Thursday 31 December 2009

Happy New Year 2010

This is a view from Latrigg on the way down towards Spooney Green Lane on Christmas Day. It was very icy and we passed a man with an ankle injury whose friends were giving a 6 digit map reference to the girl at the ambulance hq with little success. We said just tell her its Spooney Green Lane and they will understand and do you know 2 minutes later the ambulance was turning into the lane and coming up it. What a superb response, so I just want to end this year by saying thank you to all those people in the armed services, the police, ambulance, mountain rescue, fire brigade, doctors, nurses all of you and all of you I have forgotton to add. You know who you are - thank you for making our lives safer.

Lastly, I want to say a special thanks to all our many fans for coming on the walks in 2009 and I hope to see you again in 2010. If you are already here then please be safe on the hills at the moment you should not venture out without crampons and certainly take an ice axe if you are doing anything like Halls Fell on Blencathra which Pete, Bella and I did on Monday. Sorry no photos coz we forgot the camera but not the essentials mentioned.





Have a very Happy New Year and good health, peace and prosperity to all of you.

4 comments:

BilboWaggins said...

I'm impressed the ambulance got up the lane! Management's 4x4 got half-way up Gale Road before he decided there was no point being stupid (thankfully) and we walked the rest of the way. The whole road was an ice rink, very glad of the Kahtoola spikes.

Am interested to know how Bella coped with Halls Fell ridge . . .

Lyn Armstrong said...

Well we had on our Kahtoola spikes too but Bella has built in ones! Pete kept tight hold of her on the lead and she just followed him up. It was very deep powdery snow and only the very top of Halls Fell was visible so we had to go carefully right on the ridge. The tricky lumpy bit in the middle with the short climb up rock after it was the difficulty, she was helped round the lumpy bit and climbed the rock after with ease.

I was impressed with the ambulance coming up the icy lane too the driver looked confident and they could turn round at the house I suppose. I imagine they had to go on foot from there though.

BilboWaggins said...

I'm glad Bella enjoyed her excursion.

I wondered if you had one of those Ruffwear harnesses?
http://www.climbers-shop.com/257067/products/Ruffwear_Web_Master_Dog_Harness.aspx

We used one for Ollie and it was brilliant - the buckles are rated by weight so we knew if necessary we could actually pick him up in it (useful over tricky stiles!). I'm pretty certain you can belay from one of the top rings. Not cheap, but our darling four-legged ones are priceless {smile}

Happy New Year - hope you got your Hot Mulled Wine

Tess said...

Happy New Year folks! All the very best.
I would love to be out on the hills - saw some friend's photos from when he was out skiing/climbing on Blencathra the other day. Needless to say the group went green with envy! Must get myself some spikes, once the shops have them back in stock (though my sister & bro-in-law had an interesting time getting up Latrigg on Tuesday, and they had no spikes whatsoever!)