DUDDON VALLEY

11.02.2005

Duddon Valley is located in the "Lake District"-which is on the WEST ( I apologize for my earlier mistake of calling it east) coast, north of Lancaster. Not only does it have a lot of lakes..it has A LOT of mountains! As we drove in the pitch black over the hills on the ever so narrow one way roads, I could just feel I was in for something fabulous! It took about 3 hrs. to get there b/c of the curvy roads, and when we finally arrived it reminded me of the SMCSU retreat again! We were in these 2 small cabin like houses, that looked like Little House on the Prairie. The ceilings were extremely low, that all the guys kept banging their heads on the beams..haha. One said that you need a helmet to cross the kitchen! (it had lots a cups hanging from it) Once the bags and boxes were put away everyone started drinking! And soon enough..duh duh duh, beam traversing! This is what it looks like:

It was REALLY HARD. You had to pull yourself up and around the beam. I got so many cuts on my arms, battle scars--as I like to call them! Only a few people could do it. Knowing NO ONE there, I spent most of the night trying to mingle and get to meet as many as I could. I couldn't exactly go to sleep b/c my mattress was the lucky one picked to lie underneath the beam traverse. I eventually moved my stuff to the quiet house. The outhouses were another thing. SCARY! Emma, the girl I spoke to the whole bus ride, and I went looking for it. It was around back and basically a square bucket w/ a lid. Thankfully, there was one closer to my house but it still creeped me out to find in the dark!

I woke up to the wind HOWLING! I thought it was thunder it was so loud! 7am. we were woken up to get a move on. Remarkably even the drunk ones from the previous night managed to get up and even hike up massive mountains! And I did NOT expect a mountain. Cathryn, Harriet, Mark and me conquered the "old man Coniston" on the first day. I broke into such a sweat, heart pounding and loss of breath and lost the will to live 1/4 of the way up! OH MY! The fog rolled in and you could no longer see 15 ft. in front of you! My group was very nice and stopped everytime I needed to catch my breath! Of course at the top, you would want to be rewarded with a magnificent view, but alas, FOG AND WIND.

even sheep can cross a bridge with grace! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Cathryn on the top of 'Old Man Coniston'
"the never-ending mountain of doom!"-me

After 6 hours of non stop hiking we planted our butts in a pub in the town of Coniston. RELIEF! I could not feel my toes b/c they were numb with pain by climbing down the steep mountain side (and my feet would slide forward in my boot). NO blisters though :) That night we played the most RANDOM, yet funny games!!! The can game..I don't know what it's called. YOu basically have to mount a person doing a push up, shimmy out using only one hand and place a can as far a possible. THen you have to shimmy back and pull your partner back behind the line (w/o falling!) OH MY! I did not even attempt this. It got really interesting and further than I thought possible!:

And then there was table traversing.....OWWWWWWWWW
Mark table traversing.
My sad attempt. I have the WORST bruises ever now on my forearms and thighs! Holy crap! They keep getting worse too!
And then, sock wrestling. Two people were harnessed form the ceiling beam and had a go at each others feet and try and get the other's sock off. Sooooo funny. Oz's frog socks made it more amusing to watch! But it's hard work, don't be deceived! Marina, the girl I went against, was absolutely vicious and kept kicking my head. I did not stoop to her level... so lost.

DUDDON VALLEY DAY 2

Me on my second day hike. This was much easier and more at my pace. Ossian, Ed, Matt, Bjorn, and Rich were in my group. They were all quite amusing! It's like I've known them for awhile. WE all looked so hardcore once the rain came with our waterproof gear and poles, and helmets! I felt like a real hiker!

this is called scrambling--more like rock climbing w/o the steepness and ropes/harnesses. It's intense, but sooooo much fun! Eric would LOVE this! I led some of the way up and every like 20 min. I would turn to Ossian (Oz) and ask if we really had to climb that. He nodded of course and I somehow managed to get up some big steep rocks w/o falling! YEAHHHH!
Bjorn scrambling. I can't put my finger on who he reminds me of, but I kept laughing at things he did, hopefully he wasn't offended. So this is basically what we climbed for 2 hrs. By the end our boots were filled with water b/c it was raining so hard I trudged right through the puddles. I also managed to fall quite a bit and one time fell right in a large puddle! Ed said he was pissing himself laughing when I fell...good thing I didn't notice at the time b/c 'd have pulled him in w/ me! My waterproof pants had open pockets that did not zip up, so my thermal underwear got soaked. Not a comfortable feeling!
The wind got tooooooooo strong and so we headed up over a hill and walk down what we had just walked up. VERY STEEP AND SLIPPERY. People were falling in front of me and I couldn't help but laugh! Rich managed to do a nice face plant. You really have to watch your hands though, b/c there's sheep poo EVERYWHERE and you will fall in some. It still ceases to amaze me how sheep crap is like every square metre in the most random and steepest places!! It looks like chocolate covered raisins...so you can imagine why I did not end up finishing the ones I had by the end of the weekend :)

Our cute hut(s): The white one is where we slept and had a drying room, and the one on the left where we ate and congregated.
What I first looked out to on the first morning.--spectacular! I was pinching myself again that I'm really in this remote place, because it's exactly how I wanted to see the countryside. I really couldn't ask for a better weekend. The people were great! Friendly, adventurous, really homey and comfortable and fun!!! I can't wait to see everyone again!

1 Comment

Jenna Rocca said...

I don't know if you'll get this blog but its here anyway. Let me just say I am severely jealous of you for being in a fabulous land. And let me just say that I didn't realize who the hell you were talking about when you say "Phil" until I saw a picture today.