January 21st - Lawrencefield

Members: John Evans, David Whittingham, Duncan, Vicky, Robert Clark, Roger Daley.

Guests: Steve Bowker, Tony Mays.

A very pleasant day was had on the Saturday sun bathing and climbing at Lawrence Field. Lots of routes were done! On a historical note this was the second weekend in a row that David Whittingham had been out climbing on rock in January!!

January 22nd - Peak District Walk

Members: John Evans, David Whittingham, Dave Bone, Wavey Dave, Trish, Alan Hyde Jones, lain McCallum, Brian (?), Dave Shotton, Dave Wylie, James Richardson.

Guests: Richard Turner, Astrid, Steve Baley

5 Davids out of 14 attendees, that's a 35% Dave meet! There was a lot of insistence at the end of the walk that there were 14 people on the walk but vast amounts of head scratching could not reveal the name of the mystery 14th person. I have since worked out that the 14th attendee was in fact me!

14 members is even more impressive seeing as the synopsis was in the November newsletter, but not the January one, and the venue was changed via the pub and email the Thursday before (due to the bunch of suits who run the railways and insist in taking the piss out of me while making vast amounts of money).

Anyway on with the meet report....

We set off from Hayfield, only 15 minutes late (not bad considering the amount of Sheffield rinse that had been drunk the night before), and headed up to Mount Famine where only three people managed to reach the summit (Dave Bone, Dave Shotton and myself) with most others getting several metres away (except Wavey who listened to a child that told him he wasn't allowed up there (likely story). We then surmounted South Head and headed for Brown Knoll, most people got the next tick by doing one lap through the peat around the Trig Point. Finally it was lunch time, so off we went to Edale Rocks where we found Iain McCallum.

A pleasant walk then followed after lunch along the western edge of Kinder - we enjoyed the sun and got a lap in of the trig points at Kinder Low and above Sandy Hays. As we headed past William Clough, we still had lots of sun time left (we didn't want to have to carry those head torches for no reason), and aimed for Mill Hill. Wavey and Trish had enough and went home dropping the Dave count to 33%. With time for another comedy hill name and another lap around a trig point at Harry Hut we then headed off across the A624 and up towards Lantern Pike. Somewhere near the bottom of Lantern Pike lain and Brian headed home bringing the Dave count back to a respectable 40%.

There's not a trig point at the top of Lantern Pike but there is a funny little cairn so we had to put up with doing a lap around that. The sun was still up but we had run out of hills so we headed back to the car. Somewhere on the way home most of the meet decided to follow John instead of their dear meet leader, leaving just David Whittingham and Dave Bone with me to finish the meet.

Not a bad end, finishing with a 66% Dave count and having lost 11 members of my meet! It will be hard to beat next year. Hope everyone had fun! (Ed. He plays a mean set of pipes?).

P.S. Most members of the meet have been seen again since (sorry).

Meet Plan Changed!

Due to the trains not running on Sunday the meet starting location has changed to create a circular route. We will meet at Hayfield car park 037 869 at 10.15.

We will then walk up to Mount Famine and South Head 062 845 and then to Brown Knoll 084 852. We will then head along the western edge of Kinder and finally back down to Hayfield. The walk can be extended/shortened depending on time. Bring a head torch.

Due to the good forecast for Saturday the meet has been extended to include some climbing at Lawrence Field. If anyone fancies going from South Manchester can I have a lift please.

Thanks,