Just before going to bed I popped my head out of the back door to see what the weather was doing. It had been a very grey, drizzly day but in the last few hours the sky had cleared and the temperature dropped and a heavy frost was forming. These crystals had grown on my dad's car.
Topping out from Crotched Gully, Coire an t-Sneachda. The climb had all been in the shade of the gully but as each climber pulled through the cornice their helmets turned golden in the winter sun.
In a break from tradition we spent a weekend not trying to climb when it was too wet to and I was whisked off to Edinburgh. We went to see the Camera Obscura and from the roof of the building we caught this view. I like how the spire shape is repeated in the background.
Natalie accompanied us via steam train (what style!), so we met her in Grosmont for tea and cake. Some of this might be familiar to Harry Potter fans.
I think Cathryn's face sums up what we thought about that! (It was a 1 in 3 gradient, I think I might have broken the sound barrier.)
Discussing our plan of attack over a full English Breakfast. Thanks to Paul and Tom for the picture.
We stayed in a farm house in Sproxton and couldn't have wished for anything more perfect. I went outside before breakfast to get some pictures and found myself in some very thick pea soup.
Following on from our trip to Liverpool last year we wanted to complete our Coast to Coast tour, so this weekend we set off from 31 Vesper Road to cycle to Whitby. The plan was to leave Leeds at 7am on the Saturday and cycle to Sproxton, just at the foot of the north York Moors for Saturday night. We would then cycle over the moors and east for fish and chips in Whitby on Sunday evening. Monday would take us to Scarborough and then onto York (supposedly!). We were highly rewarded for our early start with many views like this one as we travelled north from Leeds and into the Dales.
Two and a bit years after graduating me and all my cool physics friends managed, finally, to meet up in Portsmouth for some in depth physics discussions. This is (from left to right) Janice, Ewan, Jon, Chris (Chris), Chris (Milkins), Keith, Halina and Cazza.
We went to Portland over August bank holiday for some sport climbing. The weather was unusually clement and after a hot and dusty days climbing we went for a quick dip. The sun was setting as we made our way back to the car and I got this picture of some fishermen with their dog walking along the top of the spit that joins Portland to the mainland.
The weather forecast was predicting bad weather for the afternoon so we decided to take advantage of the cable cars at Silvaplana and do a quick ascent of Piz Corvatsch (3451m). This is the view looking south east to Piz Bernina (centre) and Piz Roseg (to the right). The Biancograt can just be seen against the cloud.
I thought this circular pattern in the ice was quite interesting. Taken from the cable car coming down from the Diavolezza.
We didn't finish our route until quite late so we had to spend another night in the Diavolezza. But this time we got up late and had a very leisurely breakfast. Before getting the lift back down we spent a bit of time admiring the views and feeling pleased with ourselves! I took these two pictures together to try to show our route (starting from left to right).
Me on the edge of my first ever glacier and at the bottom of my first ever Alpine peak at about half past 5. The central peak in the picture is the east summit of Piz Palü with the actual summit on the right. Our route took us on a traverse over all three. Thanks to Matt for the picture.
The view from the Diavolezza hut varies enormously from the glacier and snow capped peaks of Piz Palü and Piz Bernina to the south and west to this rocky scene looking east. We had to make an early start on Piz Palu and knew that the first part of the climb would be in the dark so we went out the night before to make sure we knew where we were going. This was taken just after sunset on the path heading out to Piz Palü.
We climbed in the Dolomites for a week then drove west into Switzerland. Our intention was to stay high in the Bernina region for a few days and climb Piz Bernina via the Biancograt but sense, fear, weather and a crowded weekend meant that we ended having a change of plan. We took the Diavolezza cable car up to the hut and stayed Saturday night at 2973m. I took this picture of Piz Palü at about 9pm that evening. The summit is the central peak with the east summit to the left and the west summit to the right.
After 2 weeks at COPS we went on holiday. Due to our extraordinary dedication and love of work we ended leaving 2days later than intended, and even then we were late setting off so by the time we started the climb up to the Dolomites from Bolzana it was nearing sunset.
One of the AWS sites was on the outskirts of Forbach, a town in the south western Blackforest.
One of the supersites for COPS was on the summit of the Hornisgrinde. For shelter we had very stylish, comfortable and well equipped caravan, which became our office for many a sunny(?) day.
Bühlertal is a little further south down the Rhine Valley from Eisental, on the edge of the Black Forest. It is the site for one of the AWS masts and this is Matt. Sitting in the middle of the road. With his laptop.
COPS (Convectively and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study) is the latest field campaign, looking at convective thunderstorms over the Black Forest in Germany. We spent a week out there setting up the instruments. This church is the veiw from our apartment window in Eisental. After a particularly rainy day the sun came out just as it was setting.
At the end of ICAM we took the train from Chambéry back to Geneva airport. This was one of the changes we made. The trains here are announced by a hand written board being hung up on the platform.
The International Conference on Alpine Meteorology is hosted in Europe every other year. This year it was held in Chambéry. On an afternoon off Tor, Flea and me hired bikes and cycled along L'Avenue Vert to a lake just outside the town where we had a picnic and a swim, just before the afternoon thunderstorms kicked off.
Nora and Uwa are old friends from Davos. They came to visit Tor and me in Leeds so we took them out to the Dales to see Malham and the surrounding area. Matt, Tor, Nora and Uwa admiring Janet's Foss.
