The Lakes...

For some reason the Lake District has mostly escaped me in my "mountain career" - the only time I've spent more than a long weekend there was when I was 13yrs old, which was a traumatically bad weather experience on a school walking trip. So it was about time to explore the famous mountainous region in the NW of England.

After talking with friends who had lived there at some point, I planned a walking route taking in lots of the mountains and ridges that I'd heard about over the years, famous in certain cirlces at least! Scafell, Helvellyn, Langdale Pikes, Great Gable, Pillar, Haystacks...

Panorama from Great Gable to Wasdale, Kirkfell and Pillar

110km and 7800 metres of ascent - it was a holiday though, so we mixed wild camps with quaint B&B's and had a night at the wild and wonderful Black Sail youth hostel thrown in for good measure.

Remembering the old saying "April Showers" and the knowledge that the Lakes are one of the wettest places in the UK, we packed a full mountain tent, waterproofs and warm clothing, carrying it all for 8 days whilst only camping on 3 of those nights.

It only rained once. For an hour. When we were tucked up in the tent.

April Showers?

Amazing. We had the most glorious 8 days of weather in the UK hills that I have known in a long time. Gorgeous, lovely, sunny, warm, dry blue sky days. Brilliant.

We drove to arrive at the clean and comfortable Elm Tree Lodge, a cosy little B&B in the centre of Keswick run by ultra friendly British Mountain Instructor and Himalayan guide Tim Mosedale (who recently became the 10th Brit to climb Everest from both sides - well done Tim!!!)

Along the ridge to Helvellyn

After a short taxi ride to the Hill Top Farm above Threlkeld we headed off on our sunshine adventure! Up onto Clough head and along the ridge all the way to Helvellyn dropping down Swirral ridge for a quick dip (for me anyway) and to our first camp at Red Tarn. Calm beautiful sunny evening with all the stars out to play.

Descending Swirral Edge down to Red Tarn

A quick dip...

Starting up Striding Edge

Day 2 took us up the Lakes Classic of Striding Edge, south and west over Fairfield and Hart Crag and down into Patterdale for a well deserved ice cream before heading to the brilliant Braesteads Farm - a working farm that rents a couple of rooms out in season. Amazing spot and Nic is a really friendly host.

The final section back up to Helvellyn

Looking ahead across the mountains of the next two days

Descending the ridge from Hart Crag down into Patterdale

Spring Lambs grazing on the green green grass at Braesteads Farm

Moody skies on the climb up to Angle Tarn

From there it's out East up past Angle Tarn and onto High Street. Our only properly cloudy day (and the one that eventually produced some rain at camp poopoo) meant some brilliant moody skies. From the top of High Street we headed East down to Haweswater on the stunning Rough Crag ridge.

The last section of Rough Crag Ridge leading down to Haweswater

"If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise...."

A short climb back up the next valley brought us to our second wild camp of the trip - at the aptly named (but perfectly formed) Small Water. Another quick dip and then the cloud came in so we set up camp and were sitting inside the tent enjoying dessert when the brief rain of the week arrived. The next morning was clear and beautiful with perfect reflections on the Tarn before departing over the tops to Ambleside.

Emilie drinking her morning tea admiring the camp and breathtaking reflections

From there we got the open topped bus to Grasmere and stayed two nights and had a day off. Retrospectively, we should have stayed at Ambleside - stayed at a Fawlty Towers-esque B&B with a slightly eccentric owner followed by a pub dinner with the worst service I've had in years - so bad it was actually funny - needless to say I won't be eating at the Swan Hotel again!

Anyway, ready for the biggest day of the trip, on day 6 we set off to tick a few local landmarks of the area - up over Castle How and across the famous Langdale Pikes, over past the other Angle Tarn and up on to Scafell Pike, at 977 m (!!) the highest mountain in England.

On the top of Langdale and my little princess cap that I found blowing around in the wind

On the Pike of Stickle

This was topped off with a descent through the corridor route to Styhead Tarn for another night of wild camping.

The corridor route with Great Gable in the background

Styhead tarn was reasonably popular with a handful of tents spread out in the area, mostly sensible colours unlinke my yellow peril.


The morning was perfectly clear - a dingle day - and we packed up ready for a swift 460m ascent as a warm up for the day to the top of Great Gable and then over Kirk Fell and up to the summit of Pillar.

Coming down off Kirk Fell with Wasdale in the background

From there we descended to the unique and remote Black Sail youth hostel that I'd heard so much about.

Black Sail YH from the Pillar Ridge

What an amazing spot, six miles from the nearest road so very unlike other YHA's, much more like a catered scottish bothy, with an eclectic mix of random ramblers too. Phew. Brilliant spot and, once again, amazing weather with a gorgeous sunset and stunning morning.

Normally this would be drying the boots out from the rain and mud, but there was none of either and we kept fry feet throughout!

And so it was to our last day - a 19km return along the tops to the car in Keswick. Up onto Haystacks, across to Honister pass, up to the top of Dale Head and down Cat Bells ridge into town.

Pillar in the reflection of one of many small tarns on Haystacks

Emilie admiring the view down to Buttermere

From the top of Dale Head we looked around to reaslise that we had climbed every peak bar 3 in a 180 degree arc from the NE to the SW. And what a spectacular day to finish on - blue skies with a few fluffies around for scale. Cat Bells ridge went on and on, up and down, and then we cruised along back into town for tea and medals.

The final descent from Cat Bells Ridge towards Keswick

A panorama from Cat Bells ridge

And so it was - an absolute stonker of a week in gorgeous weather ticking off lots of places I'd heard about but never been to. Backpacking in a luxurious manner I suppose, with only 3 nights wild camps out of 7 - but I'm not getting any younger you know...


So many thanks to my ever patient girlfriend Emilie for letting me loose with the maps to plan this one! Next holiday (this has been a difficult month) is ski mountaineering in Arctic Norway - watch this space for the next post soon :-)