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

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!

Day 5

After having a day off in order for the blisters to heal themselves, we decided to do something a little less taxing today. Therefore we made the decision to do the smaller fells around Skiddaw: Carl Side, Long Side and Ullock Pike; they were, after all, blighting my northern range checklist.

The day was grey but not quite raining as we set off, saying goodbye to one of the earliest completers of the Wainwrights, our Uncle. A slow drive along the A66 took us to Millbeck, under Skiddaw, where we dutifully placed our money in the honesty box and set off.

It was a steep but rewarding climb up the front of Carl Side (2420 ft) from where we had fantastic views of Keswick until we hit the clouds at about 2000 ft. We reached the summit in good time.

We then made our way along the ridge to Long Side (2405 ft) where we were enormously excited to see a buzzard and some lovely views as the clouds lifted further. The climb to the summit seemed unfairly simple after the last few days.

We then had an easy time getting onto the summit of Ullock Pike (2230 ft) from where we turned around and headed straight back again.

At Carl Side tarn we had to make the decision whether we would go on to do Skiddaw or not; I decided that we wouldn't as I wanted a cup of tea and slice of cake at the Strawberry tea-shop in Keswick. Best decision ever made. As we headed down we decided to stop at a halfway point so that we could eat our lunch. We sat down, looked at each other and realised that we hadn't packed our lunch. Oops.

We headed down at a surprising rate and had a lovely lunch in Keswick and a fantastic afternoon strolling around.

Total distance: 6 miles and 2750 feet of ascent.

New fells: Carl Side, Long Side and Ullock Pike.