Whiteside, Hopegill Head, Grisedale Pike

We had a terrible nights sleep. The tent next to us decided to light an open fire right near our tent so we ended up breathing in all of the smoke. Poor little Molly was coughing and sneezing. Then Niki was sick in the middle of the night. Then Molly escaped under the bottom of the tent and got me into trouble with the campsite owner!!

Apparently Scott and Helen also had a rubbish night’s sleep and therefore, decided to have a quiet easy walk on their own.

So Niki and I decided on our route for the day. We drove from our campsite to the top of Crummock Water and headed up Whiteside. Wow, this is by far the most testing fell that either of us had walked on so far. It was literally a scramble / climb up a steep, rocky, craggy side for about 45 minutes. Had we not seen people going up before us, we would definitely have thought we were going in the wrong direction. Then two men came down the way we were going, so it was a case of “it’s the right way, we just have to keep going”. Molly is so funny on this kind of terrain; she goes off ahead with absolutely no worries. Every now again when you look up you will just see her looking back down and you can see her thinking “come on mummy’s what are you waiting for”.

Anyway we eventually got to the top, and we had fabulous views of the Scottish mountains over the Solway Firth (the best yet) but we saw the way to our next fell (Hopegill Head) which was a really narrow ridge with massive drops on either side. Now I’m sure it was nothing compared to Sharp Edge or Striding Edge, however, it was a big deal for us. Niki was really nervous, as she isn’t great with heights! But we set off and just took it really slowly. On the way we got talking to a really nice couple from Derbyshire who had 2 Springer Spaniels, one of them was a really cute puppy. She was on her lead because apparently she tried to chase a bird the day before and nearly jumped off the side of a fell (High Street). It was kind of nice to follow them because they seemed far more confident with the terrain than us! The summit of Hopegill Head is very impressive, sat on the side of a steep drop down with a really craggy top.

We then made our way over to Grisedale Pike and the wind and cold really picked up. I was wearing; my walking trousers, waterproof trousers, a short sleeved base layer, long sleeved base layer, a jumper, a wind-stopper jumper, a waterproof coat, a hat and my winter gloves and I was still cold. Grisedale seems to get all the wind an cold blowing off the Atlantic and we were really starting to fail! When we got to the top we found a sheltered part out of the wind and it was really lovely, we sat for about 10 minutes looking at all of the Lakeland fells to the East.

We eventually set off back towards the direction of the car, but we knew that all of the hard walking we had done today was waiting for us in reverse order. We eventually made it back and although we had only covered 7 miles all day, it was definitely the most difficult and testing walk we had done to date.

7 miles

Whiteless Pike, Wandhope, Grasmoor, Eel Crag, Sale, Rannerdale Knotts

After arriving in the Lakes late on Friday evening with our friends Scott and Helen we pitched up camp and spent a very cold first night in our new tent.

On the Saturday we planned a long walk, which incorporated quite a few Wainwright’s. Our plan was to head for Rannerdale Knotts, however, we took the wrong path from the car, so we decided to head straight for Whiteless Pike and go to Rannerdale on the way back. The path took us along a very scenic route up by the side of a stream gradually climbing upwards. After a while we deviated away from the stream and the ascent got a little steeper, in fact we commented that it was a mountain that just kept taking……………..every time we thought the summit was in sight a further summit would appear in the distance. Scott and Molly went off ahead and we all eventually made it to the real summit.

It was extremely cold at the top and we saw that to reach the summit of our next fell (Wandhope) we had to cross a ridge that looked extremely exposed to the wind. So we took a few moments to put some more layers on. The ridge actually looked a lot worse than it actually was and in no time at all we seemed to be at the top of Wandhope, were we found some shelter from the wind and stopped to have some lunch.

It was at this point that Niki decided that we could easily complete another 3 peaks that were in close distance, along with Rannerdale on our way back. So after lunch we headed up towards Grasmoor, this is the largest fell in Wainwright’s North Western book and it did look mighty grand sitting in the background. To say that it is quite a big fell, it was actually quite a pleasurable journey to the top, then there’s long flattish top, which you have to walk along to get to the true summit.

We then made our way down to Eel Crag, which had some spectacular views. However, Scott was scared to death looking down over the edge as he had a weird urge to jump!!!! So we didn’t stick around for long and made our way over to Sail. This again was an easy gentle walk, however, we kept getting held up by a group of 40 people on an organised trip and we spent the whole time trying to lose them!

On our way down from Sail we stopped for a picnic on the side of a sheltered slope and were passed again by our friends on the trip. All of these people seemed to think that Molly was lovely and at one point we lost her as she decided to go off with them because they were eating (very embarrassing!)

Our final ascent was up Rannerdale and this was a really nice little fell. There was a little bit of climbing involved, and a great view of the fells that we had done today. Then we made our way back to the car and Niki got talking to the man who was the leader of the organised group. He apologised for getting in our way all day and he gave Molly a chocolate berry. All was forgiven

10 Miles