My Mountain page

Please accept my apologies for the distinct lack of posts on the blog over the last couple of months. However, since getting back from our holidays, at the beginning of May, things have been a real struggle, due to the problems with my neck. After thinking long and hard I’ve decided not to update this blog from now on. I’ve had issues with it not fitting into the ‘mywainwrights’ site as I’d originally planned, and it would take a major redesign to achieve this. The time and effort involved in doing this is going to be put to better use by adding a new ‘journal’ section to the ‘mywainwrights’ site. This should hopefully be up and running by the end of July, just in time for my new challenge!
I think things will become much clearer over the next few weeks as to the reasoning behind this. Due to a change in personal circumstances in the last week I’ve got a chance to alter my work-life balance in a way I’d only dreamed of. It’s a rather exciting time for me, which is going to need lots of hard work to get everything sorted out. Please bear with me while I get things sorted out, I know that you’ll like what’s ‘Coming Soon’!!!!
I would like to thank everyone who has read the blog and left comments over the last couple of years, they have been very much appreciated. Gary …..

Hmmm, where to start? Well the first thing I noticed about the new Fuji HS10 was how small it was compared to the old S100, probably about 2/3 thirds the size and weight. The second thing was the the large 3″ tilting screen which is very nice, the only I don’t like about this is in bright sunlight it acts like a mirror which makes it hard to see what you are photographing. Going to put a screen protector on it this week to see if this will cut down on some of the reflections?
The menu set up and button functions are very much the same as the other Fuji’s that i’ve had so it was really easy to navigate through them. There are two new functions that I’ve not had before, the first is Scene Recognition where the camera automaitcally sets the parameters based on what it sees the scene as. This appeared to work fine on Saturday, as all of the photo’s that I took on our Angle Tarn walk were on this setting. The second is ‘Prolight’ haven’t used this yet, but from what I can understand it takes 4 photo’s of the same scene at different settings and merges them to give the best results, it’s supposed to be good for low light conditions, I’ll have to have a play.
The most amazing thing about the HS10 though is the 30X optical zoom, it a manual zoom so there’s no messing around waiting for it zoom in/out, also saves on battery power. Used this lots on Saturday and got some nice shots of the geese on the tarns. But the most impressive shot was the one of Helvellyn from Angletarn Pikes.

This is the view on the 28 mm wide angle setting …

This shot is on the 700 mm super zoom setting from the same spot…

Considering how hazy and murky it was that second shot is pretty good. Looking forward to trying this lens out on some more wildlife shots over the next few weeks!

One of the other functions which I was very impressed with was the HD video, very easy to use, with a stop start button on the back of the camera, no having to hunt through one of the menu’s to use it. Very clear playback, especially on my HDMI monitor as home. Thinking of doing some more video clips from our walks, especially the 360º panorama’s, they give a better impression of what the overall views are like?

At long last the newest member of my camera family has arrived! I’ve been patiently waiting for the release of the new Fuji HS10, as a replacement for my Fuji S100. The latter is the camera that I took out to Nepal, and is now up for sale, so if you are interested drop me an email! I’m not getting rid of the Sony, I’m keeping that, the HS10 is the new ‘go anywhere’ camera. The main reason for the upgrade was down to the amazing zoom lens on the HS10, Fuji were quoting a 30X optical zoom, which was outrageous. But thats what it’s got and after trying it today, it really impressive, don’t worry the proof will follow very shortly. The reason for wanting a decent telephoto lens is for our holidays in a few weeks time, as we are hoping to get some nice wildlife shots. Buying a lens for the Sony was going to be very very expensive, so we thought the HS10 would fit the bill, as I don’t really use a long telephoto that often. Well i’m off to finish sorting out the photo’s and video from today, hoping to have the web site updated very soon, unless Sheena has some more jobs lined up for me in the garden!!!! LOL

Well what a weekend we picked for our first wild camp of the year! After last weekends taste of winter, this week it was definately a taste of summer, with glorious sunshine and temperatures in the high teens! We ended up camping at Easedale Tarn on Saturday night, we’d thought it was a bad mistake as we made our way up from Grasmere thought. The path was was heaving with loads of people heading up towards the tarn, so it was no surprise when we reached the tarn there were hundreds of people enjoying the warm sunny afternoon. Luckily for us they were all at the northern end of the tarn, where the outlet of the tarn is. I knew from the previous time I’d camped up there, there was a good camping spot at the other end of the tarn. My memory was spot on and we found a cracking spot to camp right beside where the inlet stream entered the lake. By 6pm everyone had left the tarn and apart from a couple of walkers coming down off the fells late in the day we had the place to ourselves all night. To be honest it was one of the best nights wild camping we’ve ever had. It did get a wee cold on the evening, well it still is early April, but there wasn’t a breath of wind, it was amazing looking out over the calm waters of the tarn at the oultines of the fells lying in my sleeping bag. It’s nights like this one that make wild camping so special? I knew that going to Easedale Tarn would rule out and great sun rise or sun set shots, basically as it sits in a NE facing hollow. I wasn’t that bothered about that, the main purpose of the trip was to give my neck a good work out. We were however, lucky enough to time our visit to Stickle Tarn on Sunday morning to perfection. The sun had just burnt through the early morning cloud and there wasn’t a breath of wind so the tarn was like a mirror giving us perfect reflection of Harrison Stickle and Pavey Ark in the clear water of the tarn. Even with the wide angle lens on the camera I still couldn’t get the whole view in, so ended up having to stitch several photo’s together ….

Looking at the weather forecast this morning for the coming weekend me thinks it’s time to dig out the wild camping gear. The prospect of a fine, dry and warmish weekend is to good to miss, even though the Lakes are likely to really busy with it still been the Easter holidays. I’m sure once I sit down with the maps tonight I’ll be able to work out a good route. One thing for sure I’ll be off shopping at lunchtime for Saturday evening meal, we love these ready meals they aren’t the lightest food in the world. But they are really delicious and quick to warm up, add some rice or pasta and you have cracking meal.

I was a pretty grey murky day here on Friday with the forecast of rain by early afternoon. So we decided to head up the valley to Low Force and have a walk along the river and hopefully get a few more nice shots of the waterfalls. This was our fifth visit up there so far this year, which is a bit more than average, but it’s so lovely who cares? As usual we headed along to Summerhill Force first, I think this is now my favourite waterfall to photograph, I seem to see something different there every time. On this visit, it wasn’t so much the falls that drew my attention, it was the dozen of small cascades along the stream bed. They colour of the water running over the flat stones was amazing, it was a bit awkward trying to get a good shot as I was a bit to high above the water, but there was no easy way down! Really pleased with the end result though?

We usually head straight down to Low Force next, but for some reason this time I happened to look at the information board by the footbridge. This is something I’ve always walked past, been there so many times before I thought I knew everything. But goes to show that I didn’t as I noticed on the board that there was another set of waterfalls just down stream from the car park under a bridge. So I thought for a change we would go hunting to see if we could find them. Now I’m really pleased that we did as it’s a wonderful spot, the photo below isn’t the best, but I will need my wellies to get into the perfect spot for these falls. So it looks like our 6th visit for this year won’t be too far away!

While we were over in Little Langdale on Sunday (22.03.10) getting the photo’s that I wanted of Slaters Bridge, we paid a visit to Cathdral Cave. This is an old quarry, very close to the bridge, which is owned by the National Trust. Of course there are the usual ‘DANGER’ signs, but as long as you are careful they are quite safe to go into. The main is huge, probably at 35 feet or more high, and there’s a huge hole at one side the lets in plenty of light so you don’t need a torch. The reason for the visit was to try and get a couple of photo’s to play around with in Photoshop. It’s not the easiest place to photograph as it’s relatively dark in there, but with the hole at one side letting in the bright daylight, it causes problems with the exposure settings. I knew I wasn’t going to get a brilliant photo as I’d not brought the tripod, so it had to be a hand held shot. To get the shutter speed anywhere near close enough I had to set the aperature to f4. The resulting ‘jpeg’ is shown below ….

as you can see the top left of the photo is pretty dark and there’s not a lot of detail in there. Also the bottom right, and the wall behind the central column, is a little overexposed, as this is where the bright sunlight comes in from the hole in the cave roof. What I wanted to try and do is make a series of photo’s from this original one, at differing exposures, and then ‘fuse’ them together to make one image. It takes a little playing around to get the photos and then get the result you want. But I think going by the photo below, which is the end result, it produces a much better overall effect. All of the colour and details on the cave walls is much clearer in this image. I’m planning to have another visit back to the cave later in the year. This time though I’ll be taking the tripod and the 10mm wide angle lens.

The forecasted cold spell seems to have arrived with fresh falls of snow over the Pennines and the Lakeland fells this morning. I’ve just been looking at Roger and Ann Hileys photo’s this morning of the snow in Loweswater. Looks lke if you are heading to the Lakes for the Easter Bank Holiday you’ll still be needing your winter walking gear. Whatever your plans are stay safe and enjoy!

photo from Loweswatercam ….

We were back over at the Lakes this weekend, this time it was a visit to both the Little Langdale and Great Langdale valleys. We had hoped to try and bag another couple of new ‘Wainwright Tops’ but the forecast of gale force winds over the summits made us decide to stay lower down. The main purpose of the trip was to get a decent photo of Slaters Bridge in Little Langdale. This is a old packhorse bridge in a lovely setting just to the east of Little Langdale Tarn. We’ve been there a couple of times before and failed to get the photo I wanted due to the lighting been wrong. It was third time lucky for us this time though, the lighting was great. The mixture of sunny spells and shadows from the clouds cast a patchwork of light and dark over the fields and fells. The only bit about it was the strong winds were moving the cloulds very quickly over the landscape. One minute the bridge was in bright sunshine the next it was in shadow, I must have sat there cursing for more than 20 minutes! If the bridge was lit right the fells behind were in shadow or the sky had clouded over .. LOL I suppose thats what taking landscape photo’s is all about?
In the end I got several decent shots that I knew I’d be able to work when I got back home and loaded them onto the computer. I think the end result was worth the trip over though?

Apologies for the lack of posts this week, but things have been really busy and not had much time for the blog or the web site. After our walk on Eagle Crag a couple of weeks ago, when we completed the Central Fells we started looking at how many of the Wainwrights we had left to do. So it was out with the old map and list of fells and the abacus, and if my maths is right we have climbed 166 summits to date, leaving 48 still to do. The vast majority of these are over in the ‘Western’ fells, which are by far the most difficult for us to get to. There are 7 left in the ‘Southern’, 7 also in the ‘North Western’ and 8 in the ‘Far Eastern’. The plan is to tackle these 22 fells first, which I think we can do in 9 walks, maybe a couple less if we do a wild camp or two. As there’s 9 months left this year, that works out a one a month. Which we should easily be able to do along side the other things we want to try and achieve this year. As for the ‘Western’ fells we think the easiest way to tackle these is over a couple of long weekends. We are starting to look around to see what suitable pubs, campsites etc we may be able to use as a suitable base.