So my tale begins in a barn. As so few do, regrettably. The graduate intake of my year in my company (yes, all 8 of us, and one of those quit a year ago to go back and do a PhD) decided, a long while ago, that as the company had neither money or wish to send us on outdoorsy teambuilding sessions, we'd make our own. And add a lot more alcohol. This resulted in a camping trip to the Lakes a year ago, which some may remember me once mentioning on my olde LJ (it was the weekend of the ezDude, just to let everyone else place it), and was enjoyable despite rain and the fact that we didn't manage to get quite everyone to come along.
So we decided to do it again this year. But this year we were organised and arranged to stay in a camping barn - with 8 places, so we had it to ourselves for the weekend.
Voila Murt camping barn. Doesn't Murt sound like something a cartoon character should say? Murt murt.
Note we have 4 cars to bring 8 of us on a 400-mile round trip. Ahem.
So there was driving and barbecue and alcohol and etc. But what I really wish to write about was our Saturday expedition up Scafell Pike. For those who don't know, it's the highest peak in England (note not Britain, both Snowdon and Ben Nevis beat it, but still) at 977m. Not
quite a mountain, apparently. We (or rather Mark) had picked the barn specifically for its location because both he and Andy had never climbed Scafell and wanted to do so.
All bar one of the rest of us decided to go along for the journey. (Sam, the other one, had hurt her ankles and decided to bow out and spend the day walking by the lake - definitely a wise decision on her part, as you will see later.) It should be noted that in our party we had two fairly fit people who go hill-walking a lot, Mark and Andy...3 amateur hill-walkers who were somewhat unfit, me and Elle and Joe...and 2 people who are city boys through and through and had never climbed a hill before in their lives, Pete and Isaac.
All in all it was a very well thought out plan.
This photo has no purpose other than to show car bonnet as lunch preparation area. It just looked funny.
From the side of Wastwater, here is Scafell Pike. You can't quite see the top, but this is as much as you can see from anywhere at ground level really. Look at how incredibly gorgeous the day is...we were so lucky. Easily the best day's weather (certainly on a weekend) so far this year.
Our plan got even better when we managed to lose each other before even starting out on the walk, because Pete drove his car to the wrong car park and this valley is cut off enough that there is no mobile reception. In the end we gave up and set off without them, but rather impressively they worked out what they'd done wrong and even caught us up...but by that time we'd left the pack with their food and water in the other car. Oops. Oh well - press on, eh? It's only a little hill, after all...
About 300m up: well, maybe not so little. Time for a rest on this felt-steeper-than-it-looks-in-this-photo path.
Have I ever mentioned that I love being the photographer because it means there are so few photos of me?
Hmm...this path is getting tougher.
Oh, the boys would never be so childish as to love climbing on big rocks...would they?
After this it got
really steep (we had done that thing of not noticing on the map where the countours get really close together over a tiny little distance) and unfortunately Elle is scared of heights. With two of us helping her (or annoying her...I know if it'd been me I'd have wanted to be left well alone) we did make it to the top of that shoulder, though. Now for the little bit left to the summit itself...mm. Rocks, rocks, everywhere, and not a drop to drink...
I have of course forgotten to mention that even halfway up we had pretty much run out of water (thanks to leaving half of it behind). I filled my bottles up from a beautifully clear little stream (no comments about dead sheep, please, if I'm going to catch things from river water then I caught them years ago and anyway it was cold and delicious).
Weirdly, the clouds were all sitting to the south and east of us. Nothing to the north and west - we could even see mountain peaks on what must surely have been Ireland to the west, which was amazing (over the cooling towers of Sellafield) - but to the east, there it was: a big bank of fluffy cloud, venturing to come so far as to caress Scafell's Pike (you know I wrote it like that on purpose... to make up for the lack of rock penises, you know).
Did I mention recently that Brits are crazy people? Here is the view in just one direction from the very summit: there were an incredible number of people up there.
So woohoo! It took us 3 hours, but we made it. Here is us lost in the mist on top (and damn them, they insisted I was in this one, and look at the stupid face I pulled). Okay, so for ease of reference: L to R is Andy, Elle, Joe, me, Isaac, Pete and Mark.
Lunch was now divided amongst us and triumphantly consumed until the clouds of flies (no wind at all, even on top) finally got the better of us and we fled. But until this point, I'd managed to climb 3000ft on the energy of no more than a bacon roll, a miniature chocolate bar and a sour plum. And a
lot of water. At about this point I felt I finally ought to put some suncream on, too.
Just because it was pretty (if slightly hazy), the view to the north-east: judging distances, I'd say those distant clouds are sat on southern Scotland.
The problem, as always, with coming up is that one must then go down. And when down is as steep as this, with such unsure footing, by golly gosh it hurts my knees.
We had planned a rather longer walk but, seeing as we'd set off late and it had taken us so long to get to the top, we made an executive decision and plunged down this way to shorten the route a bit (this is looking back, the dip in the middle is what we were heading down to in the previous photo).
And this is looking forwards. I kept looking at all these big hills on the way down and thinking 'wow, that's huge' but then thinking 'hang on - I've just been higher than their summits. Huh - cool.'
This less-frequented path (I think it may have been just us and the sheep) got rather...interesting...in places.
Back down on the almost-level, we speeded up no end and I began to enjoy the surroundings once more as the throbbing jelly feeling in my legs subsided. We were so hot and sweaty by now that this pool looked incredibly tempting. I want that shade of turquoise.
But we press on and are rewarded by - what's that? A Building! Civilisation! Only six and a half hours after we left it. It is amazing just how exhausted you can get in six and a half hours.
Pub. Pub? Pub!
