Country Walking?

[Crackle]

By the way, my avatar is Doug Scott

Hah! I knew that looked familiar, I just couldn't place it. I went to one of his slideshow talks once; absolutely excellent as was Bonnington's. Both of them true understaters of the word 'peril'. Doug Scott recounted how he went to sleep on a ledge in the alps, just enough room to sit upright and fall asleep. When he woke the next morning, he discovered he'd forgotten to clip himself in to the ropes! One twitch and away he went a few thousand feet down. I think he described forgetting as 'unfortunate'. He showed a slide of the ledge he was sitting on: My bowels moved

 

[Smokin Joe]

My dad was a walker and passed the habit onto myself and my brother, A five mile hike was often the norm for us on a Sunday afternoon even when we were six or seven years old. Mrs SJ is a keen walker too, though I don't do leisure walking anymore as I work door-to-door and clock up a considerable mileage during the week. In fact I spend more on shoes than I do on car tyres.

Walking is one of the best ways of clearing the mind and relaxing that you can do.

 

[Cathryn]

Photos?

I don't have a wide lense camera - they didn't fit on the normal lense!

 

[Chris James]

I think Doug Scott has plenty of stories. In fact the man is pretty lucky to be alive. Most of his slide shows seem to involve photos of people who have died in the mountains since he took the photo.

The two most famous stories of his are when he and Dougal Haston snowholed at Everest South Summit as they summited too late to get back down again. At the time it was the highest bivvy ever, well in the 'death zone' of depleted oxygen and extremely cold. To add to his problems he wasn't wearing his down suit as it hadn't fitted him properly and he had basically gone in thick thermals assuming he would be summiting fast and light. Dougal Haston kept warm all night by continually excavating the snowhole and Doug Scott started hallucinating and having conversations with one of his feet about how the other foot looked in a bad way and might have to be lopped off. Fortunatley he managed to look after them enough so they got down the next day and kept all their fingers and toes.

The other famous story was the descent from their first ascent of the Ogre in Pakistan. Doug Scott broke both legs at the ankle on the first abseil off the summit. If he stayed where he was he was going to die so he ended up crawling his way down the mountain for a week! Chris Bonington was on the same team helping him, only CB ended up breaking two ribs and contracting pneumonia to boot!

 

[Dayvo]

This Swedish climber was also one of the 'tougher' types of adventurer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göran_Kropp

Not only did he climb unassisted to the top of Everest, he did it without oxygen, at a belated second attempt three weeks after an aborted first attempt just 100 yards from the top, but he cycled to and from Everest base camp from Stockholm.
Unfortunately he died in a fall on a 'minor' mountain!

 

[NickM]

This Swedish climber was also one of the 'tougher' types of adventurer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göran_Kropp

Not only did he climb unassisted to the top of Everest, he did it without oxygen...

And he wrote a book about it (Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey) which I have so far failed to get hold of.

I started walking about four years ago, during a spell of particularly dismal weather while on holiday in Dorset. In cycling clothes and trainers! The first walk was only eight miles, but seemed quite challenging back then.

The bug bit, so MsM and I decided to do a challenge walk. A winter was spent gradually building up our mileage until we felt confident of finishing the event, and in February 2004 we successfully tackled our first 25 mile challenge walk - "Foggy's Revenge", promoted by the Dorset group of the Long Distance Walkers Association.

Then we joined the LDWA, the equivalent of Audax UK, and we are very glad that we did. We do lots of social walks, weekends away, and at least one challenge walk every year. The scale of these has gradually built up to this year's Dorset Giant 100K, the most rewarding and enjoyable walk we have ever done - superbly organised, wonderful route, perfect weather. There is a 100 mile challenge walk every year, but I don't know whether we'll ever do that - unless you are very fast, it requires two consecutive nights' walking (and navigating) with no more than catnaps at controls. The emphasis in these events is on distance and scenery rather than difficult terrain, but there was still 7000' of climb and descent in the 32-mile Dorset Doddle (after which we walked funny for a week).

Having been regular walk leaders for the LDWA, we were recently recruited as leaders for Walk London. They pay us handsomely to do something we like doing - result!

Coming up between Xmas and New Year - the Great Glen Way. I can't wait.

 

[Dayvo]

And he wrote a book about it (Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey) which I have so far failed to get hold of.QUOTE]

That was co-written by my mate's cousin. After reading it, I approached him about translating it into English, but I was too late. It had already been done.
Bloody good read, though.

 

[NickM]

Now on its way from British Columbia at not inconsiderable expense - but soddit, today's payday...

PS "Later in the same year [2000], in London, the publisher of Kropp’s autobiography was successfully sued for libel by 1996 Everest expedition leader, Michael Trueman. Kropp mixed Trueman's name up with that of expedition member Mike Burns and thereby made false allegations about Trueman's character. As a result of this, the book is banned in the UK." (source: Wikipedia)

No wonder I couldn't find a copy here!