Skiing in France

Heading off early in the morning. We skied in Espace Diamant and Megeve.







Stephen and Gerry on the slopes well above the cloud in the valley




Some times "No Brakes" Kenny comes a cropper




Contrast the modern skier with the one wearing the 1970's "Sheena Easton" jacket!












View of the Aravis chain of Mountains









The old jail Annecy











Street scene in Annecy










One for Tony - Paraglyders do it in the snow too

Click for a better view

For 2009

Last Walk of 2008

12 for a walk to the summit of Donard







Great day for walking with fine views in all directions.

The Mourne wall was a clean and dry way to cross the Bog of Donard - if you didn't mind the height.


























Margaret striding out towards Donard







Sunset with Carlingford and Slieve Foy in the distance











Paddy and Tony crossing with the - eh, additional supplies!

View towards Newcastle

Memories of 2008

I've put together a selection of photos as a review of the year for the CROWS

Click on the icon above to see the first 15 pages of the 58 page book

Merry Xmas to everyone in the club!

Forkhill and the poets trail

The Poets Trail around Forkhill on a damp and dreary Sunday.

About 12Km with some hide and go seek played by Paddy who eventually joined us at the Mass Rock

Group on the Heli Pad on the top of Croslieve

Last CROW of the year

(Eugene) Rain, Rain go to Spain

(Tony) Say what!

Comedagh

14 Dec 2008
A good walk in misty condition following the Mourne Wall from Hares gap Approximately 14 Km.






From about 500 meters up the ground was frozen and nearing Comedagh we topped out over the cloud in the valley.

As conditions were right I had a look over the Mourne wall into the Pot of Legawherry which was filled with mist and right enough an optical phenomen know as a Brocken Spectre was visible, but faint. I managed to get a photo of it (click on photo below for a better view). The following is an extract from Wikimedia

A Brocken Spectre, also called Brocken bow or mountain spectre is the apparently enormously magnified shadow of an observer, cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the sun. The phenomenon can appear on a misty mountainside or cloud bank, or even from an aeroplane, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, a peak in the Hartz mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name. The "spectre" appears when the sun shines from behind a climber who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist. The light projects the climber's shadow forward through the mist, often in an odd triangular shape due to perspective. The apparent magnification of size of the shadow is an optical illusion that occurs when the observer judges his shadow on relatively nearby clouds to be at the same distance as faraway land objects seen through gaps in the clouds, or when there are no reference points at all by which to judge its size. The shadow also falls on water droplets of varying distances from the eye, confusing depth perception. The ghost can appear to move (sometimes quite suddenly) because of the movement of the cloud layer.The head of the figure is often surrounded by the glowing halo - like rings of a glory, rings of coloured light that appear directly opposite the sun when sunlight is reflected by a cloud of uniformly-sized water droplets.

At the top of Comedagh we managed to squeeze into the summit shelter to get our lunch before heading down to the Mourne Col and back by the Brandy Pad

CROWS in Wales

A successful trip by the club to Snowdonia from the 3rd to the 6th of October

Based in the Celtic Royal Hotel (reccommended by our friends in the Wee Binians, thanks for that!)

A bus tour on Friday settled everyone in and gave us a chance to see some of the pretty towns and villages.

(lets hear it for the girls!)

Saturday was just about the worse day this year on the hill and we made a brave but ultimately useless attempt to get to the top of Snowden

Sunday well it was probably one of the best days on the hill this year!

(Summit of Snowden 1085m)

The evenings were almost as tiring (but in a different way) than the days

Great hats were worn !

Good laughs were had

But in the end all CROWS have to go home

Lets hope our annual trips are all as good!