What I've been up to recently.......

Have been up to various bits and bobs recently. The weather has been fairly restrictive in terms of getting outside climbing but I have been doing quite a bit at Kendal wall. Have also been doing a bit of running. I also took part in slightly different activity to usual with Calum and Fergus, camping in the forest (the natural way, despite the saucepan pasta). I have the odd photo below if you're interested.
Have also got hold of a second hand bouldering mat for when the weather picks up a bit. Headed down to Coudy Rocks in Appleby on Tuesday, but the boggy ground meant my shoes were too slippy on the rock to do anything other than easy grades, with large foot holds. Still at least I completed one boulder problem even though it was rather easy 'In the Corner' V2, I filmed it though so put it up.

An evening run across the pennines.

This is one of the joys of living in Cumbria. A 10 minute drive/40 minute cycle and I am at the foot of the North Pennines. Certainly one of the countries most spectacular and quite probably most underated mountain ranges.

Joely (my sister) had a friend over called Hannah. Hannah goes to the same uni as Joely in London but is from Norway. I took them up Scafell Pike. It was my 5th time as the highest person in the country but there first.

The mighty buttress of Sca Fell Englands 2nd highest peak taken from Scafell Pike

Preparing tea

We all decided that we would try and 'live off the land' for a night. You can tell by the photo that we weren't quite successful, as I'm pictured next to Fergus cooking pasta but it was over a camp fire though (however that was lit using a fire lighter and some dry kindling from back home)! But it was hard enough keeping it going in these camp conditions. Me and Calum finished our shelter after tea (pictured below). They were surprisingly water tight. We were quite envious of fergus at first as he had a very comfy bed of moss, while we had only fern. But I was secretly rather amused to find that our simple bed of firn had dried out by the fire, while Fergus' moss held its and then soak his sleeping bag when he lay on it! Thanks for a great night guys and the photos Calum (better late than never!).

The completed shelters

Sorry I had to remove the video to stop it messing up the page!

The rain had finally stopped, so I went to Coudy Rock in Appleby to try and use my bouldering mat, before it came back again. The rock was dry, but the ground certainly wasn't. This meant my shoes weren't dry enough to do anything too technical and grippy. But I did manage to do 'In the corner' a nice little V2 with usable foot holds. Only slipped once! 

High Street with Rex

Haven't written in a while but have suddenly done a lot because of my half term holiday. I spent all of last week (Monday-Friday) at Glenmore Lodge on a Winter Skills course where despite there being little amounts of snow I learned a lot and had a great time. However I won't write about it, as it was more of a skills course and the photos weren't too great as it was often misty. What I do want to write though is about a little trip out I had with Rex.

Sunday morning was extremely clear and the wind was rather tame, so I decided to go for a little run with Rex. I had been thinking of running on the Lakeland fells for a while now and had decided for some time that High Street would be the main objective of my next exploit. I always wonder about long runs across the fells and about the endurance required. My regular run is usually a 7 mile run crammed in after school on Tuesday's and Friday's, I don't have much opportunity to run any other week nights and the darkness puts me off going much further. About a third of time I run I am running up hill, but it is still a relatively friendly ascent when looked at from a 'fell running' point of view. But even the best struggle to run up the steepest of slopes in the middle of a long distance run. But it is hard to find a happy median. Even when you have the energy to run up steep ground, is it economical to do so if you have a full days running ahead of you?

The last time I saw Haweswater it was on a small walk along the road in the rain with my family and the dogs (Zak and Rex). I didn't really appreciate such beauty back then as I was much younger, so was probably more concerned about getting wet and cold. But today I didn't see how anyone could have overlooked it. The weather was fantastic and the views were magnificent.........

I set out with Rex from the car park at the bottom of Haweswater and headed for the ridge up to High Street. The Ridge was long and rather steep and it wasn't long before I was reduced to walking up it. Rex on the other hand managed it well, only walking because of me, and still going for the odd sprint further up the path. I find this rather frustrating as I spend my weeks running and climbing while he lies around half awake waiting for his tea most days! However I think most humans would have struggled to ascend the ridge by anything other than a walk, so I didn't feel to put off while watching Rex pounce about in front of me. After all I was still managing to do a bit of jogging when the slope relented every now and then. It wasn't too long before we reached the summit and we had overtaken all the walkers in our site (I was glad it wasn't the other way around!). Hills such as Cross Fell, Great Dun Fell and Murton Pike dominated the sky line to the North of me sitting smug at the other end of the Eden valley, whilst hills such as Helvellyn and Blencathra stood out to the west along with the rest of the Lake District. And as for where I was standing 'The Roman Road' a track pretty much unnoticeable today which was used centuries ago to travel between the 2 forts of Brocavum near Penrith and Galava in Ambleside. Being a huge plateau the summit was also used to hold summer fairs on in the 18th and 19th century where the locals would gather on the 12th July to watch the horse racing and meet up with old friends, often returning livestock that had strayed away from their shepherd.

After a short break, the run was mostly downhill on to The Knott where I realised that I was limited to taking only 8 photos as I had left my memory card in the other camera at home. However I did get a couple of shots of a contented looking Rex once he put his tongue away and stopped searching for leftovers, that the Ravens flying overhead had clearly beaten him to. It was then on to Rest Dodd, which did actually look a bit of a rest as it was quite a bit lower down than the previous two summits but once getting to the bottom of it I realised I was much too drained from the big slog up High Street to run up it in one burst, so stopped half way up it for a bite to eat and a drink. It wasn't long before I set off down towards angle tarn (not the one near Esk Pike) and back down into Patterdale, where I slipped on a fleece and my walking trousers before the gentle stroll along the pavement to Glenridding where I had a quick look around before sitting outside the Traveller's Rest with Rex, who was having quite a lot of fun hassling people on the way out of the door. And I enjoyed watching him too as at least half the people who walked past him gave him a stroke, many passing comment about what a nice dog I had.

All in all an active Sunday and a nice end to the holiday I had just had.

Comments welcome.



Ethan

Exploring the North Pennines

Last week I decided not head up to Cross Fell because of bad weather, I was a bit annoyed that I didn't go on but knew that I would get little pleasure out of it on my own on a day like that. Fergus joined me for Murton Pike but went back after that, as the fog was low and he couldn't stay the night anyway. I did a  loop around High Cup Nick with minimum visibility. So I was keen to get on up to Cross Fell this weekend, this time in the company of Fergus and Rex.

  

This week I planned to go around High Cup Nick and onto Great Dun Fell and Cross Fell. We set of from the farm in Murton at about 10:10am. This time rather than walk around the edges we walked through the valley. Rex was over joyed to be out and about in a new place and expressed his excitement by running around and demonstrating his remarkable athletic ability, which always makes me feel slow and lazy and generally seems to put most human bodies shame. I was keen to have a nosey around a bit more and possibly climb a gully or two. I saw one and it looked fantastic. It had a huge boulder that had fallen and jammed itself between the two walls. I asked Fergus if he could hold Rex while I went up. The rock of High Cup Nick is very Brittle so it's important to take care when selecting hand holds. After a few minutes of simple scrambling I was on the top. I walked to the edge and looked over the cliff to see Fergus and Rex waiting patiently and looking quite small. I shouted hello to them both before making my way back down.

We then worked our way along the bottom of the cliffs until we came to the rock fall at the end of the valley, where we went up the large gully onto the top. We then walked along the western side of the cliff tops until we came to the drystone wall which leads all the way to the bottom of Dufton Pike. We hand railed along it for 20 minutes or so. If you have been reading my blog since it first started you will remember the walk I did in the Lakes with Fergus in June. Despite knowing his boots were a size to small for him he came along anyway and although it slowed him down quite a bit he managed quite well considering the pain he claimed

to be in. He said the first thing he would do when he got back would be to buy a new pair of boots. Here we were 4 months later and Fergus is still in the same old pair of boots. So a frequent topic of conversations was yet again complaints of pain in his feet. Despite being 1st October the temperature must have been about 25 degrees celsius at this point in the afternoon. I was walking quick and was a bit reluctant to stop, as I wanted to get to the bothy before night fall. We had joined the Pennine way at the bottom of Dufton Pike and were heading for Knock Fell. We were both dehydrated and Rex was also hot. I decided that it was worth having a nice break by a river to fill up on water, let rex have a paddle and finally allow Fergus to rest his feet. After half an hour we continued. We kept going on the long walk to Knock Fell. The three of us all sat down admiring the distant Lake District fells as they stood proudly over the Eden Valley, the sun gradually creeping down into dusk. I put my arm around Rex and realised this was one them moments that you look back on with a smile across your face. A short time later we made it onto Knock Fell. I gave Rex his tea, as he seemed to be lacking his usual energy. The big 'Golf Ball' on the top of Great Dun Fell, that can be seen from Blencathra on a clear day and from my house in decent weather, was now very close indeed. We came to the road that led up radar station on the fell. This is used by workers there and is apparently the highest road in Britain. After a short stroll up the road we were as close to the summit as we could get, with out sitting on top of the station or being done for trespassing. We walked around the fenced of area and then onto Little Dun Fell. Cross Fell was our final objective of the day. At 893m (2930ft) Cross Fell is the 9th highest fell in the country and the highest point of the Pennines or any other part of the country outside of the Lake District. We ascended relatively quickly and the view was amazing from the summit a few photos were taken before we headed of the fell and looked around for the hut. We couldn't see it for a while until I spotted it and we set off towards it.
In fairness I had told Fergus that the day wouldn't be as long or tiring as last time and it kind of was in the end. I find it hard to stop and stay still when I have a planned destination. I'd sooner get there and then relax.

This was my first time in a mountain bothy and I was very impressed. Greg's Hut is well maintained and well stocked and I immediately felt cosy the moment I stepped inside it. A few others came with even more supplies. I had brought some fire lighters but they burned out. They had some so we used them and I got the fire going well. There were about six staying altogether but five of them were scared off by us so went outside to pitch tents, but one poor soul had to stay as she didn't have a tent to escape to. Rex, who has a tail that reacts to noise kept us awake. I stupidly donated my camping mat to Rex so had to sleep on the hard wooden platform above the fire. We ate quite well though. I am trying very hard to not use dehydrated camping meals as there expensive and disgusting. Fergus had some lightweight super noodles but I can't bear to look at them, considering they pretty much the only food I ate on my 12 peaks challenge. I brought some pasta and some carbonara source and ate it quite happily.

In the morning I had Ready-Brek and Semolina, which was quite a nice start to the day. Fergus had 'Cup o' Soup'. We then packed and after feeding Rex his Breakfast we left. I forgot to pack the Rex's Bowl. It's one of those red Sea to Summit X-bowls. If anyone's back up there before me, could you let me know if it's there still. We said goodbye to the other 5 who returned back to the bothy to cook breakfast on their stoves, and I tried my best to apologise to the women kept awake all night by Rex. She pointed out that what actually kept her awake was me commanding Rex to "Lie Down!". She even seemed to feel sorry for the dog, as if I was taking away his rights by trying to stop him wagging his tail in the middle of the night. On the way out of the bothy I couldn't help notice the beauty of the Pennine fells when looking to the north, I'll perhaps explore them some time. As for now all that remained was a quick descent into Blencarn before returning home.

A fantastic trip, with the company of two good friends.

Thanks for reading,
Please feel free to leave comments.

Ethan