To celebrate another brilliant year for Ramsoc a very excited group of ramblers headed to the Lake District for our annual summer weekend away, to enjoy a wonderful few days of hills, lakes, mountains, stunning scenery and the hope of some sunshine! As always we had a selection of walks on offer on the Saturday, ranging from a bimble around the local countryside, to taking on the challenge of scrambling on Blencathra. Those of us that chose the pretty countryside bimble certainly had a wonderfully relaxing day, taking in the beautiful scenery and wildlife (may be more than we anticipated, due to an ever so slight navigational issue) and enjoying a lovely mid afternoon cup of tea (with free cake!), in a nice little tea room. Arriving back at the hostel it was clear everyone else had an equally brilliant day exploring the Lake District and were ready to finish the day off perfectly with lots of barbequed food, plenty of drinks and some wonderful desserts! A brilliant evenin...

On Saturday 6 th June, at ridiculous  o'clock  in the morning, a minibus and 2 cars full of intrepid ramblers set off from Nottingham, ready to face a massive challenge- the Dark Peak Marathon (DPM)! The 14 brave ramblers had a 24 or 37 mile walk around the wonderful Peak District ahead of them, with the first challenge of the day being Win Hill. The steepness took a few people by surprise and definitely woke everyone up for the day ahead! Meanwhile, the marshals, not facing the same enormous challenge, made their way to their marshal points. I started the day with a lovely early morning stroll up Jacobs Ladder, followed by a very windy few hours sat at the Edale Cross checkpoint, behind the only 2 metres of wall that provided shelter from the rather gusty weather! Eventually walkers (and runners) started to appear, with tales to tell of the steep start and the dreaded Brown Knoll, described by one particularly incensed walker as “a new kind of hell!”- some tack...