After what seems like months of climbing stiles, wallowing through mud-bog-gates, encounters with barbed wire, climbing fences, squelching through cattle plugged fields, and pounding the Tarmac, and convincing myself that Geocaching is an acceptable substitute for proper hill walking or long distance backpacking, liberation has arrived. There was none of that stuff yesterday.
I headed for the quiet part of the Lakes north of the A66, and parked at Stone End Farm to walk the circuit of Carrock Fell, High Pike, Great Lingy Hill and Knott.
That was a 10.5 mile round with a steep ascent to start with, but then mainly high level gentle walking. I saw one person heading in the opposite direction several hundred yards away, and on the summit of Knott, from where I could see The Isle of Man, I met a guy from Cleator Moor who had served in the RAF Mountain Rescue. Immediately after intensive snow and ice training in Scotland, the RAF, in their wisdom sent him out to one of their desert regions for search and rescue.
It was such a pleasure to be on the tops, surrounded by peaks with the odd dotting of snow, cloudless blue sky, silence, heather threatening to bloom, and, on the descent, busy eager streams descending steeply still working hard after all the recent inundation.
Please click to enlarge - at this size the pics are severly challenged
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| My route indicated by red dots. Carrock Fell summit way beyond skyline |
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| From Carrock Fell summit. High Pike at r/hand end of double arrow |
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| Back to Carrock Fell from High Pike |
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The back of Skiddaw from Knott.
Knott is another Marilyn - I still have ten unclimbed Ms in The Lakes |
(Oh, heavens! I can't get the theme from that movie out of my mind now. Banjoes, hillbillies and murder - what a combination.)
ReplyDeleteThere is a game preserve not far from here which has a stream that builds as it descends the mountain, tumbling over glacier-deposited boulders down to a waterfall, where it cascades in a magnificent spray more than 70 feet down to a deep, icy-even-in-summer pool. Provides the best tasting water in the entire south-central counties. Your stream photo reminds me of Tumbling Run, the name of the stream and the hunting lodge.
Excellent Conrad, and I see you've been wandering on our patch in your manic bid to join the Hall of Fame!
ReplyDeleteGreat weather, but foggy today...
The Crow - Yeah! I read the book before seeing the film - not sure which was the scariest. It is so long ago, but it still remains as a nightmarish memory. The best illustration I can think of for the old cliché, "Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse..."
ReplyDeleteThose streams give me a deep feeling of wellbeing, I think because water is perhaps the single most important element for human existence. On that occasion I had only taken black coffee in a flask and was particularly thirsty, so the stream's attraction was heightened even more, but it is risky drinking that water where sheep roam.
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Phreerunner - Hi Martin. I'm glad to see you used the word wandering rather than trespassing. There are still three Ms north of Manchester, and four to the south to tidy up area 36.
I think you have to do more than 600 to get into The Hall of Fame, and I have no serious pretensions of achieving that, but it still provides an interesting focus getting me to worthwhile places I would not have had the remotest intention of visiting otherwise.
Hallelujah for your deliverance. Presumably that was yesterday, Wednesday, as today has reverted to grey,what I call 'Raw'
ReplyDeleteThat is a lonely part of the Lakes to wander in, all the better for that, and reminded me of a trip with my young son up the Cumbria Way many years ago.
bliss
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