Not blogged in a while and I have several walks to write up. I’ll start with the walk up Scafell Pike though. Zara and I drove over to the Lake District on Thursday after work. The drive was rubbish as we got stuck in Ilkley forever. I had clicked on the quickest route to get there on satnav as I really wanted to be pitching my tent in daylight. What a noob I am! Little did I know the quickest route was this insane road that I now know is called Hardknotts Pass and it’s evil twin Wrynose Pass. Hairpin bends on very steep roads, sometimes I couldn’t even see the road at all! I was sat so far out of my seat just for an extra couple of inches of viewing whilst hoping that we didn’t meet any oncoming cars. Zara tried to take a couple of photos, but they really don’t do this insane road any justice!
We stayed in the National Trust campsite next to Wast Water and the start of our path. Most expensive campsite I have ever stayed in! Anyway, we woke up early on Friday morning and Rachel, Ness and Zalks joined us.
The walk is pretty much climbing from the very start. No gentle rolling hill to warm up, just straight into the climb.
I had been worrying about the crossing of Lingmell Coll for a few days. In my scenario we got across the thing and then thunderstorms happened and we were stuck up the mountain until they passed. Thankfully the water was very low.
The section after the river sucked. Imagine a stairmaster. The national trust has been busy trying to stop erosion, so have put in lots of steps made out of rocks. I have to be honest, I hated this section going up and back down. I didn’t take any pictures of this section because I was too busy concentrating. I really didn’t want to slip and break myself!
After a while we got to Lingmell Coll. I will be honest and admit I was very tempted to detour and walk up it as well, until I saw that there was no trig point. I’m only into this walking malarkey for the trig points, it’s all about trig life.
Anyway, some further walking up hill and then the most glorious site, the summit came into view.
I’ve never been to the lake district and it does not rain. When I did the Old Man of Conniston, it rained like a mother trucker, I slipped and hurt my bottom. Well, the weather said, not this time Kirsty, you need some rain now! Out comes all the waterproofs and winter gear. It’s only July, but the gloves, fleeces and wooly hats were so very needed!
With memories of my broken bottom I begin a very slow descent off the mountain. I don’t slip, however Rachel and Ness were not so lucky. Thankfully no serious injuries as I have never wanted to feature on the mountain rescue Facebook pages.
About two thirds of the way down, the rain stops, the temperatures warm up and it was time to remove all the gear, stop and have something to eat.
It was a very short walk in terms of distance only coming in at 5 miles. My watch told me I only did 8,000 steps, which confused me until I remembered I used my poles the whole walk and it never registers my steps correctly.
I’m glad I have done Scafell Pike. I’ll probably never repeat it though as I really believe there are a lot better mountains to walk up, and I hated the stair master!
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