Sadly not around Wastwater

We were determined to have a shorter easier walk, and with a little rain forecast we decided to stay a little lower.  I'd planned this walk, but clearly should have spent more time looking at the map...

Difficulty: 5
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (16), Grace (14), Evie (11), Poppy (8)
11:38, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (74)
13:32, 3.6km 1h54 533m, Illgill Head (609, Wainwright)
14:22, 6.1km 2h43 589m, Whin Rigg (535, Wainwright)
19:24, 15.2km 7h45 797m, End (74)

We parked at the large National Trust car park at the top of Wasdale, but instead of heading the well trod path to Scafell Pike, we turned right and up the ridge to Illgill Head.

Looking back towards the head of Wasdale and Scafell.

Poppy at Illgill Head. It's one of the ones where you really can't guess which set of rocks are the official Wainwright without a really good memory or a gps unit.

Walking across to Whin Rigg.  Evie was clearly inspired by Grace's exercise class earlier, and with the ideal sprung surface had taken her boots off and was doing a gymnastics master class.  We had somersaults, cartwheels, running forward rolls, and all sorts.  

Evie at Whin Rigg.

We headed down the hillside, as the light rain came and went.

And finally Grace got a chance to get her boots soaking wet by wading out.  It was quite amazing that she'd lasted this long with the inside of her boots dry.

And so the flaw in my route was exposed.  A very long stretch of slippery wet rocks approached, and whilst Evie and Grace were absolutely fine, and Poppy just persevered, Caroline and Jo struggled a little.  

Isabelle gets an honourable mention for helping them out, whilst the rest of us waited for them to catch up.  As we waited Evie, high from fruit pastilles, treated us to a singing & dancing demonstration - making up lyrics & dance moves to match (when she could keep a straight face).

Finally the view opposite Bowerdale, after a long time.  Around this point we noticed that Grace was nowhere to be seen, we thought she was ahead but wasn't visible and couldn't hear us shouting.  I couldn't quite believe that she'd gone so far in front, and was mentally rehearsing how much daylight we had left to go back and check for an incapacitated daughter.  However, after another trip ahead of the rest of the group I found her sitting quite calmly on a rock.

So there are warning signs at either end of this path - we'd blithely ignored them and learnt our lesson.  Taking the extra could of km to walk fully around the lake would have meant a lot of road walking but would have been far faster...