Night Hike February 2001

From ICCC

Trip Report

The RCC ran its usual night hike, and the Canoe Club entered two teams, one for the boys and one for the girls.

The Girls

It was a dark, stormy night, and the waves crashed against the hull..... Okay, the weather was dry but cold as we piled into Sugo's for some food before our long (well, 15 miles) trek into the unknown... Last minute cancellations from Stella were made the most of, and Erica joined us in Southside for a pint before the seven of us (me, Rob, Erica, Catherine, RuthandTheo, and Hugh) piled into Hugh's car to save ourselves a bit of a dosh on the train. An hour or so later, with fantastic navigation from moi, we were at the scout hut in Amersham-on-the-hill, the beginning of our journey. After sending Hugh, Erica and RuthandTheo off for provisions (alcohol) from Tescos, the remainder of us checked out when we were leaving and headed to the pub. Since the girly team (The Girly Slappers) were due to leave 1/2 hour before the blokey team (Big Bob's Boys), it was decided that they'd catch us up and we'd plod round the course in a big merry band. This plan was thwarted, however, by the fact that we set off around the circular course in the opposite directions......

So, the story form the girly camp. We got lost. Then we got lost again. And somehow managed to get lost yet again before reaching our first checkpoint F. How overjoyed we were to see other people, cooking burgers and slicing avacado for us. Well, you'd be happy if you'd been walking for 3 hours with very little clue where you were going.. During this time, the snow had fallen to make our surrounds a picture perfect Christmas card scene. We took the opportunity to ring the blokey team, who informed us they'd passed 2 checkpoints and were on the way to their third. Humph!! We decided to poddle on as swiftly as possible, and got lost again before reaching checkpoint number 2, and hour later. This theme continued thorughout the night. We also never got round to drinking the alcohol, but there's pancakes that need an accompanying beverage tonight. We did pass the blokey team, though, going in the opposite direction. They looked a wee bit mullered..

We reached our second to last checkpoint at 5.15. The checkpoints were to removed at 6am, and the democratic vote went in favour of going straight back to base. Which we did, and arrived back at around 6.30am. 9 hours of solid walking..... The blokey team apparently hung around at each checkpoint for around half an hour, and still made it to all 6 and were back before us. That's great.. We opted for going straight back to London before Hugh fell asleep, and returned to Hammersmith at 8ish. I got home to find three Warwick University water polo players in my bed. So I fell asleep in Lianne's bed until 4. And I imagine everyone else's day was pretty similar...

-- Lou

The Guys

Got to Amersham. Walked, boozed and took a couple of sly trips down the pub. Nice. But Cold. Girlies got lost (surprise...), saw them later. M. Just going for the shortest sentence record, although I suppose i could beat that. I. Nice. Quality night out in the snow anyway. No four-in-a-bed action when I got home either (sorry to disappoint, Garth), although seven in a little car was pretty kinky.

-- Rob