Eeh, these bank holidays.
- It's a problem to decide.- Zzzzzz...
Tell you what, Gromit, lad.
Let's have a nice hot cup of tea, hmm?
The kettle should've boiled by now.
Bup-ba-bum
No cheese, Gromit.
Not a bit in the house!
(Gulp!)
Gromit, that's it! Cheese!
We'll go somewhere, where there's cheese!
Where were we...?
Places you find cheese...
Everybody knows the moon's made of cheese.
(Dripping echoes)
(Door creaks open)
Hmm...
Hmm...
OK, so it wasn’t Bank Holiday, and no cheese was involved (yet), but earlier in the week it was one of those moments of indecision thanks to the “organisation” of the National Trust at Wasdale. The original plan was to stay in one of these…
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| Wasdale Camping Pod |
But after a double booking (thanks to the NT tossers), it wasn’t to be. So back to an old favouriste,, our third or fourth visit, we swapped a camping pod for a mansion house (Langdale YHA)…
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| High Close Yoof Hostel |
...And very nice it was too. But anyway, back to the beginning….
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| Ian looks on with his usual disdain. |
The weekend started in the usual manner, N round to mine Friday night for beers and a spot of geekery (PS3 etc), then up Saturday for bacon butties, supermarket and off to the Lakes. I was particulary looking forward to the drive, having taken delivery of the ‘The Beast’ (Audi A6 2.7 Tdi Multitronic S-Line Starship Enterprise) only the day before…..
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| The Beast |
Unfortunately the ‘Law of Sod ‘decided to make its presence felt, by giving us a double puncture, so bacon butties were scrapped and replaced with a visit to Kwik Fit. Oh the joy. Facing a £500.00 bill for two new tyres, it looked like it was going to be an expensive weekend well, for the Company at least). Anyway, the Kindly KwiK Fit Fitters managed a puncture repair and a discount on the new tyre, so left ‘happy’ at £200 lighter. Humph.
Eventually, we hit the road and nigh on flew up that motorway, towards Asda in Kendal. Supplies duly purchased, next stop was the Langdale valley.
In keeping with tradition, the plan was to do a 'minor' Wainwright on the Saturday afternoon, just as a leg loosener, so Lingmoor Fell was chosen as a suitable candidate.
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| Blea Tarn from ascent of Lingmoor Fell |
The weather was the usual for Lakeland
Lingmoor Fell is now 5mm taller, thanks to N’s careful placement of a pebble…
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| Lingmoor Fell Summit (and N) |
Told you there wasn’t much to look at...
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| My Foot |
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| Its "art" innit? |
That done (the whole route up and down only took just over an hour or so), we continued to drive around the loop of the Langdale Valley to reach our eventual destination, The Britannia Inn in Elterwater. This place has its own beer specially brewed for them by the Coniston Brewery Co, so I was happy. This place also had free WiFi, So N was happy too!
N was monitoring his E-Bay sales, realising he was about to get rich, pushed the boat out and bought some cheesy chips. It wasn’t even a meal time - how flash is that?!!! Anyway, thanks N, they were damned nice.
Eventually, it was time to check into the hostel and enjoy a couple more beers and a pleasant Indian meal, courtesy of Asda. It wasn’t too long before I was ready for bed, so for some strange reason (nothing to do with the 8 pints the night before and 5 pints that afternoon, honestly), I was in bed for 9.30pm - and slept like a baby (an alcoholic baby, but you get me drift).
Sunday came with a spring in my step and joy in my heart at having had a good nights sleep, especially for a busy dorm in a hostel, it was unusually quiet, either that or I was unconscious. I’ve recently re-discovered the joy of toasted crumpets (thanks to Mart at work, the founder of ‘Crumpet Club’), about the only thing I've ever actually enjoyed at breakfast time. Are they healthy? Who cares!
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| Insert your own shit 'crumpet' based pun here |
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| N through the looking glass. |
So, to the main event, the reason we were here, the pain and the pleasure.. Here’s the route plan….
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| The Plan |
Which in terms of summits, translates to...
Pavey Ark (via Jacks Rake)
Thurnacar Knott
Harrison Stickle
Pike of Stickle
Loft Crag
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| Bridge at the bottom of Stickle Ghyll |
Heres our intrepid explorer heroically fording a raging torrent, its enough to put Bear Ghrylls to shame.....
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| Stickle Tarn and Pavey Ark |
55 Minutes from car to this point. There was something very calming about Stickle Tarn, no wind, flat water, silence and no one about, one of those ‘moments’ I suppose. So after a pleasant stroll around the right hand side of the tarn, it was decision time….
N opted for the walkers path, the North Gully to the right hand side of Pavey Ark, whilst I took the Grade 1 scramble, Jacks (or Jakes) Rake….
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| Me at the start of Jacks Rake |
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| N's chosen route - North Gully |
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| Looking down from the first section |
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| Looking up from the first section |
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| The famous Rowan tree The first part of the Rake was straight forward scrambling, plenty of hand holds, no real sense of exposure, until that is, the point just below the Rowan tree. At this point the Rake narrows down to a thin groove, which to someone of my size (6’2” and 16 stone) with a rucksack, made it a bit of a squeeze! Anyway, it wasn’t pretty, but I got through it and sat just above the tree to catch my breath. |
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| About the safest bit on the Rake. |
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| Climb up to "The Gun" |
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| The Gun The next stage was a precarious scramble up wet scree to “The Gun” (I didn’t incidentally know it was the Gun, until I was above it by the way!). Exposure here was massive, I’m not sure how far a drop it was, but enough to kill me with one false move. Hundreds of feet, at least. It was at this point, that it began to sink in, here I am, all on my own, no one else around, no whistle (Note to self, yada yada) and wearing grey, so essentially camouflaged against the rock. Uh oh. Head down, carry on Spence…. So, up to the Gun, again another ‘bold move’ required to get through, again, not pretty, all elbows, knees and arse, but still we got through it. Sat just above The Gun, I took a pic and had a serious word with meself. Sit down, take a drink, take a photo, shut the eyes…… in through the nose, out though the mouth. Ahhh. That’s it, calm again now. Carry on….. |
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| View from the Rake |
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| Phew - On top! The final stage of Jacks Rake is a load of ‘slab rock’ with a number of choices over it, a little bit like Tryfan North Face I suppose. There’s still a (even bigger) sheer drop here – but I suppose immunity had kicked in by now, so no nerves. After climbing up a blind ally, there was ½ a scary moment when I realised I couldn’t get up it and had to down climb about 20 feet or so. With perfect timing I met with N and had a pleasant brew atop So total scary moments = 2 1/2 ! Would I do it again? Too right! |
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| N doing a bearing off a cliff |
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| Stickle Pickle |
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| Harrison Stickle from Loft Crag |
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| Pavey Ark from Harrison Stickle |
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| Dungeon Ghyll |
With the main event over, it was time to get down to the business of “serious walking”. Weirdly, for us, we were treated to good weather, so could actually see our next objectives really clearly. It was actually quite strange getting used again to that shortening of distance that good visibility gives you.
So over the various Pikes of the Langdale Pikes we trotted, we couldn’t remember the name of one of them, so now shall be known as “Stickle Pickle”.
So in conclusion, a good walk, almost ‘Welsh-like’ in terms of its gnarly-ness (is that a even a word? I’m not sure how many miles we covered, not many, although I’m not even sure its relevant, so don’t particularly care – but it took 5 hours! So all in all, for the weekend, 6 Wainwrights and 2 Real Ale Pubs ticked. A highly satisfying weekend.
