Heathrow Hikers - Outdoor Group for West London

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Epping Forest Day Walk
Valentines in the Brecon Beacons
Ten Top Hiking Hints
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February had a great turn out for our Brecons Beacons hiking weekend. Some of our members enrolled in a nearby one-day navigation course to hone their outdoor skills. These courses are well-subscribed and occur throughout the year, so keep an eye on the Programme page on the Heathrow Hikers website for details of the next one.

Our day walks are a great chance for new members to come along and find out more about the group. Or, if you know someone who’s thinking about hiking, let the trip organiser know you have someone else interested when you book your space.

This was a great day trip for people new to the group, and we had two newcomers to complement the three regulars.

Outlet Centres often have a few outdoors stores, like Regatta / Craighoppers, Mountain Warehouse and Tog 24. Some of their products are end of line or returns and often you can save 30 to 70% on the retail price.

The three regulars met at Hammersmith station, as planned, to head to Galleria in Gary’s “hikermobile”. Our two newcomers, having slept in, become lost on the way to the local tube station and having forgotten to put Gary’s mobile number in their phones (how many lessons are in that anecdote?) waited for an internet café to open to get Gary’s phone number and find out how to reconnect with the group, who were now in the fast lane to shopping paradise.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology (internet cafés and mobile phones) our new members finally met up with the group at Epping, despite the best efforts of engineering works on the Central line and replacement bus services (the flight to the Tenerife hike was quicker than the tube/bus trip from Ealing to Epping, seriously!).

Epping Forest - Photo by Suzanne Nottage

Epping Forest is a long, narrow band of woodlands at the northern tip of Greater London, bordering Essex. It’s a popular place for day walkers as the terrain is fairly flat and there’s a variety of walks. We chose a 12 kilometre (7 mile) circular walk on flat terrain that took two to three hours. Through a stroke of Gary Box genius it had a pub halfway through it. As the weather was clear and still it was a good day for photography, too.

Pub in the Park - Photo by Jen Harris

Article submitted by Suzanne Nottage

Come hiking in Wales, with the chance of getting murdered! A little different to most brochures, but appealing enough for over 20 of us to make the Friday night trek to a wee spot near Abergavenny in the southern part of the Brecon Beacons mountain range (south Wales).

The aim was to summit one of the peaks on Saturday, have Sunday set aside for self-guided walks (or relaxation) and have a murder mystery on Saturday night.

Finding the accommodation itself on Friday was a challenge. Considering we had three sat navs, a road map and a hand-drawn map, maybe it was a good thing that some of our group was booked into a one-day navigation course on Saturday! Eventually, after winding through more dark, narrow, Welsh country roads that you can shake a stick at, we found our very comfortable accommodation and settled in.

The weather was very, um, Welsh on Saturday morning: low cloud and a building wind. We set off by car to the start of the walk, where the altitude was a little higher and so was the wind strength. The hike was about 4 hours in duration, up some fairly steep and exposed terrain. This is where you find our whether your boots and jacket live up to the manufacturer’s claims about being weatherproof! A few of our group found it quite challenging, as this was their biggest hike, but most of us were fine (as long as we kept moving to stay warm). It got pretty exposed on the ridges and summit, so we continued and found a WWII aircraft wreck – Canadian soldiers. It was all downhill after that, with low cloud often obscuring the people in front.

Then it was like another trail all together, with a mountain stream and a couple of nice waterfalls (with the water way too cold to even joke about swimming). There were several other day walkers on this part of the hike. It was a relief to get back to the cars and head to the accommodation for a (luke) warm shower and to get ready for our murder mystery.

The group who undertook the navigation course learned all the essentials for hiking without a guide, e.g. how to read a topographical map, how to look for clues in the landscape, etc.

A lot of effort went into preparing for the murder mystery: Jen, Ranmali and Gary did lots of organisation beforehand so that everyone knew their character in advance. We all came with costumes to suit our characters, which added to the atmosphere of the night. This was enhanced by Jen’s great skills on the bar, although did this affect our memories as we tried to deduce who the murderer amongst us might be? Surprisingly, most of us accused the wrong person of the heinous crime (one wonders how often this happens in real life!) and the socializing continued on well after the crime was solved.

On Sunday the weather was more favourable and the “Navigators” were off early to practice their newly-honed skills. The rest of the group split into smaller groups, depending on how much walking they wanted to do. The river half a mile away proved really scenic, particularly with a random group of river kayakers practicing their technique alongside where we hiked.

After lunch we packed up and headed back to London.

Article submitted by Gary Box

Hiking is not fun when we get wet, cold, tired or sore. These tips will help keep your next hike enjoyable.

1. Allow a speed of about 4 km/h (2.5 mph) for day hikes. Decrease this for multi-day hikes, when carrying a pack heavier than a day bag, if some of the group are less fit or experienced than others or if it’s your first time on this route.
2. Wear two pairs of socks, or one pair of thick socks with a spare pack in your bag to swap along the way. Some people talcum powder their feet (not to smell nice, but to absorb sweat).
3. When hiking in wet ground or permeable boots, put your first pair of socks on, then a plastic bag, then the second pair of socks. Your feet will stay warm and drier even when your boots are wet. (Just don’t smell your socks afterwards!)
4. Clean boots straight after use and let them dry naturally – not against the radiator! Don’t let leather dry out and become cracked. Well looked after boots will last for donkeys’ years. Ask a good shoe store or hiking store for quality boot cleaning products (e.g. a leather soap and a waterproof crème).
5. Wear layers, rather than one heavy coat, even in summer, as the conditions may vary a lot during even a short hike. A summit or ridge can be much, much colder and windier than a valley.
6. For the same reason, always pack a hat, which should cover your ears. Even a cotton hat will keep your head much warmer than no protection.
7. Always walk with a buddy and don’t buddy the two slowest (or least experienced) hikers together – pair a stronger hiker with that person.
8. Dip the heads of emergency matches in candle wax, so if they get wet they should still work (and store them in a watertight plastic bag).
9. Metal objects can affect your compass, e.g. belt buckles, farm gates or vehicles. So, step a few metres away from metal objects to get an accurate reading.
10. Magnetic compasses read magnetic north, not true north. To remember whether to add or subtract degrees, remember this mnemonic in the UK to add or subtract magnetic deviations: "Grid to Mag, you Add,, Mag to Grid, get Rid”. (“Mag” being the magnet in the compass.)

Article submitted by Suzanne Nottage

If you have any articles or images you wish to contribute to the next issue of Compass please email them to Suzanne.

Please try and submit articles as early as possible but not later than the 3rd week of the month if you wish it to appear in the subsequent issue.

Thanks.