Recent walks

February 21st

The 1st walk cancelled in 25 year history of the East Midlands group or was it?  Why?  Well at  8am. my partner Alan and myself were awakened by a phone call from our group co-ordinator Alan Chambers with the request to look out of the bedroom window, what a surprise to see over  4" of snow covering the ground (this is not what was forecast).  What are we going to do was his question?   As we live over 20 miles from the venue for the walk, a quick decision was needed.  Not being  sure if we could get out from where we live and onto the main A52, which we assumed would be relatively clear, and having no way of knowing just how much snow  Melbourne the nearest town to the venue had had we were only left with one answer, post a cancelled message onto the GOC website.  Alan C arrived at our house at 9am and all 3 of us agreed that we should make the effort to get to the venue just in case; anybody didn't see the message, ventured out of a warm bed in such conditions and even expected the leaders to turn up.  1hour later and many hair raising slides and skids on our local roads we made it to the entrance gate of the reservoir car park only to find a big notice saying CLOSED DUE TO BAD WEATHER.  Having got here we decided to wait until the official start time to see if indeed anyone else would turn up,I have to say, not with very many high hopes.  Well no one from the EM group did arrive but Robert convenor of the West Midlands group (who only lives just around the corner) turned up with his partner Simon, I think they were as much surprised to see us as we were them.  Robert and Simon were going to do a shorter walk whatever happened, so a quick conversation led to all 5 of us setting off in the snow just after 11am. for what turned out to be a very pleasant day in the sunshine, (which the forecasters did get right)  we walked 4 miles and arrived back at our starting point to find all the snow gone the car park gates open and we were 5 satisfied walkers.  Was it a cancelled walk or not? well only you the reader can say.  Oh and by the way we have rescheduled the walk for 18 July snow or no snow. If I can I will upload the photos of the day. M A Simons