Lovely walk yesterday, bagging Wainwrights from AW's Book 2. The Far Eastern Fells.
Set off nice and early for the long drive up to the Lakes, following breakfast in Tebay Service Station I drove through Shap and took the back roads to Haweswater.
Haweswater Reservoir
The day promised to be a cracker, blue skies and hardly a breath of wind. The car park at the bottom end of the reservoir was already almost full but I managed to find a space and set off walking at 09:15, following the path around the reservoir to pick up the path just before The Rigg which ascends steadily towards Rough Crag. If there is a better route up onto High Street I want to know about it. Great views open up of the surrounding fells and tarns with every step.
Blea Water
Looking back along the ridge
In no time at all I emerged on High Street and strolled across to the trig pillar. It had been 20 year's or so since my last visit up here.
I had walked up from Patterdale on a round of Rest Dodd, High Street and Thornthwaite Crag. I had no knowledge of AW's books back then so today was an opportunity to bag Wainwrights that I had walked past that day.
I set off along High Street heading North for The Knott. This is nothing more than a bump just off the main path but AW deemed it worthy of a place in his book, so it had to be done. Straight line from there to Rest Dodd, then out to The Nab, a nice lonely spot for lunch listening to Skylarks and soaking up the views.
The summit cairn on Rest Dodd
Back to Rest Dodd, again (can I count this on my 2nd and 3rd rounds?) then over pathless ground close to the crags up to Rampsgill Head which is a great view point
Looking towards Martindale from Rampsgill Head
This marked the half way point on my attempt to complete the Wainwrights and if I do manage to finish them, I doubt that I will have many better days than this.
Its just a short pull up to High Raise, standing at 802 metres which is second in height only to High Street in this section,
On High Raise in the buff!
Another short stroll over to the final hill of the day, Kidsty Pike. This hill is prominent for miles around and the lofty summit cairn looks over to Riggindale Crag and High Street, A fine top on which to finish my Wainwright day.
Riggingdale and Haweswater from Kidsty Pike
Nice descent, if a little eroded in places due to it being on the route of AW's Coast to Coast walk. Back at the car after 6 hours of total pleasure.
On a day such as this, The Lake District really does take some beating.
Well, the dust has settled on the 2011 TGO Challenge event.
It proved to be quite an eventful one this year mainly due to the unsavoury weather conditions and may well go down as the wettest and roughest conditions since the event began,
It was certainly the most challenging of my 5 crossings to date and due to the conditions, the route I walked bore hardly any resemblance to the grand high level route that I had spent hours planning over the winter months.
Great credit to all the first timers that made it across this year, and sympathy to those who had to pull out.for whatever reason.
I must admit, that option did seriously cross my mind on at least one occasion! I am glad I stuck it out though as I have many good memories to go alongside the bad ones. As time passes the former will become the lasting memories and no doubt, when October comes around I will be eagerly filling in the application form for next year....it's just that kind of event which keeps you wanting more.
I will eventually post an account of the walk, but in the meantime there are a few photos at the bottom of the page in a slide show format which does not appear to work too well... The best way to view them is to click on "Select all" then click on "view as a slide show" in Photobucket.
