Category: Outdoor Gear
More snow in the air
22nd December 2009 Now, I know why it was a good idea to sit schtum on Sunday. This afternoon, I took a bus over the hills to find a Buxton constantly beset by snow showers. Even with my being shod in North Face Hedgehogs, a certain chill was felt as I negotiated soft and often slushy snow underfoot in its main shopping precinct. Thankfully, they have good grippy soles with decent cleats.
The snow did leave off for a while and I got to take in a very snow-covered Pavilion Gardens during the respite. Some sled-riding was in progress on The Slopes in the heart of the town, so not getting mowed down by one took up a certain amount of attention. That snow-less interval didn't last long, and enough snow soon filled the air to make the idea of returning home seem sensible.
On that return journey, the effect of all that snow was immediately apparent, with a definite slowdown in the speed of traffic around both Buxton and Macclesfield; the occurrence of an accident didn't help the latter. Then there was the matter of negotiating a snow-covered twisty road complete with sharp uphill and downhill sections. Visibility wasn't great either, and seeing the whereabouts of the road cannot have been easy at times. Being well familiar with where you are going has to help with getting through it all.
It's no wonder that the A537 gets closed in severe weather, and I didn't envy the lot of the bus driver either. The outbound journey was benign in comparison, with enough clarity in the air to see the well snow-covered hills all around, and the road was much clearer too. The whole experience was an education, and I was glad to be back home safe and sound. Things can get very lively up there, and going home via Buxton can be a better option at times. Trains may be more resilient than buses in these situations.
A good covering
19th December 2009 I was out earlier this evening on an A to B trip on my bike when a shower of sleet came upon me, not a problem with my being appropriately attired. Even if I got snow, the lugs on my mountain bike's tyres would have coped; yes, they are staying inflated so far. Speaking of the fluffy while stuff, there is a plentiful supply of that emanating from the sky right now and it is coating everywhere in white. Getting about on foot now looks like a job for my North Face Hedgehogs and any wondering about a pre-Christmas outdoors outing could have snow-covered countryside on the agenda. Methinks that I need to decide where to go, a task that may or may not be made easier by my adding an at a glance collection of Met Office mountain weather forecast summaries on here. After all, there is a need for preparation for the prevailing conditions, as last Friday in Cheshire proved by its feeling like being in a chest freezer with fans turned on. Without any wind, daytime temperatures were around freezing in the lowlands anyway and below that (-2.5° C) in Buxton and Leek. With temperatures like those, it's best not to be rushing out to become a mountain rescue statistic.
A promise made good
18th December 2009 In recent days, Mapyx has brought out OSNI 1:50000 Discoverer mapping data for Quo, with 1:25000 due to follow. Having found some spare time, I got a quick chance to metaphorically kick some tyres. As with OSi maps, you cannot have OS maps and OSNI maps open at once, but there is no bar to shuttling over and back across the Irish border in the digital world. Tiles for either provider are £1.99 each, with the entire OSNI set going for a not unreasonable £39.99.
However, there are no grid lines on the NI maps that I have in my sample. That surprised me and makes rough and ready estimations of distance a non-starter; you need to use Quo's route planning tools to get a handle on distances and to determine grid references. However, you'll be glad to know that the OSNI's paper maps do not have the same feature as my copy of Sheet 29 (covering the Mourne Mountains and published in 2008) is well crossed with those ever useful lines and feeling very like an equivalent OSi specimen, albeit with townlands superimposed on the back of the sheet. The digital counterpart to the same looks bleached in comparison, but it may have been decided that all those greens and browns obscured the contour lines anyway. In contrast, the OSi have gone for faithful reproduction instead, yet there's merit in both approaches.
Because Quo's overview map for Britain and Ireland is only available with the OS coordinates system, you could find OSi and OSNI tiles lying on a white background. Adding the OSi's 1:600000 overview map of the island of Ireland to your collection for £4.99 does help to bring together an incomplete tile collection and get around it. What is also available for £4.99 is a copy of the OSNI gazetteer that allows to search for places on NI, like you'd do for mainland Britain with the OS Landranger gazetteer database.
All this perusal of Northern Ireland maps sits uneasily with the lack of attention that I have given the province. The Mourne Mountains certainly look promising and there are the Glens of Antrim too along with the Sperrin Mountains; lack of choice clearly isn't a problem then. Now, when might there be a visit?
OSi Maps now on Quo
26th November 2009 Last week, Mapyx finally made good their promise to bring out Ordnance Survey Ireland 1:50000 Discovery mapping data for Quo. Pricing is £1.99 per tile, more comparable with £1.95 per tile for OS Explorer maps than 99p per tile for OS Landranger.
Even with the (little) extra outlay, that's not so bad, and I purchased tiles for the area covering the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains for less than £20, hardly a king's ransom. OSNI maps are also promised, but we'll just have to be patient and see when they come on the scene. When they do, that part of the world will be opened up for electronic surveying. It has its share of delights too; the Mourne Mountains are just one to mention.
So far, my examination of those purchased OSi maps has been a brief one, with route planning and other such operations left for later. Reassuringly, downloading and installation of the actual tiles was the same as for any other Quo map, and the displayed tiles were as clear (and as recognisable to the likes of me) as those you'd find on Trail Master DVD's or in Geolives.
However, Quo needs to shut down any OS maps that you have open in order to open up their OSi equivalents because of differences in coordinate systems. That can be a little inconvenient if you start to wander between the British mainland and Éire quite a lot. Most likely will not do such a thing that often.
That's the only difference that I have seen up to now, and I'd be surprised if I were to notice anything of note while in the process of planning a route. If I do, my observations may find their way on here in due course. After all, my one sortie to Wicklow's does deserve to followed by another, and there is plenty more of Ireland to sample after that. It is an ever glaring omission on my part.
A continuing internationalisation
31st October 2009 While penning yesterday's missive regarding the forthcoming availability of OSi mapping data from Mapyx, I had little idea of what was in the pipeline from Anquet. Until now, Anquet's established offering in the digital mapping arena was restricted to areas on Great Britain. Unless I missed something, not even Northern Ireland got a look in, while Scotland's islands and even the Isle of Man were very well covered. However, an email from them this morning suggests that will be changing.
Apparently, Anquet is also planning to make OSi 1:50000 digital mapping available as part of a move to include more countries in its portfolio. Quite what is driving this expansion is open to question, but it is an exciting development, whether they are moving into new territorial markets or they are banking on British outdoors lovers fancying a spot of overseas explorations who would like the planning of such escapades to be easier. Whatever the reasoning, they seem to be starting with Éire so let's hope that Northern Ireland isn't forgotten in the rush.
Seeing two mainstays of the British digital mapping market featuring Irish data has to make you wonder what other players like Memory Map or Tracklogs have in hand. After all, if this is due to a push on the part of the OSi, there may be more to come.
Thinking about it now, having Mapyx and Anquet selling OSi 1:50000 Discovery data does follow on from its availability on Geolives since the start of the year. That development may have signalled a break from digital mapping being provided on a country by country basis, and that's no bad thing at all. In fact, things have got a bit more exciting now that it has happened, an unthinkable occurrence in times when paper maps were all that we had.
