Great and Little Langdale

Distance: 13.9 km (8.45 mi)
Time: 3 hours 46
Average speed: 3.7 km/h (2.3 mph)

The last weather forecast that I'd seen hadn't been too promising, but not all that bad. Light rain in the morning, heavier in the afternoon. Only that was several hours old and the B&B's WiFi was playing hard to get.

The drive up to Great Langdale was, as might be expected, lovely. I am worried about what constitutes an A road in these parts. I parked up near the New Dungeon Ghyll hotel and paid for the day, then set off west. A short and gentle walk over fields, then up over the shoulder of Side Pike. The light rain at the foot of the climb had become heavy by the time it levelled out.

I continued on past Blea Tarn which would be a nice place to stop should the weather be more co-operative. I started down beside a stream, then as the rain got heavier I retreated to the shelter of some trees and started stuffing things into waterproof bags. Phone, camera, wallet, car keys (remote central locking) were all bagged up and stuffed into the backpack, not to reappear until after the walk. The guide book went into once of the pockets of the waterproof jacket, I would have to rely on the supposedly waterproof GPS.

I started down beside the stream for a second time, in wind and rain. Lots of rain. There was a path to follow, involving streams and boggy ground to cross and I nearly had a boot sucked off. Luckily the boots were new, just bought last Friday, and kept most of the water out. The path led me to a road in Little Langdale, which I decided to follow down to get some solid ground under my feet whatever the route might say. The route said follow the road.

With the rain easing off I consulted the guide book and backed by the GPS followed a path on the South side of Little Langdale. This path went through a herd of Highland Cattle one of which was standing in the middle of the path staring at me. I lost the staring competition and decided it had right of way, so bypassed it on some soggy ground.

Passing the old slate quarries (and a very well appointed climbing hut) the rain had all but stopped and I considered getting the camera out. Every time I got close to a decision the rain came back. The river was re-crossed at Slater Bridge. This was half a pack-horse bridge made from slate and half a couple of rock outcroppings crossed with slabs of, well, you can guess. All with a rusty railing that changed sides half-way across and some very wet stones.

Crossing back over to Great Langdale I caught a glimpse of Helvellyn, or at least the clouds where the peak of Helvellyn should have been. Not the best day to have been up there.

Checking the GPS saved me a wrong turning which would have led half a mile out of my way. I followed the bridleway along the south side of Great Langdale with the wind and rain firmly in charge. Some of those raindrops were being driven into my face with some force, leading me to keep my head down.

Another close encounter of the bovine kind, this time two non-highland cattle refused to back down, leading to another squelchy excursion.

I came to a T junction. One was in the right direction and signposted to Dungeon Ghyll, the other was in the opposite direction and indicated the road. It was so obviously the former it was 10 minutes before the GPS showed it should have been the latter. In fact the route I took was a little shorter than the one the guide said I should have taken, unfortunately it was far more exposed and the weather wanted to make sure I knew it.

By the time I reached my start point I firmly ignored the car and went straight for the pub opposite, hoping for a warm fire to dry out and a hot meal. Yes and yes, a nice Cumberland sausage.

Place Fell and Ullswater

Distance: 13.6 km (8.45 mi)
Time: 4 hours 38
Average speed: 2.9 km/h (1.8 mph)

To get from Windermere to Patterdale were today's walk started I drove over Kirkstone Pass. You can get some pretty spectacular views there, but I had to stop looking and concentrate on driving. Luckily the rest of the day was not going t be short on views.

I managed to park over a large puddle, evidence of overnight rain, so I got my feet wet before I'd even changed into my boots. Still I had them dry as I set out.

It was a short and flat walk to the foot of Place Fell, then a long slog diagonally up the western side before looping back to the summit (path, then a bit of a scramble). I was rewarded with some stunning views of the surrounding fells, including Striding Edge up to Helvellyn, and down to Ullswater. It had been pretty tiring (and I was still 300m below the top of Helvellyn), but the hard part was over.

I came down from the top and followed the path all the other folks were taking. It was then that I realized I'd broken the rule about leaving nothing but footprints: the foot thingy on my walking pole was missing, probably sucked off by one of the boggy patches I'd negotiated. Not long after noticing that I spotted somebody else's foot thingy ahead of me and thanks to mass production it now sits on my walking pole.

It was as I was congratulating myself on that luck that I realized I was on the wrong path. The guide recommended a curving path that gave better views over Ullswater whereas I'd followed the direct path because everyone else was following it. That only works if everyone else is on the same route as you. And GPS units only work if you remember to look at them occasionally. No matter, the two paths soon joined up before splitting again and this time I took the right one and let everyone else go their own way.

Navigation error number 2 was ten or fifteen minutes later. The guide said that there was a path on the right down off he fell. I saw a grass track that looked a little steep to be usable with the damp grass. The route on the GPS said to go ahead, so I pushed on. The next time I checked the GPS I was well to the left of where I should have been, and was still up on the plateau instead of halfway down. When I'd entered the route last week I hadn't been able to see where the track split (the route was on 1:25000, my software only had the 1:50000) and the path I'd wanted only went steeply to the right for a short distance before being parallel with the upper route, although descending. Since I was still on a path and in roughly the right direction I pushed on. I ended up descending a steeper path than the once I rejected and although it was shorter I had to spend more time to go down whilst vertical.

Back on the route, the return part is alongside Ullswater. The guidebook promised "one of the most beautiful paths in the Lake District". Fair enough. I did stop plenty of times to take photos.

There was one obstacle on the final stretch, a tree that had fallen down over the path. There are more graceful ways to overcome that obstacle, but they all involve chainsaws.

Grasmere and Rydal Water

Distance: 10.3 km (6.4 mi)
Time: 2 hours 31
Average Speed: 4.1 km/h (2.5 mph)

This walk started with much hassle trying to find a place to park. I eventualy ended up parking for 5 minutes in a short stay slot while buying a newspaper to get enough change for the longer stay. It's all very well saying that you can use your phone to pay for the ticket instead of hunting for change, but I have never managed to get a signal in Grasmere.

With the car safely parked I headed off to Rydal over the scenic route. I was a little concerned that the signs said I was following the "Coffin Trail", but it turns out that this was the route they used to bring people to be buried before they built a church a Rydal. Seems that in those days, death was also hard. Those carrying the deceased would have got nice views mind.

At Rydal I decided that, despite the total cloud cover, the warm jacket wasn't needed and stuffed it into the backpack with the waterproof. I did think I'd be getting the waterproof out later. Across the main road, then over a bridge and onto a side road to walk the other side of Rydal Water. With fewer trees in the way there were better views on that side.

I followed the path past a couple of caves until I was overlooking Grasmere. By now there were plenty of people sharing the path and I was starting to see the merits of Wainwright's opinion on acknowledging other walkers.

Getting close to Red Bank I checked the route I was following in the book to find I must have passed a downward path to the lakeshore. Looking back I couldn't see a real path and nothing like a path I'd want to follow, it being too steep and too wet. I ended up following a path just below Red Bank, which wasn't looking as steep as it seems going up it in May. It had started drizzling.

Eventually I found a path down the shore and rejoined the route. Just before leaving the shore I admitted that drizzle had become rain and put on the waterproof.

The final stretch was the K2B route in reverse to the car park where checkpoint 1 is. That was supposed to be the end of the route, but I'd parked in another (cheaper) car park. There was also a sausage sandwich and a cup of coffee to be considered.

It's now later in the afternoon and still raining, so now to see what there is to do indoors in Bowness.