25th March 2007

We were heading back today, but felt as though we ought to do something to make me driving for 7 hours on Friday worthwhile. Therefore, we decided to tackle Blencathra on the way home; this was a mountain which had twice beaten me previously, once due to blisters and once due to lack of time.

We were joined again by the aged parent and drove to Scales where we, unsurprisingly for a scorching hot Sunday, struggled to park. We did manage in the end and set off up Scales Fell. We had initially planned to go up Hall's Fell, but the older member of the party, having read that even Wainwright termed it fit for 'active walkers', decided that we should go up via Scales Fell.

We did the climb fairly quickly and followed the rest of the world up the ridge and onto the summit at 2847 ft. Although we were surrounded by millions of people, we couldn't blame them for being there as the views were outstanding and the weather lovely (if a bit windy).

We made a quick descent and were pleased to see that we had gone up and down in 2 hours and 20 minutes - not too shoddy.

A great mountain!

24th March 2007

With our fell-runner off to the Lakes to take part in a fell-race, it seemed to be a perfect opportunity to spend a couple of days doing some walking in the north. Therefore, we had driven up on the Friday night and I was up early on Saturday ready to do some trekking.

I was accompanied by the aged parent and we decided to go up Grange Fell, a small fell near Stonethwaite. We made our way to the pretty village of Grange and, with some difficulty, managed to park.

The sun was beating down on us as we set off along the road and onto a bridleway, which we followed across some pretty countryside. To begin with there was some concern over the huge number of people we saw at the bottom of the fell. However, as the climb became substantially steeper, the crowds thinned out until we were just about on our own. We climbed up the steep path and were rewarded with some magnificant views.

We took a detour up onto King's How, which was an absolute joy, and then onto Brund Fell, the summit top of Grange Fell (1363ft). Although it was only small, the fell was beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed the climb.

A quick descent off the fell meant that we were on time to see the fell runner before his race up onto Causey Pike, which he was running as part of the Keswick Fell Running club(http://www.keswick-ac.org.uk/). Both aged parents were also watching and we were very impressed to see over 120 people running up a big mountain...for fun! The fell runner made it up and down in 50 minutes - marvellous!