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Paddlers' massive 'no' to Lake District charges
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Fiennes conquers the Ogre
“I'm 63 years old. I'm terrified of heights. I've had a double heart bypass.” So said Sir Ranulph Fiennes. He could have added...
Norway ski survivor: 'We weren't ill-equipped'
A father whose son died beside him on a Norwegian cross-country ski-ing trip has denied claims his group was ill-equipped.Right: the Hardangervidda plateau.
New curbs for vehicles on Lakeland pass
Off-road vehicle users face more restrictions on a Lake District route that is popular with walkers and cyclists.Left: the route up Longsleddale, with the Gatescarth Pass at its headGatescarth Pass leads from Longsleddale to Mardale Head in the East of the national park.
Green footprints in run-up to Scots election
Scottish activists will make their mark at the next election with a campaign to stamp a green footprint across the country’s politics.Environmentalists are urging Scots to vote with their feet – by sending their own footprint, in green ink, to candidates in the May elections.The John Muir Trust is among Scottish environment charities bidding to raise the green agenda at election time.
Ribblehead viaduct walk is confirmed
Organisers of a unique walk across the Ribblehead viaduct say the event will definitely go ahead.Left: Ribblehead viaductThe Settle to Carlisle railway will be closed for maintenance work for two weeks in July and the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line have negotiated with Network Rail and Northern Trains to allow the public the chance to walk over the viaduct.Cost will be £15 per person and details are on the Friends’ website.
April celebration for Kinder anniversary
April will see the 75th anniversary of one of the most significant events in the long history of the fight for access to England’s wild country.One Sunday in 1932, 400 ramblers gathered in a quarry at Hayfield in Derbyshire and set forth on the path to Kinder Scout.
Council decision saves green from builders
A city council has confirmed that an open space should be protected from development.Leeds City Council ruled today that Yeadon Banks should be registered as a town green, in line with a recommendation from inspector Alun Aylesbury earlier this week.The decision means the area cannot be built upon.Local campaign group Keep Yeadon Banks Green Group (Keybag) and its leader Doug Jones were congratulated by national group the Open Spaces Society(OSS), which had supported the fight for the green. OSS general secretary Kate Ashbrook said: “This decision means that Yeadon Banks is now saved from development. “The owner of part of the land, Leeds Group PLC, objected to the registration, along with David Wilson Homes, who wanted to buy the land for development. Now that it is confirmed as a green, any development there will be illegal.“We congratulate Keybag and its leader Doug Jones, and Pudsey MP Paul Truswell for their excellent work. We are delighted that Yeadon Banks has been saved for the community.”Locals had to prove the land had been used for lawful sport and pastimes for at least 20 years.
Poles apart as Welsh over 50s go Nordic
Wales will resound to the click-click of walking poles if a charity has its way.Age Concern Cymru wants to get the over 50s outdoors and pounding the Welsh miles Nordic fashion.It wants ten volunteers to train as Nordic walking instructors who have passed their half-century so they can pass on the benefits to their fellow grey hikers.
Scots Ramblers' president hit by third tragedy
The newly elected president of the Ramblers’ Association in Scotland has suffered a third family tragedy.Dennis Canavan, the former Labour MP turned Independent, lost his 41-year-old son Mark to motor neurone disease, less than three months after the death of his 35-year-old son, also called Dennis, from a brain tumour.In 1989, Mr Canavan’s son Paul died at the age of 16 from skin cancer. Mr Canavan, the MSP for Falkirk West, will fly to Australia for the funeral of Mark who lived there with his wife Sandra and five-year-old son Tommy.
Access-case tycoon showed 'lack of respect' to court
A Scottish tycoon who wants to keep walkers off her estate has been accused of showing a lack of respect to a court.Stagecoach boss Ann Gloag’s reasons for not turning up in person to the hearing into access on her land have been described as ‘derisory’.The Ramblers’ Association counsel John Campbell QC said it was extraordinary that she had chosen not to attend a hearing she had herself brought.
Baby sleeps through Wasdale rescue drama
A 14-month-old baby was among a family party rescued from the flanks of Scafell Pike.40 Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) members were involved in the search for the missing family of four, who had got lost descending England’s highest peak.All four, from Bude in Cornwall, were unharmed after their ordeal, which began on Monday night when they took a wrong turn coming off the mountain and ended up in Piers Gill at the head of Wasdale.
Low down on the high-level route north
Picture this: a private company wants to build a massive new transport route through some of England’s wildest country.Right: on the route, wild Pennine sceneryThousands of foreign workers will be employed during the construction project, and local resources will be plundered to provide stone and other raw materials for building.It will be necessary to build a temporary town to house the workers as well as a factory on an upland moor close to limestone pavement and cave systems.
Russian Nevis woman 'lucky to be alive'
Rescuers say a Russian woman was lucky to survive after spending the night in freezing conditions on Ben Nevis.The woman was reported missing late on Thursday evening and Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team started a search, despite her having phoned her boyfriend earlier to say she was off the hill.She was found at 1.30pm near the Allt Coire Eoghainn with a badly broken leg.
Outdoor labels: grough peers between the hangers
Outdoor gear shops are like a Santa’s grotto of expensive goodies, luring us into the multicoloured wonderland of Gore-Tex and Polartec.Right: outdoor clothing: we go under the labelBut unlike Santa’s grotto, nothing’s for free and it’s easy to come away with a bag full of waterproofs and a severely lightened wallet.
Naked ambition: tackling Munros the exposed way
Extreme sports seem to be cropping up all over the place these days. Right: Karla and Stuart admire the view Meall GhlasGone are the days when it was ...
Flat-pack Snowdon cafe takes shape in warehouse
The edifice which will grace the top of Wales’s highest mountain is being assembled in a Deeside warehouse.In true Ikea fashion, the frame of the new Snowdon visitor centre is a flat-pack design, and engineers are going through a dry run in the Corus factory, presumably to make sure there are no missing nuts and bolts or door hinges.If it’s anything like grough’s attempts at flat-pack assembly, there will be a few choice words being uttered on Deeside and a fair bit of scratching of heads as incomprehensible diagrams are studied.Hafod Eryri, as the new café – sorry, visitor centre – will be known, will be galvanised after disassembly and loaded in neat ten-ton chunks on to the Snowdon Mountain Railway for its journey to the summit.
Cumbrian man dies after Blencathra fall
The winter of 2006-2007 is proving a grim one for fatalities on Britain’s mountains.A 63-year-old Cumbrian walker was the latest to die when he tumbled from Hall’s Fell Ridge on Blencathra.