Get ready for the Hampshire Scouts #HSXLockdownOlympics.
There will be a video briefing uploaded by 9am each event day on the HSX website and Facebook Page. You then have until 5pm on the last day of the event to unleash your creativity and athletic endeavour, filming your performance as an individual athlete, or as a household Quaranteam.
This Easter 47 Explorers, Network and Scout Active Support members returned to Great Tower for an amazing weekend walking, climbing and ghyll scrambling in the Lake District.
Arriving on Thursday, some at a respectable time, others at 1:30 am after getting lost near (not in) a ford, everyone’s beds were calling for a good night’s sleep.
Friday started with a fabulous hearty breakfast and everyone getting split into groups for the day.The Patagonia team lead by Chris, Rich and Ellis went for a day’s scrambling at Jakes Rake on Pavey Arch providing some quality team bonding as they prepare to head off on their expedition this Christmas.
Dave, Matt, Dan and The FC All Stars took to Multi pitching at Guillecombe Butress and walking group one started from Dungeon Ghyll car park and headed over Angle Tarn.
After dropping groups off, Nick and Tilly headed to Shepards Crag. With a first attempt at Kransic Crack Direct (HVS 5a) which didn’t go to plan, they then moved to Brown Slabs area for an attempt at something ‘a little less scary’. This took longer than expected so after a 8 hour day at the crag Tilly only managed to get one climb completed, and an abseil in a rescue attempt to collect Nick’s gear from the rock. However, she did get to play with a husky puppy for about 4 hours so all was not lost.
The walking group lead by Alan spent the day conquering Stickle Tarn ending up in Ambleside where Ed bought a lovely red coat and Ross was forgotten.
On Saturday the Patagonia Team plus some new HSX members, I think they were from Andover? Climbed at the Bowder Stone Maximum effort was had all around with newcomer Emma completing a climb she was convinced that she couldn’t do. Well Done!
Everest Dave and everyone else headed back to Shepard’s crag to learn about gear placement, and have a go at lead climbing. Florence and Bradley successfully completed their first Trad lead climbs and Dave found out what ‘being a snake’ meant from the youngun’s. Every day is a learning day after all.
Matt and Lucy trekked further down the crag over everyone’s favourite scree field of doom to Brown Slabs to make easy work of the one climb Nick and Tilly completed the day before. Dan and Tilly also headed out to Brown slabs completing Brown Slabs Crack (VS 4c) and also smashing their way up Kransic Crack Direct, much to Dan’s delight.
The walking team, getting in much needed quality mountain days for ML assessments went to Keswick, completing the Dollywagon and Neathermost Pike routes. Not only did they find an epic bothy full of cakes, they also stopped momentarily to pose like a 90’s boyband, overall the team had a pretty chill day out.
Easter Sunday came around too soon, and the Easter bunny was nowhere to be seen. Probably held up in some traffic in Ambleside. After a wild night camping on Helvellyn on the Saturday and no sightings of the Easter Bunny either, the Patagonia team’s Sunday started with a walk out with the day ending up in Keswick for some shopping and a mooch round the market.
Dave, Lucy and Dan multi pitched Troutdale Pinnacle, a respectable 6 pitch Severe 4a, however due to the rain turned into an E 50 equivalent.
On Sunday, the last two surviving members of the Cambodia Leader Team and ten other brave souls confronted the cold minus temperatures of the water to go Ghyll Scrambling at Church Beck. Ghyll Scrambling if you don’t know it, is working your way up a scramble, that scramble however has a river running through it, which sounds lovely if it was 30 degrees and not -3. After 2 hours in the water jumping into plunge pools only resulting in instant brain freeze, some rather spectacular dance moves and slowly loosing sensation in every part of our bodies we completed the scramble and returned back to base for warm showers and copious amounts of tea.
With the weekend drawing to an end, there was time for one last bit of fun. One of our resident chef’s Karina had spent the day making some lovely vegan friendly Easter nests for us to nibble on while Ian briefed us on the rules of quizzmania. After a purchase of a quiz book during the day Ian decided it was time to unleash some facts. Many have said that this could be a new tradition for the Lake District… We shall now wait in anticipation for quiz night next year… with prizes…
An early start on Monday leaving before 7 meant for early nights all around. The Easter Bunny came over night, meaning treats for the bus journeys back.
Thank you to everyone who helped organise this trip in any way, especially Steve and Karina on doing a marvellous job with the food and keeping us from going hungry.
Our next trip is to the Peak District in June for a weekend of climbing. Keep your eyes peeled on our website for details soon.
We hope to see you there!
Don’t forget to take a look at our website!www.hsx.org.uk
” I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
“I should think so- in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you later for dinner, I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”
Unlike Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, who is dead set against any kind of exploration or adventure, it is clear that HSX members have adventure running through their core.
Last weekend HSX celebrated the 30 year milestone,
That’s 30 years of leading, participating, and developing life changing adventures all around the world.
30 Spectacular years.
The weekend followed our normal September plan, a training weekend at Ferny Crofts, this year we had two current expedition teams in attendance, Cambodia, which are heading off this winter 2016 for 4 weeks, and Patagonia, a team heading off next winter 2017 to Chile. The expedition teams took part in their own programmes, some PT, first aid training and continuous team building were all on the cards. Those who were left also took part training, on how to lead expeditions, running events, learn about budgets etc…All of that exciting stuff.
On Sunday we had a classic big BBQ and were joined by HSX members from the past, who with them bought an exchange of stories and photos that have not seen the light for many, many years.
It was a great afternoon, where the newer members and current expeditions could see where HSX started and came from, and the older members from previous expeditions could see that the sense of adventure is still as strong as it ever was.
Even though we are 30 years old, we feel like we are just getting started, we have a fantastic future ahead, with more adventures, more expeditions and more exciting plans on the horizon.
Somewhere in the story, Bilbo decides that actually, an adventure can be quite exciting, he wishes to see the great mountains, smell the pine trees and hear the waterfalls, ultimately his sense of adventure is overpowered so sets of on a journey.
We still have a journey to complete, and a story to tell.
Thank you to everyone who has ever played any part in our adventures.
Here’s to another, spectacular 30 years.
Christmas time was once again celebrated by the HSX Christmas weekend, and with it the infamous Adventure Race. After a stock up on supplies for the gruelling 3 hour event and a quick brief we all set out in the muddy new forest.
As we all had different tactics the start of the race was manic with all the pairs running off in different directions to the check points. Each check point was worth different amounts, depending on how hard it was to get to and since time was of the essence map reading and snacking was done while running.
No time was wasted avoiding mud or rivers, which astonished the odd dog walker! After about 21km of running round the forest all but one of the teams headed back to ferny crofts to be back in time for the 1300hrs deadline.
We then all had a well-deserved lunch and swapped stories of our routes before the results we in. In first place was Matt Prince & Ollie Robinson with, in second place, and with the honour of organising next year’s race, was Alan, Andy and Josh, and in last place with after a mini ‘epic’ was Liam and Will. Well done too everybody, and see you for next year’s race.. 🙂
