wanted, don't get me started.
To combat the pain and well basic unfitness, I took many a photo stop. Taking photo's is a great excuse to stop and get your breath back.
Humour was restored once we reached the top and everything was downhill from there literally.

Funny notes of the day: I fell over twice, both times landing on my arse in mud. The first time was early on in the hike so my pants had dried and Chris fell over whilst laughing at me (Ha!). Unfortunately the second incident happened at the end of the walk and i had to walk through the village of Sedbergh looking like I had crapped myself.

Watch the video to see a wee bit of what it looked like on the way down, it is set to some lovely music.

PS: Willy was there but he will have his own post :)

Hot, Sweaty and covered in mud.

I am back from my little hiking adventure, hot, sweaty, tired and covered in mud. Did i mention pain? pain all over my body.
Was the pain worth it?I will let you know tomo when i feel like updating this post. Here is one of many shots I got today.

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Photo Hunt - Flexible

Hello this week in PhotoHunt the theme is flexible. I seriously wracked my brain to think of something, as me and flexible don't normally go together. Then whilst I was sorting out more of my hiking photo's to put on flickr, I found these ones. Boy did i have to be a bit more flexible to get myself and two dogs up that waterfall! Not as flexible as the guys we saw rock climbing in the cove at the end of the hike.