BB1402 : Tongue and Greave

Tongue and Greave, on the other hand, is a method of fitting dissimilar objectives together, top to bottom, used mainly with PC screens, iPads, Smartphones and similar constructions.

Tongue and Greave allows two written pieces to be joined feebly together to make a single BOOTboys report.

The Tongue in question is the Troutbeck one, chosen today to avoid potentially inclement and waterlogged terrain on higher fells and yet at the same time to provide another tick in John's Wainwright tallysheet.

The only time I have perviously climbed the Tongue was by a dubious route from the west, nearly eight years ago ( BB0612 ).  This time we did it legitimately, or to be more precise,followed the Wainwright recommended route although it is not marked as a path on the OS map.

The Tongue; backed by snow dusted Stony Cove Pike to the left, Ill Bell to the right

Basically this meant going up the nose of the hill.  Steep in parts but no great challenge to its lofty height of a full 1,194 feet!  

Windermere from The Tongue summit

Looking north to Threshthwaite Mouth

The Tongue from the north

Once reached, the Greave's mining waste stones proved to be extremely slippy so serious exploration was unwise to say the least.  Stan and I did explore a couple of chambers and could see an underground stream but made no attempt to reach it.

The route we chose to return to the group involved a short but very steep climb on rather loose waste.  I was glad we had done that session at the climbing wall last month.  It helped me ascend using hand and footholds that had some chance of being secure!

Exploration over, we headed on down to the Limefitt Caravan Park, empty in terms of people but somewhat overcrowded with Lodges, then past the church and back up through Troutbeck village to return to the Queen's Head.

Troutbeck trots

Reflections of the Comitibus

Inevitably, tongues were then wagging yarns and no one was grieving about having to sup a couple of pints before heading home.  Groovy!

Don, Wednesday 9th January 2014

PS  We field-tested the walkie-talkies again today and they worked well.

Bonus Photos taken by Mike on his phone:

Howay the Lads!

In the course of planning this outing,   I noticed something on the Met Office forecast that I had not previously seen.  It was headed Daily Air Quality Index.  Looking into this a bit more, I found something remarkable.

The index, surprise, surprise, measures how polluted the air is and what it means for different locations.

I then found a website listing the pollution Index city by city for 2013.

Top of the list (i.e. worst) was Lucknow in India with an index figure of 111.

This was followed by the usual suspects, including Guangzhou, Kathmandu, Jakarta, Mubai, Cairo etc.

The first European entry was Iasi, the fourth largest city in Romania with a figure of 91.

Moscow was the worst major European city with 86.

Other notables, in improving order, are: Barcelona 75, Athens 72, Rome 68, Paris 58, Madrid 56, London 55, New York 52

Things then start to get much better with Bristol and Nottingham scoring 36, as did Venice, Edinburgh 22, Belfast and Liverpool producing an impressive 7,

However, the star award for the cleanest air of the 269 entries with the fabulous score of 0.0 (yes, zero) goes to the UK and the World's least polluted city:

Newcastle Upon Tyne !

BOOTboys routes are put online in gpx format which should work with most mapping software. You can follow our route in detail by downloading bb1402 .

To discover which Wainwright top was visited on which BB outing - although it may not be that up to date - see: Which Wainwright When?

For the latest totals of the mileages and heights (ditto) see: BB Log.

 Photos have been gleaned from many sources although mostly from me!
Likewise written comment.  
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