Last night I got back from a four-day backpacking trip in the Lake District. The weather was kind of mixed, and some of the days were long and hard, but I had a great time.
Starting at Windermere, I walked along Trout Beck and up onto High Street. I then continued North to camp overnight at Angle Tarn, in the mountains above Patterdale. The weather that day was very changeable, with frequent, hard showers. On High Street I walked into freezing sleet and, for a couple of minutes, snow. Although I passed-by Angle Tarn in March on my last trip to the lakes, the last time I had camped there was sixteen years ago, while walking the Coast to Coast walk. This time around, it was much harder to find dry-ish ground to pitch my tent on. The tarn was as lovely as I remembered it, though, and this time I had it all to myself. I watched two gulls fishing on the water. The sun went down and it was calm and quiet. This is what I go to the mountains for.
The next day was clear and sunny and I descended down to Patterdale. Then down Grisedale and over Great Tongue, Raw Pike, and into Langdale. I then followed the Cumbrian Way path to the National Trust campsite at the end of the valley. This has got to be my favourite place in the whole world, and it didn’t let me down. Over a welcome pint at the Old Dungeon Gyll, I watched the sun light-up the tops of the mountains and the Pikes.
The next day was to have been another long haul to a wild camp near Buttermere. Since I was feeling a bit wiped-out from the previous day, I decided to head for Wasdale Head via Stake Pass and Angle Tarn (the other one!). It was another fine day. From near Esk Hause I watched tiny coloured dots, people, slogging up the corridor route to the summit of Scafell. In the evening, after I’d pitched my tent in the field outside the Wasdale Head Inn, I walked over to the tiny church of St. Olaf. The churchyard has a number of memorials to people who had died in the surrounding mountains over the last hundred years.
The fourth and final day was cold, wet and windy, and I did not want to get out of my sleeping bag. I crossed over into Eskdale via Burnmoor Tarn in blowing rain and mist, then headed West down the valley using the old packhorse trail to emerge, on the coast, at Ravenglass in time to catch the train home. It had rained all day.
I had a great four days. With hindsight, it might have been better to camp wild on the last night – near the river in Wasdale Head, perhaps – but I’m happy with how it went. I feel re-charged and centred again. Perhaps I should start writing-up these trips properly, with better route information and notes.