11th April 2007

Another beautiful day so the fell-runner and Mr Blogwalker joined me in deciding to head over to Patterdale and do a couple of the eastern fells. We started with a calf-stretching climb up Arnison Crags (1424 ft), which was painful, sweaty but very quick. The views were lovely but I was only allowed to lie down for 30 seconds.

We then followed a wall up onto Birks (2040) which was another tough climb, but very enjoyable; despite the fact that it was a great mountain we saw nobody else on the top at all. The reason for this was because they had all by-passed it for St Sunday Crag (2756 ft), which was another great mountain with fantastic views onto Striding Edge. We watched as 2 Mountain Rescue helicopters did something at the base of Hellvellyn, but we couldn't really work out what it was.

There was then talk about going onto Fairfield but we decided to head down to the White Lion Inn instead for a drink and then home for the cricket.

New fells: Arnison Crag, Birks, St Sunday Crag.

10th April 2007

Mungrisedale Common (2068 ft) had to be done. Was accompanied by both aged parents as my dad had also been avoiding this mountain. Lovely weather, if a bit cold. A long walk up, wandered around on the top for a bit, a long way back. There was a nice foot bridge though and we watched the millions of people going up Blencathra over Sharp Edge. Not the best mountain. That's it.

In the evening I went with the fell runner as he ran around Sail Fell as a club run. I wrote down numbers as all the crazy people ran up the mountain, around it and then back down. The fell-runner came 8th out of 26 - great success.

8th April 2007

Another beautiful day and so we decided to start tidying up my fells a bit so that in the summer we can camp in the East and polish off a load of Wainwrights that way. Therefore, we were in for an easy day...or so I thought.

We began with Rosthwaite fell (1807 ft), starting at Stonethwaite and heading up a gut-crunching path through a copse and onto the open top. There was discussion with another couple as to where the top was, but we picked the right one in the end. On the way down we saw some wild campers who may or may not have been responsible for the empty Fosters can that we had picked up on the way up the fell.

We then walked down and back to the car to get the second Wainwright book that we needed. We set off up a track which took us onto Great Crag (1500 ft) which seemed to also be very steep. There were lots of people on the top but we managed to avoid them by using less used paths through heather which took us onto the top. Having eaten our hot cross buns, we then decided to walk down the other side and walk to Castle Crag rather than drive there.

A long walk took us down to Rosthwaite where we followed the road to Castle Crag which the entire population of the world seemed to have decided to visit. We saw some exciting cow and bull action as we walked through some farmland and up a steep slope onto the summit (985ft). It was an interesting climb through slate and woods. Ian then took us a sneaky way down so that we avoided much of the crowd. It was then a couple of miles back to the car. Phew.

New fells: Rosthwaite Fell, Great Fell, Castle Crag.

7th April 2007

With it being a bank-holiday weekend, we scratched our heads trying to think of somewhere quiet where we could walk. Clearly Buttermere and Grasmere were out of the question and so we decided to go north o' Skiddaw.

It was a beautiful day as we set off for Carrock Fell (2174 ft). We parked just further on from Mungrisedale and headed off up a nice green path. However, we soon realised that it was taking us up the long way on to Carrock Fell; therefore, we Cowboy-Royed it across a beck and on to the more direct path up the fell. We were on the top in no time and started off to High Pike (2157 ft). We passed a fell-runner and a couple of other people, but it was decidedly quieter than anywhere else would have been.

After a quick rest on the bench we headed back down the fell, following the longer path and, with a bit of confusion, made it back down to the car in no time at all.

New fells: Carrock Fell and High Pike