It’s been a bit of a strange day today. It started when we were getting ready and Niki was putting Molly in the car. A car pulled up with some Irish people in it, they were asking for directions as the road between Bassenthwaite and Keswick was closed for road works. We’d seen the sign for a couple of days but it was actually closed today. It was a bit of a pain as we needed some plasters and some innersoles for Niki from Keswick.
So I took us on a route around the back of Skiddaw and Blencathra. I thought it would only take 20 minutes but it took an hour, so I was really annoyed with myself as I felt that we’d wasted valuable time. Then when we got to Keswick Niki went to get her insoles whilst I waited in the car with Molly. But apparently no shops had these “shock absorber” insoles in a small, so she had to do a tour of Keswick and she finally found some in Blacks.
Our plan was to do Blencathra and Longscale Fell today, but we didn’t leave the car for Blencathra until about 12.30. But anyway we set of from the car park in Threlkeld and realised that we’d already added 2 miles to our journey because when we got to the base of Blencathra there was another car park there!! Oh well we started to make our way up via Blease Fell and it was quite tiring and steep. But we’d chosen this way up in particular because it seemed to be one of the safest!! Blencathra is known as a mountaineers mountain, with lots of steep edges and ridges to climb up. But as we’re not that experienced we thought we’d play it safe.
The climb up Blease Fell just seemed never ending and all of the people we saw were walking downwards which is quite demoralising. We eventually made the top of this steep climb and from here we could see all along the ridge path to the summit of Blencathra. To be honest this part of the route was the easiest bit, not too many ups and lots of flat bits under foot to catch your breath from that massive climb up.
As we were walking along the ridge path you could see down the south side of the mountain and you could make out all of the paths that may need a little more skill to get up!! My god, we’ll save that for a future date………too scary for my liking.
So I took us on a route around the back of Skiddaw and Blencathra. I thought it would only take 20 minutes but it took an hour, so I was really annoyed with myself as I felt that we’d wasted valuable time. Then when we got to Keswick Niki went to get her insoles whilst I waited in the car with Molly. But apparently no shops had these “shock absorber” insoles in a small, so she had to do a tour of Keswick and she finally found some in Blacks.
Our plan was to do Blencathra and Longscale Fell today, but we didn’t leave the car for Blencathra until about 12.30. But anyway we set of from the car park in Threlkeld and realised that we’d already added 2 miles to our journey because when we got to the base of Blencathra there was another car park there!! Oh well we started to make our way up via Blease Fell and it was quite tiring and steep. But we’d chosen this way up in particular because it seemed to be one of the safest!! Blencathra is known as a mountaineers mountain, with lots of steep edges and ridges to climb up. But as we’re not that experienced we thought we’d play it safe.
The climb up Blease Fell just seemed never ending and all of the people we saw were walking downwards which is quite demoralising. We eventually made the top of this steep climb and from here we could see all along the ridge path to the summit of Blencathra. To be honest this part of the route was the easiest bit, not too many ups and lots of flat bits under foot to catch your breath from that massive climb up.
As we were walking along the ridge path you could see down the south side of the mountain and you could make out all of the paths that may need a little more skill to get up!! My god, we’ll save that for a future date………too scary for my liking.
When we actually got to the summit we were the only ones there, which is always nice. The views were magnificent with a good 360 degree view all around us, in fact a better view than Skiddaw. We’ve had a really clear day with the weather as well so we really could see the Lake District in it’s full glory from the top. We could even see the sea on the west coast.
On our way day Niki’s legs really started to hurt her. Also time was ticking on so we decided not to bother with Longscale Fell today……..maybe another day when Niki’s leg wasn’t hurting and we had more light left.
Anyway it’s Paddy’s day, so we’ve got to get home in time to get a shower and ready to get to the pub for a nice meal and a pint of Guinness.
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