Doodlecat.com

I was going to do a post about our wet weekend in the Lakes but as me & Miss W are off to Scotland tomorrow, time is tight. So here's just one pic from the weekend showing Shirley in 'The Wrong Trousers'.


Shirley had been trying to order replacement down trews from PHD in a smaller size, but they just got bigger and bigger ... and this pair seem to be accomodating Alan Sloman as well! This was our one night of luxury in a B&B - as for the rest, well, I'm still scraping the mud off the groundsheet of my Akto.

Still, we had some good laughs as well as some extraordinarily wet & blowy walking, especially on Black Crag where the wind really was ripping past. Most invigorating ;-)

I woke up today to discover that it is my birthday (I'd forgotten when I went to bed) so it's off to the bright lights of Bury St Edmunds for a celebratory lunch. All bar one of my cards (bless you Miss W) were of the humourous-sarcastic-wicked variety. I'm not sure whether that says more about me or my friends and family. Here's a couple of examples, courtesy of Richard & Sarah and Alan. An uncannily lifelike representation of Miss W there, Al!

Derek Goffin's high level TGO Challenge account will be the last to be published on Doodlecat.

First, some background to the decision. Back in 2005 I was chatting with Alan Sloman who had just written up our 2005 Challenge. He had been very impressed by Shirley Worral's website, and thought that the web would be a superb way of publicising the event, along with the TGO magazine, to an audience who would otherwise never hear of it.

So I had a go at learning a bit of html, and Doodlecat staggered into life.

Over the last few years we have accumulated some wonderful stories on Doodlecat. Some have been revisited hundreds of times - especially in the two or three months when routes are being planned! So all the current TGO material will remain, and I am sure that it will be a source of inspiration, information and entertainment for years to come, thanks to the excellent authors who have taken the time and trouble to record and share their experiences.

So if it's so popular, why stop adding to this archive?

Well, in addition to the magazine's own website, there are many more personal websites blogs & podcasts that cover the Challenge than a few years ago, when there were almost none. The main reason, however, is that most types of crossing are now represented on Doodlecat, from my and Alan's convivial low level route in 2005 to high level gutbusters. We have accounts that cover over 25 years of the Challenge, and I feel that there comes a point when the archive is big enough to be a useful, varied and entertaining resource, but not so big that too much material is repeated. That point, I think, has been reached.

Huge thanks to all who have contributed to the TGO pages and made them such a popular resource. It's been great fun putting them together. Your tales are now read by people across the world from Burnley to Beijing, and, come May, someone somewhere in a windswept scottish glen will be thanking you for getting them there ;-)

With the applications for the 31st TGO Challenge closing in just two weeks (so if the envelope is still behind the clock on the mantlepiece, best scuttle off to the post box now) I guess some four hundred people will be mulling over potential routes and looking for a bit of inspiration.

Derek Goffin and Ellie Taylor's route for the 2009 event was certainly not one for the faint hearted or inexperienced. They set themselves a huge target; to maintain the highest possible average height for a Challenge crossing.

Derek has written up the adventure, and with detailed maps and a gear list, so this really is a treasure trove of good up to date information for anyone considering a Challenge "Haute Route" for 2010.

You can see how they got on by CLICKING HERE