Waking up in a bed, two days in a row, I could get used to this. Hopefully though I wasn’t going to because we were planning on making up for the time lost yesterday and getting to Shap. If we could do that it would put us back on schedule. So we got up at half past six, got ourselves together and I was waiting for seven o’clock to roll around so we could be let in to the main building to fetch our clothes from the drying room and make breakfast. You might wonder why that was I and not we, well that is because Jonny had the key to the main building, let himself in to have a shower and then left me waiting outside in the cold for him to finish. The caretaker walked past the door before that and unlocked it for me.
Breakfast this morning I thought would be a safe bet of spaghetti and meatballs. A good brand name of tinned food, usually quite nice. Not today. I had a struggle on my hands to struggle to force down the little bit which I did eat, after about a quarter of the bowl I gave the rest to Jonny, which he polished off as well as his porridge and something else. God knows what was wrong with either it or me (probably me because Jonny ate it fine).
We left at just after eight. The weather was overcast, but not unpleasant. There was no wind or rain, just cloudy. The first half a mile was following a country road which lead towards a fell called Great Tongue. Crossing a main road we started the first climb of the day. A medium steep slope which although not easy, could be plodded up without taking my breath away. So I did exactly that. I took my time, one foot in front of the other, plodding slowly up the hill towards Great Tongue.
When we arrived at the base of Great Tongue we could go either way around it or straight over, after consulting the map and looking at the path ahead we chose the path to the right, this was probably a longer path but looked to be wider, more well trodden and less vertically inclined. Our target was Grisedale Tarn at the top of Grisedale Hause on the other side of Great Tongue. Here was the first major climb of the day. As we climbed higher the winds got stronger and the temperature lowered. Infact the temperature dropped significantly as we got near to the top. The path also thinned our nearer to the top, becoming the collection of stones that we had begun to recognise as what the lake district calls a path.
The cloud was hanging over the top of the mountain and we had no idea how far past the cloud we would have to go. Looking on the map we knew that we hadn’t got far to go on with regards to distance but all the contour line merged into a big mess and we had no idea how much higher we had to climb. Fortunately it wasn’t as far as we had dreaded. We reached the top after what seamed like a relatively short time. Unfortunately that was where all the wind had been coming from and now we were at the top of the pass and the wind howled past, cutting through my clothes like they weren’t there. We had got at this point the option to climb higher and take the route to the top of Helvellyn, followed by the striding edge path. We decided against it for three good reasons, firstly the weather being as it was, secondly we needed to make up for the lost time yesterday and thirdly the weather report that we had read when we were at Black Sail hut “Snow above 700 m.” Helvellyn is 950 m. We took the quick route down to Patterdale. I say the quick route, the path from Grisedale Tarn to Patterdale is a long and windy one and although it is wide, easily passable and solid underfoot, we did not reach Patterdale until lunchtime.
After lunch we crossed the road at Patterdale near to the pub. Jonny pointed out a sign on the door. There had been a beer festival in the pub the night before. Jonny then unhelpfully remarked that had we made it to Patterdale last night we could have been at the beer festival. “Thanks for that, Jonny” I thought to myself as we passed the pub and slipped down another footpath.
Our route from Patterdale was supposed to be simple, up and over over mountain, following the contours at the top for a few miles, back down the other side and follow a path along to side of Haweswater, which I had read on another blog before hand was a wide path that could be walked down quickly and where good time could be made. If I ever find the person who made that comment and they ask me what is the best walking route in England, I’ll tell the bastard that the M42 is quite nice this time of year!
Anyway, from that I’m sure you can guess what is going to happen next. From Patterdale we could see the hill that we were going to climb up, it didn’t look so bad, although we were now well aware that looks could be deceptive. The part of the hill that we could see from Patterdale was climbed quite quickly, despite the narrow path. The path then turned away from Patterdale, there was a great view back over the valley which we stopped and admired for a few moments. We then carried on and it was here that the weather turned.
From now on we were going up and down little hillocks and mounds, round interesting geological features, clambering over rock formations and trying to avoid falling into a bog of unknown depth. There was no one steep climb which kept on going that there had been on some of the other mountains, it was intermittent. A steep section for five minutes, then a section which wasn’t so difficult, but usually unsheltered from the driving winds instead. Very few and far between were there any points where there wasn’t something to complain about, usually geology or meteorology. We must have left Patterdale at around 1 O’Clock, at well gone fourwe were still climbing, weaving through obstacles that the earth had laid out for us. Every now and again we would pass round a corner in the path and in the distance we’d see a lake of some kind. Then, I’d look at a map only to discover it was a tarn or a different reservoir. Haweswater, was still so far away.
It sounds like I’m having a terrible downer on the Lake District. I hope to not put anyone off. The weather aside there are many views which are just spectacular. Along the way, from Patterdale to Haweswater alone there were many points where me and Jonny had to stop to take in the views. Angle tarn was one of them. A lake so far up in the mountains, which seamed to take on the colour of the sky and yet at the same time seemed to be very much a part of the earth. On a better day this would be a great place to stop for a picnic, or just to sit and watch the sky and contemplate the meaning of life. It was one of those places of such peace that even the passing by of a dozen ramblers an hour couldn’t spoil it. But as it was it was chuffing freezing up there, so we stopped, took a few snaps and carried on.
There was one point on this stretch of the walk where the map didn’t seam to line up with reality all that much, I knew that we would have to turn off of our path and take a left some time soon and when the path turned it seamed to be at a completely different angle to how it was shown on the map. Fortunately in the minute or two that I had stood by the turning, Jonny had noticed me stop and decided that he shouldn’t go any further ahead. While he waited for me to make a decision, a man walked over the horizon from where I thought we should be going, he pointed out the way to me and then he carried on his way. On his way he passed Jonny and told him to catch me up. This was the final accent to the top of the Kidsty Pike (792 m. What was that they said about snow over 700 m?). From the top of Kidsty Pike we were being battered by the cold and the wind and by now a little bit of rain as well. We hurried down the slope towards Haweswater as quick as we could. It seamed that with every step we took we got a little bit warmer and by the time we were out from under the cloud cover I was definitely starting to feel much warmer.
It had taken us over four hours to get to the highest point on this ridge and we descended to Haweswater from there in less than an hour. Here there was no wind to speak of, the ambient temperature was probably just into double digits and it was deathly quiet, save for when we interrupted a heard of sheep. By now it was well gone five and a look on the map showed us that we still had many miles to travel to reach Shap, another days target unreachable. Jonny was determined to to make it as far as possible, in fact last time I had spoken to him he still thought we could make Shap. I hadn’t realised that he had also resigned himself to not making it and was just trying to get as far as possible before night fell.
The decent from Kidsty Pike had had a catastrophic effect on my feet. I knew that the aching from yesterday had gotten worse and were now no longer mere irritations, but full blown blisters. The rush down the hill had meant that now I was walking even slower along the side of Haweswater. I limped on along the path that was as level as a see-saw and about as easy to follow as the plot of an episode from the Twilight Zone. A little way further on, there was a bloke sitting by the side of the path. He said hello and the two of us had a chat for a second, where we were each going, how we were finding the lake district, etcetera etcetera. It turned out he was doing the coast to coast walk as well and he was going to be wild camping. He suggested that because we had no hope of making it to Shap that we all camp together. I had resided myself to a wild camp already and by the time I had caught up with Jonny so had he, we walked back and made camp in a sheltered spot with a view of the lake, under a small copse of pine trees. A small stream nearby made for a water supplies and we had the food to last us for several days.
That evening we made pleasant small talk about the football, trying to get in to a Brentford FC game, the price of train fares from London to St. Bees (as it turns out it was a pound cheaper for our new friend to go first class than if he had been in standard, sometimes I really don’t understand National Rail) and the merits of cheap, boilable noodle food vs. heavy more nutritious tinned food. We had all turned in for an early night before the sun had set.