Three Peaks in a Week

Scafell Pike has been a mental monster for me for a long time. Last time I visited the lakes I had a meltdown and refused to even attempt to climb it. There were numerous reasons behind it, in fact I’ve always had a love hate relationship with hiking, I love it when I’m doing it but hate the idea of doing it. I’ve always had an air of insecurity about hiking, often mentally convincing myself I can’t do it, when I physically have proven myself able so many times.

So here I was, 8am on a Monday morning preparing for one of the most difficult hikes I had done. The mountains glared down into the Wasdale Valley, intimidating with their vast size and barrenness. We took the Brown Tongue route which is one of the most popular and direct routes. The hike started off tame with a flat walk across a field and over the footbridge at Lingmell Gill. From here, the path changed gradually into a steady incline up and around Brown Tongue before crossing over the ford and climbing never ending steep path towards the Corrie of Hollow Stones. Here we finally could see a view of the summit towering above us in the clifflike landscape. After the stone steps, the path seemed to get better before it got worse. We continued on, despite the pain from our muscles. Frequently stopping to drink. (A quick tip, you can fill your water bottle up in the ford, you’ll need the extra hydration!) The path took us below Pikes Crag and upwards to Lingmell Coll. At the Coll, we turned right to head up the final ascent, the ridge leading up to Scafell Pike. Similar to a mirage in the desert, every time we thought we were at the top, more mountain was unveiled in-front of us.

I had a little voice in my head telling me to stop and give up. This voice I had heard previously when climbing mountains, perhaps it’s my younger insecure self, or the remains of doubt from my past relationships, or it could simply just be fear. But my fear of failure was much greater than this voice inside my head.

Never the less, I pushed these thoughts out and put my energy into putting one foot in-front of the other as we dragged ourselves to the summit. Once it came in view, a sudden burst of adrenaline found us speed walking to get there.

For a brief moment, I was the highest person in England, standing at 978m above sea level. An achievement I had wanted yet dreaded to achieve for the longest time. We had a quick bite to eat before beginning our descent down the slippery slopes.

It surprisingly took us nearly as long to get back down, as it had done to climb up! The loose shingles and rocks, combined with the slippery and wet pathways didn’t help whatsoever. It was more crowded on the way down and the slow steep descent was just about as painful on our knees as the steep ascent had been on our feet!

Needless to say, we finally arrived back at the car and could finally sit down and take off our walking boots. After we finally caught our breath back, we began our drive to Windermere for a restful afternoon followed by a steak pie dinner and some girls gins.

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The next day, we unsurprisingly experienced a few aches and pains, however after a full Lakeland breakfast at the hotel, we decided to stretch our legs and walked through Windermere to the Beatrix Potter Museum where we explored the cute museum based around Peter Rabbit and his adventures, before we took full advantage of the gift shop for trinkets to take home to the rest of the family.

We drove up to Ambleside for lunch and admired their cute Bridge House before heading up to Rydal Water to explore the Rydal Cave’s and have a gentle stroll around the lake. The Bridge House was constructed in the 14th Century to access the lands on the other side of Stock Beck, but also acted as a store for apples from the nearby orchards, which surrounded the Bridge House. Over the decades, the house has had a variety of uses; counting house, tea room, weaving shop, cobblers, chair makers and even a home to a family of 8! Rydal Cave can be found on the North side of Loughrigg Fell above Rydal Water, however, Rydal Cave isn’t your typical cave as it is in fact manmade, a consequence of quarrying for slate.

Our final stop of the day was Grasmere where I had done a week’s expedition in 2015. I managed to sneak into the same hostel to have a look, it brought back a lot of memories of abseiling, kayaking, gorge scrambling and other fun activities!

In the evening, we headed back to Windermere for a fantastic dinner outside at a Tapas Restaurant, where we eat, drank and enjoyed the evening sun.

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Another day, another mountain. After another good Lakeland breakfast at the guesthouse, we checked out and set off to climb Helvellyn. It was overcast when we set off on up the stoney path. It was basically a very damp cobble street with an incredibly steep incline. I had climbed Helvellyn previously in 2017 but that was in the dark, so I didn’t recognise much of the scenery (not that we got to see much of it…) After an hour and a half of continuous incline, we reached the top of the ridge, by which time we were pretty much inside the cloud, giving us very little visibility and a howling 40mph wind that was threatening to send us straight off the mountainside. An executive decision was made to return straight to terra firma, meaning unfortunately we couldn’t even take a summit photograph until we were a little further down where the wind had lessened.

After another slippery and dangerous descent, we got back to the car and set off to Lodore Falls. My Grandma has a book from her childhood which contains a poem called “The Cataract at Lodore” and she wanted us to see the Lodore Falls for ourselves. It was hidden behind a hotel in the middle of nowhere and required a trek through the woodland to find it, by only using the increasing volume of the waterfall as directions. It wasn’t as dramatic as the poem had described due to the recent dry spell and lack of rainfall, but is was still a very pretty little gem hidden in the forest.

We had a mooch around Keswick before lunch. We found a little pizza restaurant in the town centre and decided to go there as we were quite carb deficient after the hike this morning. After lunch, we headed off to find our hotel which would be our base for the next three nights.

The Dale Head Hotel was beautiful, it overlooks Thirlmere and had a large terrace which guests could have their breakfast on, if the sun ever made an appearance that is.

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We had allocated today aside as a day for being tourists in Keswick. Our first stop of the day was at The Pencil Museum, the home of the Cumberland pencil which had an interesting history with helping our WW2 servicemen escape Germany. This was done by creating a pencil that contained a tiny map instead of a lead inner and a minute compass under the rubber, genius!

The next place we visited was The Puzzling Place which was a museum full of optical illusions, puzzles and exhibits. It was fun and interesting but certainly messed with your eyes, head and general equilibrium.

After a quick lunchtime stop at a café for a drink and a cream scone, we decided to go on a boat ride around Derwentwater where the tops of the mountains were still hidden by the low clouds as the constantly loomed overhead.

Our next stop was Castle Rigg Stone Circle, unfortunately the heavens had opened that this point and the rain prevented us from lingering around for much time after we had taken some photos. Castle Rigg Stone Circle is among the earliest British circles, constructed in about 3000 BC during the Neolithic period. It usually has panoramic views Helvellyn and High Seat as a backdrop, but the low cloud and rain prevented that from being seen!

We then headed back to the hotel to dry off and get changed before we had a local walk around Thirlmere and the base of the Great How, to work up an appetite for our evening meal.

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Our final full day as spent hiking once again. We had intended on climbing Skiddaw but another morning with low cloud would probably mean another lack of view from the summit, so we revised our plan and instead headed out to Cat Bells. Cat Bells is a fell and stands at 451m high, with its close proximity to Keswick, it is one of the most popular fells in the area for hiking. It was a steep climb for the most part with some sheer shingle rocks to scramble up to the summit, both terrifying for someone with a fear of heights, but also exhilarating! There was a fantastic panorama from the summit of the mountain, but with reward comes risk, again powerful and loud side-wind meant we didn’t hang around for long before the descent.

As a reward for our efforts, we bought an ice cream from the Solar Powered Ice Cream Van at the base of the mountain before returning to the car and discovering a parking ticket attached to the windscreen wiper, oops!

After a quick stop in Keswick for lunch, we went to The Mining Museum where we toured the old mine, learning about the local industry in previous centuries and even got to have a little train ride around the site!

We had our last evening meal at our ‘new local’, the Dog’s Inn, before heading back to the hotel to pack for our journey home the next day.

Thank you Lake District for your hospitality, but not no much, your weather.