Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Testing the trails
We will begin at opposite ends of a trail and walk towards each other-- recording the time, distance traveled and number of steps taken by each of us before we meet; repeating this walk towards each other and using the measurements recorded (time, distance, steps) to formulate the dimensions of our rope installation. On Saturday we decided to test out three possible looped trails: Loop 1- Part of the 'Hoodoo Trail' combined with a stretch of Tunnel Mountain Drive to circle the base of Tunnel Mountain; Loop 2: 'The Marsh Loop'; Loop 3: 'Fenland Trail.' Each provided us with very different and inspiring terrain and viewpoints.
Monday, 24 September 2007
to trail is not always to follow behind - beginning
We arrived ladden with rope filled bags from our home town.
Laura: It was lunch time. I was hungry and glad to put my bags down. I arrived first.
Sorrel: I arrived second. The sun was out the ground scorched and the mountains bare dry black-grey rock reaching up around me.
Our aim is to see the combined distance we have traveled to get here.
Laura: 2810.60 km
Sorrel: 6915.34 km
Total: 9726.02 km
We will represent this distance with climbing rope. We collected the rope from Nottingham, Toronto and Banff. Next, we discovered how much rope we had gathered.
Our total length of rope: 778 meters and 8 centimeters (plus some small bits we chose not to count).
Laura: It was lunch time. I was hungry and glad to put my bags down. I arrived first.
Sorrel: I arrived second. The sun was out the ground scorched and the mountains bare dry black-grey rock reaching up around me.
Our aim is to see the combined distance we have traveled to get here.
Laura: 2810.60 km
Sorrel: 6915.34 km
Total: 9726.02 km
We will represent this distance with climbing rope. We collected the rope from Nottingham, Toronto and Banff. Next, we discovered how much rope we had gathered.
Our total length of rope: 778 meters and 8 centimeters (plus some small bits we chose not to count).
Monday, 17 September 2007
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
legs aching ... we climbed
We started this climb from the height we had made it to in April.
Laura had already climbed 16054 steps which makes 3.2 km so in Canada they will start from a height of 3210m up which is the equivalent of 6 CN Towers up.
I climbed 9369 steps, which is 1.873 km, or 1873 m this is the equivalent of 26 Vic centre flats (the highest bit) or 3.4 CN towers.
Sorrel's Nottingham climb
Day one begins 9369 steps up or 1873 metres up Saturday 1st September
64 steps to the sound of a piano, 493 in the echoing empty concert hall, then front stairs, back stairs, a detour to the best view point in town from the top of the NCP car park on Talbot street, wonky stairs, stone stairs, scary stairs, hidden stairs, forbidden stairs.
In Toronto they scaled an eccentrics castle, a wooded park and a flea market.
Day two begins 10,033 steps up Sunday 2nd September
Our starting point today finds us lost amongst the grey drizzle stratocumulus clouds. We climb each of the colour coded Victoria flats staircases (the highest building in the city 72-75 metres high), a whopping 857 steps without a view.
On the 13th floor the view from Dave’s flat looks west across the roofs towards Canada but the clouds are so low we can barely see across town.
We listened as Laura alone climbed her final staircase, a fire escape in an eerily secluded area of town.
Day three begins 10,890 steps up Monday 3rd September
Our climb will begin above the fluffy cumulus clouds and into the blue, at 10,890 steps. Our climb is muffled in the council house, wet and observed in Market Square, in blackout at the Playhouse, hurried in the Park.
We debated with Dylan in Canada the validity of curbs and curly ladders.
Day four 11,276 steps up
Notts county football ground, home of the Magpies. Hot sun, no clouds, and four stands to climb we start methodically moving anti clockwise, in Canada Laura has forgotten her camera and finding herself at the top of Toronto Hospital with a panorama worth keeping, Ellen Helen and Lisa try to draw what she describes, a brief toilet stop in the third stands confuses our count and cob webs bar the way. At 6pm we have only finished three stands 1438 steps
Day five our climb begins at 12,714 steps up
Still comfortably in the troposphere, where 80% of our atmosphere resides, along with all the weather, we have made it above the cumulus clouds our sights are now set on the cirrus wisps, which appear 5000 metres up. We start where we left off the day before at Notts County Ground, Derek Pavis Stand the highest looking north towards the city.
Our final high point, sat at the top of a fire escape in the Jurys Inn with an unchallenged view to the south, our eyes pass the edge of the city skirt over a hill topped with trees to a horizon dark with distance…14,019 steps up or 2803.8 metres or 2.8km or 37 Victoria Flats or 5 CN Towers up… we listen as Laura make it to her final high point breathless in the Royal York Hotel. Laura is now 3.92 km or 19,601 steps up (7 CN Towers)
Thank you to all the Nottingham and Toronto climbers who shared this journey with us
Ellen, Helen, Dave, Simone, Glyn, Lisa, Celia, Nick, Emma, Jo, Kamal, Chris, Shannon, Isabelle, Dylan and Tasha
And all the people who we met during our climb, at the locations that have helped us get this far.
you can see documentation from these climbs at the Gladstone Hotel Toronto as part of Walking Life and at Angel Row Gallery Nottingham on 22nd of September to conclude the shifting ground exhibition.
Laura had already climbed 16054 steps which makes 3.2 km so in Canada they will start from a height of 3210m up which is the equivalent of 6 CN Towers up.
I climbed 9369 steps, which is 1.873 km, or 1873 m this is the equivalent of 26 Vic centre flats (the highest bit) or 3.4 CN towers.
Sorrel's Nottingham climb
Day one begins 9369 steps up or 1873 metres up Saturday 1st September
64 steps to the sound of a piano, 493 in the echoing empty concert hall, then front stairs, back stairs, a detour to the best view point in town from the top of the NCP car park on Talbot street, wonky stairs, stone stairs, scary stairs, hidden stairs, forbidden stairs.
In Toronto they scaled an eccentrics castle, a wooded park and a flea market.
Day two begins 10,033 steps up Sunday 2nd September
Our starting point today finds us lost amongst the grey drizzle stratocumulus clouds. We climb each of the colour coded Victoria flats staircases (the highest building in the city 72-75 metres high), a whopping 857 steps without a view.
On the 13th floor the view from Dave’s flat looks west across the roofs towards Canada but the clouds are so low we can barely see across town.
We listened as Laura alone climbed her final staircase, a fire escape in an eerily secluded area of town.
Day three begins 10,890 steps up Monday 3rd September
Our climb will begin above the fluffy cumulus clouds and into the blue, at 10,890 steps. Our climb is muffled in the council house, wet and observed in Market Square, in blackout at the Playhouse, hurried in the Park.
We debated with Dylan in Canada the validity of curbs and curly ladders.
Day four 11,276 steps up
Notts county football ground, home of the Magpies. Hot sun, no clouds, and four stands to climb we start methodically moving anti clockwise, in Canada Laura has forgotten her camera and finding herself at the top of Toronto Hospital with a panorama worth keeping, Ellen Helen and Lisa try to draw what she describes, a brief toilet stop in the third stands confuses our count and cob webs bar the way. At 6pm we have only finished three stands 1438 steps
Day five our climb begins at 12,714 steps up
Still comfortably in the troposphere, where 80% of our atmosphere resides, along with all the weather, we have made it above the cumulus clouds our sights are now set on the cirrus wisps, which appear 5000 metres up. We start where we left off the day before at Notts County Ground, Derek Pavis Stand the highest looking north towards the city.
Our final high point, sat at the top of a fire escape in the Jurys Inn with an unchallenged view to the south, our eyes pass the edge of the city skirt over a hill topped with trees to a horizon dark with distance…14,019 steps up or 2803.8 metres or 2.8km or 37 Victoria Flats or 5 CN Towers up… we listen as Laura make it to her final high point breathless in the Royal York Hotel. Laura is now 3.92 km or 19,601 steps up (7 CN Towers)
Thank you to all the Nottingham and Toronto climbers who shared this journey with us
Ellen, Helen, Dave, Simone, Glyn, Lisa, Celia, Nick, Emma, Jo, Kamal, Chris, Shannon, Isabelle, Dylan and Tasha
And all the people who we met during our climb, at the locations that have helped us get this far.
you can see documentation from these climbs at the Gladstone Hotel Toronto as part of Walking Life and at Angel Row Gallery Nottingham on 22nd of September to conclude the shifting ground exhibition.
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