The summit known as Red Screes, with its substantial tarn, sits at 2,541 feet above sea level but is still considerably lower than the Scafells: left to right from the edge of the picture, Scafell, Scafell Pike and Great End. Great Gable pops up to the right. A fine day to be out walking even if the transport arrangements once again…. but what the hell, I expect too much perhaps. Read more on the other blog, if you like.
It was about time I paid another visit to the Lake District, having missed out on most of the winter, and I was not the only person to be thinking that it was too nice a day to stay indoors. The walkers stand on Knott Rigg, a fairly inconsequential lump that becomes the 306th Wainwright bagged on my second round, so I have 24 to go. In the background, Red Pike.
I notice that this blog, which was started on my 42nd birthday — hence the name — has now reached day 4,200. I am sure that I will think of some way of marking 6th April, which I calculate will be day 4,242.
On 29th July 2012, ten years ago, I was obliged to leave the rustic yet comfortable surroundings of the Black Sail hut and haul myself over Great Gable, a substantial lump of rock, in what remains the grimmest weather conditions I have encountered on any of my Lakeland walks. As today’s trip was the 200th of those — a pleasing milestone to reach — it was also pleasing that the weather was a damn sight better. (See my other blog for the full details.)
Wandope wasn’t one of the two Wainwrights bagged on the day, but this long-distance shot of its summit was the picture that pleased me the most: a case of it turning out just as was intended. The slopes in the background are those of the High Stile range, over Buttermere.
Grey Friar, 2,536 feet high, is one of the Coniston fells of Lakeland; this picture is taken from its western side, in the Duddon Valley. The pose of the sheep was too good to ignore, though yes, maybe this would be better still without the foliage to bottom right. But I like the composition in any case. (For more from today see my Wainwrights blog.)
Busied myself up enough to get to the Lake District once more: those who follow my other blog can read all about my day there. Gray Crag was the most dramatic object seen — but fortunately not climbed — today (I’ve done it before, and it’s proper work I can tell you). Below it to the left, just visible, Hayeswater, which supplies the taps of Penrith a dozen or so miles away, hence the need for the access road. But I don’t think that spoils the shot; instead, like a necklace, it seems to accentuate the graceful lines of this fell.
As the country spirals back down into a stupid, paranoid and self-deluding feeling of ‘safety’, I’ve given up trying to talk to anyone about this so will just carry on doing my thing, including all activities which are health-giving and beneficial. The Lake District seems a fine setting for just that sort of thing. This is the National Park’s 150th appearance on this blog; an average of over once a month, which emphasises its value. ‘Work from home’? Bollocks to it. That will kill us all, faster than anything else.
A Wainwright walk: the last of my summer holiday. (See my other blog for the technicalities.) A struggle with pre-holiday-weekend traffic that I should have anticipated, and a long journey for what was a couple of hours of light exercise. But the views from the summit of Faulds Brow were very fine. Here, the direction is north-west, the city in the background, Carlisle.
A third day in four spent walking, bringing to an end a very fine long weekend in the Lake District, on which all was pleasingly normal. This pointy slab of rock marks the highest point of Eagle Crag, a fine (and finely-named) eyrie from which to keep an eye on the Stonethwaite valley below. See more photos on my other blog, if you like. Back to work tomorrow — but I will return here, I will always be returning here.
A glorious Sunday in the Lake District. The title of the post has layers of meaning. My walk today (see my Wainwrights blog for the details) involved a circuit of the placid and remote tarn of Devoke Water. It was a feature in multiple photos taken along the way, of which this was the last of the day.
But as I walked back to the car, I mused — is this perhaps the last ever? I have visited some of these marvellous places multiple times as I have gone round and round Cumbria over the last 12 years, but the project will end at some point (next year probably), and after that — will I find an excuse to return?
Some might say, that is in the hands of God/Inshallah/fate/whatever you believe. But in the end, I believe it is up to me. If this blog does make it to, say, day 8,000 — perhaps we will see this place again. I certainly hope so.
Those nice people in Authority have promised not to threaten arrest for doing something as subversive as going on a walk, on one’s own, in countryside that doesn’t happen to reside within spitting distance of home. So Joe and I went out on a walk. I bagged my 600th Wainwright and Joe, his 50th. (Full details soon to be posted on my other blog.) Both those milestones came on Wether Hill, but that is a rather unphotogenic lump — Steel Knotts, its predecessor in each sequence, was rather better. It’s appeared before on the blog, too: pictured from a distance on 6/2/17.
Being 42 