Sunday 29 March 2015

Eddie & Judith's Plan B

The A walkers met today at Holme School (on Meal Hill Road), HD9 2QQ, OS grid reference SE 106 060 at 10 am. The weather forecast was for heavy rain and gale force winds. Nonetheless, 23 brave people turned up for the walk. The weather made the advertised ascent of Holme Moss inadvisable, so the leaders substituted a less exposed walk. The distance and ascent of the substituted walk were 10.5 miles and 2,011 feet, according to ViewRanger on an iPhone 4S. Here is the route:

http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MTQ5NDUyMA%3D%3D


The weather was as bad as the forecast, but people had a good time nonetheless.

Sunday 22 March 2015

Tim's Elland High Water

The A walkers met today at Gasworks Lane, off Elland Bridge, Elland HX5 9JH, OS grid reference SE 107 214 at 10 am. The distance and ascent of the walk were 12.8 miles and 2,250 feet, according to ViewRanger on an iPhone 4S. There were 30 people on the walk. Here is the route:

http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MTQ4MTI3MA%3D%3D


It was a dry sunny day with very little wind and good visibility. Despite good conditions underfoot, this was one of the harder A walks, and there were lots of delays. Despite this, Philip completed his first walk with the group since his injury. After the walk, the group retired to the Barge & Barrel.

(The second picture was contributed by Ernie.)

Liz's Penistone Pennine Panoramas

The B walkers met today at Penistone Railway Station car park S36 6HP, OS grid reference SE 251 032 at 10 am. The estimated length of the walk was 8 miles. There were eight people on the walk.

Liz knew only two of the walkers, Mary and Adrienne. A final-year Uni student, Elsa, arrived by train. She appeared to fit in well with the group and enjoyed the walk. What a gorgeous day! They had larks and lambs, and a well-furnished picnic site for lunch. Hartcliff Hill summit was wonderful. None of the walkers seemed to know the area at all. They came back through Penistone just as an antiques fair was packing up. They all bought a piece of cake/bun from the fair's "café" and went home happy!

(Based on a report by Liz.)

Wednesday 18 March 2015

Getting Started with ViewRanger

ViewRanger is free navigation App for the iPhone and Android. Here is the map screen:


The + and - buttons magnify and demagnify the map. The middle button centres the map on the current location. Tapping the stop watch button in the top right hand corner of the screen brings up the track recording screen:


Tapping the red blob in the middle of the screen starts and stops ViewRanger recording a track. Tapping the pen near the top right hand side of the screen lets you give the track a meaningful name. Tapping the Upload button uploads your newly recorded track to the ViewRanger website.

Tapping the map icon at the top right hand side of the recording screen returns you to the map. Tapping > at the top right hand side of the map screen takes you to a menu screen:


Tapping Organizer takes you to the Organizer screen:


Tapping Tracks takes you to your recorded tracks. (If a track is currently being recorded, it shows as Record Track.) Tapping a track on the list takes you to the Track Details for that track. For further information, see the earlier post.

Sunday 15 March 2015

Kevin's Doctors & Fairies

The A walkers met today at Watergrove Reservoir car park, north of Wardle, Rochdale OL12 9NH, OS grid reference SD 912 176 at 10 am. The distance and ascent of the walk were 12.0 miles and 1,422 feet, according to ViewRanger on an iPhone 4S.

There were 16 people on the walk. This is less than we have had of late, but it was Mothers' Day, and there was an A+ walk the previous day. The advertised walk was also relatively hard and distant, which tends to reduce the turnout.

Owing to his injury at Scarborough, Philip was not able to lead the advertised walk. Fortunately, Kevin had been deputized and lead an alternative walk, from the same location, using his trusty Nexus 7 running BackCountry. Here is the route:

http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MTQ2NTkwOA%3D%3D



It was a dry day with a light wind and some sunshine. There was good news on Philip's recovery. He was able to walk 9 miles the previous day. The group retired to the Globe Inn after the walk.

(Second and third pictures contributed by Ernie.)

Saturday 14 March 2015

Philip's Bewitched in Pendle

The A+ walkers met today at the Visitor Centre car park, north of Barley, Lancashire BB12 9JX, OS grid reference SD 823 403 at 9 am. The estimated distance of the walk was 18 miles.

Despite losing two leaders before the start, Philip due to injury and Janet due to Grandma duty, the walk went ahead with 11 walkers. Pendle Hill, still covered with a sprinkling of snow, dominated the day. The summit was approached gradually, traversing its southern flanks through the Forest of Pendle and the village of Sabden, before striking north and upwards to reach the top via Ogden Clough. The weather was cloudy, but from there were panoramic views of the Pennine landscape, with pools of sunlight to the north catching the sparkling white summits of Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough.



After the walk the group retired to the CAMRA listed Pendle Inn, for a well deserved and much anticipated "Pride of Pendle".

(Based on a report by Tim. Pictures contributed by Ernie.)

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Turnout versus Travel Distance

Here is a scatter graph of our A walk turnout versus the travelling distance by road from Huddersfield Railway Station:


The graph also shows the straight line which gives the best fit to the data (using simple linear regression). For this line, the turnout is 31 for zero travelling distance, falling by 1 walker for about every 3 miles of additional travelling distance.

The travelling distance only explains a small part of the variability of the turnout. (This is reflected in the value of R2, see http://people.duke.edu/~rnau/rsquared.htm.)

The slope of the line is 0.321, and the best estimate of its standard deviation is 0.0597, The slope is 5.6 times the standard deviation, which tells us that its value is reasonably accurate. Nonetheless, our walkers' habits could change.

Sunday 8 March 2015

Geoff's Taking t' Rough with t' Sharp

The A walkers met today at North Street car park (opposite the village hall), Gargrave BD23 3RN, OS grid reference SD 932 543 at 10 am. The distance and ascent of the walk were 11.0 miles and 1,334 feet, according to ViewRanger on an iPhone 4S. 24 people started the walk, but one soon had to drop out because of a previous injury. Here is the route:

http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MTQ1MTQ4OQ%3D%3D


On top of Sharp Haw

It was a fine day. Better than the forecast. There was a little light rain in the morning and moderate wind on the high ground. Visibility was good, and we had some sunshine.

(Second picture contributed by Ernie.)

Tuesday 3 March 2015

Turnout versus Difficulty

We now have records for the turnout on nearly hundred of our A walks. The table below shows the average turnout for various ranges of advertised walk length and grade:

Miles    M       S
10-11
  29.7    26.7
11-12   24.5    22.2
12+     25.6    21.6


For our shorter walks, adding a mile to the advertised length typically reduced the turnout by more than grading it S rather than M. However, when the advertised length of the walk was over 12 miles, adding an extra mile had little effect, probably because only the stronger walkers remained.

According to the earlier calculations, the average ascents for M and S walks were 1,585 feet, and 2,133 feet respectively, a difference of 548 feet. According to Naismith's Rule, 3 miles of distance takes the same time as 2,000 feet of ascent. Our walkers behaviour appears to be rational here.

Even with nearly a hundred walks, the accuracy of the average turnouts above still leaves a lot to be desired. Here are the best estimates of the standard deviations of the values above:

Miles    M      S
10-11
   2.0    4.7
11-12   1.5    1.6
12+     2.5    1.3


The random variability is as large as the effect we are trying to measure. The only exception is the difference between 10-11 M and 11-12 M, where we have about two standard deviations, but that still is not good.

Sunday 1 March 2015

Bob's Redmires Res

The A walkers met today at the most westerley car park on Redmires Road S10 4QZ, OS grid reference SK 256 857 at 10 am. The distance and ascent of the walk were 10.1 miles and 1,219 feet, according to ViewRanger on an iPhone 4S. There were 16 people on the walk. Here is the route:

http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MTQzNzc1NQ%3D%3D


There was a cold wind, with rain and sleet in the afternoon.

(Picture contributed by Ernie.)