Tuesday 29th May 2018, 1.40pm (day 2,469)
“Come on a walk up Scafell Pike, son. It’ll be fun. You can have the pleasure of attaining the highest point in England,” says I, a few weeks back. I’m sure there were points today when Joe cursed me for letting me talk him into this particular hike — particularly here on Ill Crag, one of the subsidiary peaks nearby, and the first outrageous excrescence of boulders into the journey. This picture can also be presented with the benefit of hindsight and knowing that in fact, there’s worse still to come before the summit — all 3,210 feet of it (978 metres) — is attained.
But he made it. And it was a beautiful day.
Being 42 
Oh wow this looked like an adventure! We’re planning on doing the 3 peaks challenge in July
Any advice for Scafell, particularly the route to take? We’ve heard when you go wrong it can go really wrong!
Well done on the trek
Mike
I have only been up Scafell the once, Mike, and that was back in 2010. At the time people were being advised not to attempt Lord’s Rake because of the dangers caused by a (very) large loose rock perched at the top. However, in 2016 this itself collapsed (see https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2016/08/lords_rake_block_on_scafell_collapses-70602) . To be honest I have no idea whether this route is now safe — when I looked at it in 2010 it looked intimidating enough even without the rock. I went up via Foxes Tarn, this is a fairly straightforward climb as I remember it, but as I said, it was a while ago.
Thanks Drew! Is that a literal rock climb? Or just walking climb?!
If you mean the Foxes Tarn route, it’s a bit of a scramble, but not a rock climb, any active walker could get up it.