Sunday 31 December 2017

All around Whinlatter

With the road past Whinlatter main entrance closed, subsidence caused by badgers, we were lucky that we were aiming for the car park right at the west of the forest.  

Difficulty: 5
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (15), Grace (13), Evie (10), Poppy (7)
9:50, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (235)
11:00, 2.7km 1h09 305m, Graystones (452, Wainwright)
11:49, 4.8km 1h58 444m, Broom Fell (511, Wainwright)
12:25, 6.2km 2h35 507m, Lord's Seat (552, Wainwright)
12:53, 7.4km 3h02 532m, Barf (469, Wainwright)
14:54, 13.2km 5h03 816m, Whinlatter (517, Wainwright)
15:52, 16.0km 6h02 827m, End (236)


After crossing the river by the small footbridge, it was a bit of a slog all the way up to the first peak, Graystones.

A combination of a well deserved rest after the climb, and the way to keep from being blown off your feet.

Graystones, the first Wainwright of the day.

The path onwards led past a recently deceased forest.  We couldn't really tell if it was pining for anything at all...
 

Up to Broom Fell, and a very convenient shelter for lunch. 
 

From Broom Fell, over to Lord's Seat.  We'd been here before a few years back, but Poppy was carried then, so we needed to revisit so she could claim it properly.

And over to Barf, another first time for Poppy.  Beautiful views across Bassenthwaite and surrounding countryside.  Shame we had to bring Grace.

Evie, looking a liittle unimpressed by the view. 

After climbing down, it was a great view from the path leading into the forest - here back at Barf, seeing how close the path goes to the cliff side.

Here looking towards Skiddaw, Latrigg and Keswick.

Finally after navigating through the forest and climbing back out of the trees, we made it to Whinlatter.

We found the path down, which was amazingly narrow, twisty, downhill and slippery.

Caroline and Grace lead the way back along the track to the car.


Saturday 30 December 2017

Knott

Second walk of the week, still with strong winds.  It was time to head upwards and discover how much snow was still around.  We parked just off the road at Longlands, space for a couple of cars, but only one other around when we arrived.  After the mistakes of the day before, I was quite keen on navigating this walk as planned, and I'm pleased to say that it all went well.

Difficulty: 5
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (15), Grace (13), Evie (10), Poppy (7)
10:02, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (218)
10:51, 2.3km 0h49 252m, Longlands Fell (483, Wainwright)
11:44, 4.8km 1h41 408m, Brae Fell (586, Wainwright)
12:31, 6.4km 2h29 496m, Great Sca Fell (651, Wainwright)
12:56, 7.5km 2h54 570m, Knott (710, Wainwright, Hewitt)
13:39, 9.3km 3h37 594m, Meal Fell (550, Wainwright)
14:17, 10.6km 4h15 678m, Great Cockup (526, Wainwright)
15:29, 14.6km 5h27 718m, End (219)

We gave ourselves 6 hours of day light to complete the walk and were right on track, until the last few km home when we were able to speed up quite a bit...  Still, having an easy end was a comforting thought if we were late back and had to use torches.

After following the track round, we set off up the hill to Longlands Fell.

Evie at the top of Longlands Fell, looking back north the way we had come.

Grace finding it quite windy, still at Longlands Fell but this time looking south towards Lowthwaite Fell.

After crossing Lowthwaite Fell, we headed up and to the left to reach Brae Fell, our second Wainwright of the day.

The girls were very happy to find this shelter, less happy to learn it was only Little Sca Fell, and there was still an extra 30m of climbing in the strong winds to get to our next destination.  Still, it made a good place to stop for some sandwiches.

At the top of Great Sca Fell we met another group of walkers, so we able to take group pictures of each other.  Here's a rare shot of all 6 of us.

The route to Knott was fairly obvious, even in the thick cloud cover, but really windy and thick snow to walk through.  At the top it was flat but icy, so standing up was really quite hard.

In this photo Knott is top right, Great Sca is top left, and we'd come down the path between Grace and Caroline.  This path was snowy and springy heather, so we had great fun running down (Grace, Evie, Poppy & me), or tobogganing down on our bottoms (Grace & Evie).  Part of the fun was getting out of the wind and snow down to Meal Fell.

Caroline, ever focused on the goal, makes off towards our final Wainwright of the day. 

Isabelle was noticeable this week for liking to be at the back of the group, making her way up to Great Cockup.

Evie was very happy at this point, and was making New Year's resolutions never to walk up another hill.  Here at Great Cockup, looking over to Skiddaw. 

Still at Great Cockup, looking west towards Bassenthwaite.



Friday 29 December 2017

Back up into the snow


The first walk of the week, after worries around food not arriving at the house (Tesco found us), not being able to drive safely down the small drive (not a big frost or snowfall in the night), and not having enough clothes (everyone had remembered their hats). 

Difficulty: 4
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (15), Grace (13), Evie (10), Poppy (7)
10:14, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (126)
11:45, 3.7km 1h31 406m, Gavel Fell (526, Wainwright)
12:33, 5.4km 2h18 518m, Blake Fell (573, Wainwright)
13:38, 7.6km 3h23 576m, Burnbank Fell (475, Wainwright)
15:43, 12.4km 5h28 711m, End (127)


We parked in the small National Trust car park at the foot of Loweswater.  Not very easy to find, but marked on the 25k OS map.  Setting off through High Nook Farm and then to Gavel Fell.

After a little early shower it was mainly clear.

The way up towards Gavel Fell.

Keen children at the top of Gavel Fell.

The way up to Blake Fell was straightforward - following the fence, but conditions a little worse with sideways snow/hail.

Poppy, demonstrating the proper clothing for the conditions.

Hiding in the small shelter at the top of Blake Fell.  We camped there for a quick lunch.

Coming down the weather cleared so we could see where we were going once more.

However, it still meant we ended up in the wrong place - the instinct to climb up the nearest high piece of land not quite paying off here.

Now actually at Burnbank Fell.

More keen children - must have been post jelly babies.

View over Loweswater (left) and Crummock Water (right).  At this point my navigation failed and we ended up taking a very steep downhill route into Holme Woods, rather than the much more sensible route we were aiming at.

Now safely into Holme Wood, with a fairly straight way back to the car.  Next time I'll study the map more carefully...

Wednesday 2 August 2017

Rain forecast above 400m, red warning for phones

The combination of a car park within driving distance that we'd walked past earlier, and the alluring prospect of ticking off a bunch of peaks led us to this walk.

Difficulty: 5                                                                     
Walkers: Tim, Caroline                                                            
10:25, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (181)                                                 
11:51, 3.7km 1h25 553m, The Knott (739, Wainwright)                               
12:22, 5.4km 1h56 642m, Rampsgill Head (792, Wainwright)                          
12:24, 5.5km 1h58 642m, Rampsgill Head (792, Hewitt)                              
12:39, 6.4km 2h13 692m, High Raise (High Street) (802, Wainwright, Hewitt)        
13:01, 7.4km 2h35 733m, Kidsty Pike (780, Wainwright)                             
14:00, 10.3km 3h34 885m, Rest Dodd (696, Wainwright, Hewitt)                      
14:41, 12.3km 4h15 906m, Brock Crags (561, Wainwright)                            
15:54, 15.3km 5h28 919m, End (179)                                                

Starting from the car park the far end of Hartsop, we headed up the valley towards Hayeswater and up the hillside to the left.

After looking around the Filter House on the left of Hayswater Gill, we crossed over.  Down here it's all quite bright!

Caroline and The Knott, after the fairly steep climb up the side of the hill.

From The Knott, looking towards Rest Dodd and The Nab just getting the last of the sunshine.

Following the Coast to Coast path, we got an advance look at Kidsty Pike, twas to be the last we had around there...

Rampsgill Head, writing this several months later I can't now recall whether this is the Wainwright or the Hewitt.  I'm guessing since it's got a proper cairn marker it's the Wainwright!

With the vain hope that conditions at Kidsty Pike would clear up we headed north to High Raise.  At this point we did have a slight disagreement about the correct direction to leave, very easy to get confused over which direction you came in from given the lack of landmarks or any kind of real slope to get your bearings.  Thankfully the compass didn't lie.

Now at Kidsty Pike, and after looking forward to the view down to the south we were sadly disappointed.  It was really raining quite relentlessly, and had been going on for long enough by now that it became easier to accept that it wasn't actually going to clear up.

We walked back the way we had come via The Knott and then turned northwards towards Rest Dodd.  Another hour in the rain ticked off.

Now at Brock Crags, with some actual navigation to do - comparing the walls and paths to the map to make sure we made it safely to the Wainwright over the various lumps and bumps on the way.  Still raining.

We descended, to be honest we lost the path at one point, but was able to track the route by matching the stony outcrops to the map and was able to easily rejoin slightly lower down than we were aiming for.  Coming lower it decided to actually stop raining, after raining continuously while we were above about 400m.  The sad footnote to this route is that taking this set of photos sadly was too much for my poor phone, which gave up the ghost on the start of the long drive back to Birmingham.  It was pretty sad, since we were going to listen to an audiobook off my phone.  It was less sad since I got to buy myself a new phone - which is hopefully more waterproof!