The lovely spring weather of the last few weeks convinced us that a long weekend in the Lake District would be warm and pleasant. We planned a couple of days of running, starting and finishing at Keswick and making the biggest circuit possible in the time. Unfortunately, winter decided to spend the long weekend in the Lakes too, so things didn’t go exactly to plan.
On Saturday we headed out after lunch from Threlkeld, climbing Clough Head and running all the way along the ridge, over Hellvelyn, to Grizedale Tarn, and then down to Dunmail Raise. Rachel insisted on a picture at each peak; you can see the results below. The weather started out OK, but quickly started to rain, which combined with quite strong wind on the tops made the run pretty cold. By White Side it was hailing on us, and the hail wasn’t melting. By Nethermost Pike the rain had got into the camera and we couldn’t even get pictures. On the final descent to the road we decided against our original plan of wild camping somewhere below Sergeant Man and instead hitch-hiked back to our car at Keswick. Not exactly a glorious day.
By Sunday morning the weather was much better, so we set off again, this time from Great Langdale. We headed up Stake Pass, then up to Rossett Pike, across to Bowfell, then all the way along the ridge to Scafel Pike. Despite the dry weather, it was still windy and very cold, with ice on the rocks on top of Bowfell. We decided to head back from Scafell Pike, so dropped down to the Corridor Route and back via Styhead Tarn and Angle Tarn. A much better day, but we were quite glad to be off the ridges on the way back.
Sunday evening we blagged a night’s stay at Pete and Tish’s (thanks, guys!). Tish produced a lovely dinner of chilli con carne and we sat around late into the evening telling lies about our running exploits before camping out in their garden as the house was already full with Richard and Paul.
Awesome montage! 😉
That is really funny 🙂
I like picture #7, Helvellyn Lower Man. I think that would be me after the first peak. 🙂 🙂
Interesting that the only summit shot with other people in it is of Scafell. 😐
It wasn’t that there weren’t other people around at other peaks (not so much on saturday) as that it was impossible to get a picture on top of Scafell Pike without other people in it. 🙄
We were running with another pair out training for the Bob Graham from Helvellyn to Dollywagon Pike, and with another guy doing the same from Rossett Pike to Bowfell. We just chose to have pictures with only me in them.
Oh dear, perhaps running the 8 tea shops route wasn’t quite as heroic as I’d thought.
You are making me feel tired and cold just looking at your pics :freeze: