Well, the day which seemed unlikely earlier in the week, when it was bucketing it down and I was coming down with cold: Scafell Pike with Christine and Gav. The morning was bright and even Christine remained resolute, despite this being her first mountain for about seven years. There was a horrendously long drive and Gav's style betrays a man who watches too many episodes of Top Gear. But it was worth it when Wasdale came into view. I'd forgotten how forlorn and beautiful the valley is. It's dominated by huge mountains, the most ostentatious being the rocky faces of Great Gable. Half the valley floor is swallowed by the bleak Wast Water; the other section is a labyrinthine of dry stone walls. (Surely the product of a benign but naïve EU grant.) And acting like a lighthouse is the white walls of the Wasdale Arms. (“Home of the world's biggest liar” though they didn't say who.) We parked near the pub and began on a path snaking up the flank of Great Gable. Across the valley, Scafell Pike was looking increasingly impressive; great buttresses of crags with the peak, well, peeking up behind, two gulleys scouring deep wounds into the hillside. Wast Water soon opened up behind us and, finally, the distant gleam of the sea. The path was nicely varied too. A gently rising track; a rather nasty slog across shale; and a good semi-scramble up to the pass of Sty Head. This gave us our first great view of overlapping fuck-off mountains; and if a man is tired of views of overlapping fuck-off mountains, he is tired of life. The route also became unclear here, partly because we had three generations of wayfinders. There was Gav's chilling GPS system. There was Christine's slightly more subjective reading of the OS map. And there was Wainwright offering highly useful advice like “Many good men get lost here.” Eventually we located our path, the Corridor Route which traversed under the cliffs of Great End back along Wasdale. It gave us some good views of Great Gable, which has weird patches of red rock near the top mitigating its grey flanks. Crossed those gulleys, which seemed as impressive at close hand, eating our lunch in one. Hit another pass and, for the first time, the wind. Not the truly malicious wind which tried blowing me off Coniston Old Man but definitely a breeze nonetheless. The way was becoming increasingly crowded, with all routes converging into one. There were a few drop-outs though, and I can't really blame them. The final summit ascent was a bit grim. In fact it was a dreary five hundred foot slog over broken rock, a 'Frodo's trek through Mordor' with additional wind. At least, to my amazement, there was no cloud. We saw Scotland and the Solway Firth, we saw the sea and Sellafield. And finally we reached the summit and saw the world. Well, not really – the light was too bad even for the Isle of Man – but there were some outstanding panoramas of the Lakes at its best. Enjoyed the sights for as long as the gale would permit, then dropped down into the pass of Mickledore. We gaped at a man climbing Scafell by Lord's Rake, an apparently vertical scar of shale. Then we found our way down was almost as bad. It began as an apparent dried stream bed, then widened into a sort of unofficial scree run. The descent finally became gentler but was on one of those god-awful constructed paths, made of stone slabs which are really slippery in the wet. And so, before you could say “This was almost my favourite walk ever”, it started to rain. A lot, for quite a long time. We slogged on for a time, crossing a rushing stream with some difficulty. (All those rocks, bags of extra rocks by the wayside, and they didn't even make any steppy-stones.) Weather and ground seemed to work in tandem on this walk, however. As soon as the track became a proper path again, curling around a hillside back towards the car park, the rain stopped. So we got back to the car feeling knackered but happy. And I achieved my two objectives for the holiday: one day climbing Scafell Pike, one day tramping the hills alone like a miserable old get. And if there's been a large 'pretty good, considering...' factor to this holiday, it was nonetheless still pretty good. The house wasn't perfect – dad was on the phone to the unfortunate landlord this evening pointing out its many imperfections – but it was good enough. Still, I note our plan for future holidays is to get back to Patterdale and Broad How as quickly as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment