Chelmsford YHA Group

CYHA News

The Monthly Newsletter of Chelmsford YHA Local Group

April 2009

Thats the Way to Do It!

Dave and I went for a walk last Sunday in the company of  our local footpaths association, and I must say it was delightful. The weather was lovely (presumably as arranged by the walk organiser), which always helps, but we were stunned by the level of organisation for a 5 mile walk. The walk leader had prepared by walking the route three times in advance. He was able to tell us there were no stiles and had even worked out minor detours to avoid the worst of the mud. The entire route was waymarked into his GPS, so there was absolutely no danger of going wrong. To cap it all, photocopies of the intended route were handed out to each participant.

This might sound like an excess of preparation, but there were 32 people on the walk. The use of high-vis jackets for the leader and his back-marker were a necessity!

Whist it would be lovely to be this prepared for a walk I think it will have to wait until we are all retired, or when we double the number we get on a Sunday walk!

                                               Ali


Alfriston weekend
Seven Sisters

Despite some challenging parking, Frog Firle was a delightful place to stay. A lovely and historic building, just a stone’s throw from the South Downs Way, and slightly further to the pub. On Saturday we were joined by our old friend Dave C, who bussed over from his new home in Brighton, for a walk from Beachy Head, over the cliff tops and along the Cuckmere valley back to the hostel. This was a lovely walk, only slightly marred by a sea mist, which rather spoilt the view of the Seven Sisters. The walk wound up in the Star Inn, possibly the most expensive pub in Sussex!

 

South Downs Way

Sunday’s walk was rather more leisurely. We started at Southease Station, about 6 miles or so along the South Downs Way in the other direction to the day before. Due to a major Tom Tom error, Mike, Cress & Chris were a little late joining us, but still managed to catch up before lunch. The sea mist from Saturday had cleared and we were left with blue skies and dazzling views for the whole walk. We got back to Alfriston shortly after 2pm, with plenty of time to look round the Clergy House (the National Trust’s first building) where we experienced two surprises: seemingly from nowhere the skies darkened and it poured with rain; this caused us to flee to the National Trust shop, where we bumped into Dave P’s parents. We sought out a tea shop in celebration and spent a good half hour appreciating the excellent cake whilst the drivers retrieved the cars. A fabulous weekend.


Essex Way Part 1, Take 2
Essex Way by the River Roding

Dave P, Jim, Clive, Caroline and I met up in Willingale to get our Essex Way part1 ticked off before we join Cress for part 2 at the end of March. Whilst it wasn’t as sunny as when Cress led the walk back in October, it was dry if a little grey. This made for a cool walk, but it did brighten up as the day went on. Jane and Gordon joined us in the afternoon and probably saw the best of the walk. Given all the snow we had this year, it wasn’t a surprise that it was still a bit squelchy underfoot. However, the impact of the subsequent flooding was quite astounding. There were foot bridges which had obviously been uprooted and had only been roughly replaced. One at least was quite a scramble to get over. In other places you could see where the flooding had been well above footbridge level.

Cress has now given us our certificates and we’re looking forward to the next leg. Please feel free to join us whether you’ve done the first bit or not. The Essex Way is a slice through our county and a brilliant walk to boot!

Ali

 


Yellowstone & The Grand Teton

 

September 2008 saw Dave, Nigel and me head off over the Atlantic for a camping trip to the world’s first National Park, Yellowstone.

Old Faithful

Yellowstone National Park is vast. Truly huge. With over 1000 miles of footpaths and over 10,000 thermal features, there was no chance we were going to run out of things to do – far more of a problem fitting it all in!

We started out by flying to Salt Lake City, where we picked up our hire car. From Salt Lake we drove to Yellowstone, which is quite journey so we broke it up with a visit to Walmart to stock up on grub and essential camping supplies that our luggage allowance had prohibited. Even with this shopping trip, we arrived at the campsite to discover that we were woefully under-equipped compared to our neighbours. Although we knew it would be cold at night (most of the park is above 7,500 feet), we were also unprepared for just how quickly the temperatures would plummet after the sun went down.

We arrived at our first campsite, Madison, on the Sunday, but rather too late to go into the heart of the park – that was a treat for Monday morning.

Grand Prismatic Spring

After a hearty breakfast we drove further into the park and got our first view of the hydrothermal features the park is so famous for. From a mile or two away we could see clouds of steam forming in the basin. We happily spent the morning looking at steaming ground, sizzling pools and coloured pools as we passed through the Midway Geyser Basin and up to the Firehole River. Near here is one of the most spectacular features of the park: the Grand Prismatic Spring. One of the notable things in the park is the blooming of coloured bacterial mats which grow in the warm water surrounding the hot springs. Grand Prismatic Spring is one of these. The heart of the spring is a brilliant turquoise from the hot water dissolving silicon from the rocks, the pool is then ringed by yellow, orange and brown bacterial mats with all the visual impact of a rainbow on the ground, swathed in steam. If that wasn’t spectacular enough, we rounded off the day with a trip to Old Faithful in the Upper Geyser Basin. Old Faithful is the most reliable geyser in the park, regularly erupting about every 80 minutes.

Fishing Cone, Yellowstone Lake

On a visit to Yellowstone it’s hard to miss the big lake in the middle of the park. This fills part of the crater formed by historic volcanic activity (not the supervolcano, but a lesser massive explosion). The area is still very active with geysers and hot springs along the edge of the lake. At West Thumb Basin there are several colourful springs and the infamous Fishing Cone geyser. Fishing Cone geyser is close to the shore and, in the days before health & safety, people used to fish on the side of the cone, hooking the fish and flipping it over straight into the boiling water in a method know as the "Hook 'n' Cook". Needless to say the practice was banned after a number of fatalities.

Bison

Of course there’s not only natural wonders in the park, there’s also a lot of wildlife. We might have missed out on the bears and wolves, but boy did we see bison! We got a bit excited at our first one – a sizeable bull sat moodily across the path on our way to Natural Bridge – but later we saw herds of them up close and personal. It was on our way to the evocatively named Mud Volcano that we experienced our first Bison-jam.

Angel Terrace, Mammoth Springs

As we headed north through the park the landscape changed. We visited the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which was truly spectacular and ended up at the park HQ in Mammoth Springs. Mammoth Springs is famous for its mighty elk herd and also the huge number of mineral springs in the area. These springs may not sound all that exciting, but the water is hot and mineral rich and as it cools it deposits layers of delicate sinter and carbonate, which over time has resulted in the most magnificent travertine terraces.

These are a few highlights of our trip, but I haven’t even started on the amazing spiky mountains of the Grand Teton. If you want to see more you’ll have to come to the slide show on 29th April!

Ali

See some more photos of our trip.

Please send any comments on these pages to Dave Plummer