Wasdale Weekend

Coast to Coast
In August we (me and Mrs RAR - Helen) walked Alfred Wainwright's Coast to Coast walk. For those who don’t know, it is a walk of about 190 miles from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire. I was going to Blog about it but when planning the walk, I realised that there are no Websites dedicated to it except a few commercial ventures by various tour operators. I decided to change that, the result will be available on www.coast2coastwalk.co.uk in a few weeks time. (along with our account of the walk)

Wasdale Weekend.

This weekend it was decided that we were going to go to Wasdale Head. The reason; Dave has never been up Scafell Pike. Wasdale Head could be described as remote or as in the middle of nowhere. It is neither. Remoteness is relative, Wasdale Head is only a 20 minute drive from Gosforth and London is a 7 hour drive from Gosforth. To the people of Gosforth (and most of Britain), London is remote.

Wasdale Head boasts a few facts. It has Englands Deepest Lake, its Smallest Church and its Highest Mountain (Scafell Pike – our objective). It is also home to the worlds biggest Liar, but what that is all about I do not know! We arrived in the Hamlet at about 22:00, set up camp and headed strait for the pub – The Wasdale Inn. The pub has a great range of real ales which are brewed on site. Unfortunately it also closes at 23:00 when all the customers are rather rudely turned out into the night.

We woke up early on Saturday morning, we didn’t have a choice, some inconsiderate berks were clanging about cooking breakfast and taking tents down. There has to be a bit of give and take on a campsite where noise is concerned but arseing around at 7am is a bit much. Anyway, we were up. Breakfast was eaten and we were off to conquer Englands highest peak.

The Walk

We were half expecting a cloud inversion but it never materialised, the summit was in the clouds, hopefully it would clear by the time we reached the top. Our route took us along the Moses Trod Path. The path owes its name to a Legend about a chap called Moses who used to smuggle Booze from Honister, really it should just be called Moses Trod as Trod means Path. We took a right and headed up towards Piers Gill.

Piers Gill is a formidable chasm and a bit of an accident black-spot, the path climbs gently to its left hand side. Abut half way up, the so far gentle path come to an abrupt halt and a 10 metre scramble is encountered. Although the climb wasn’t hard, I was thinking to myself that now wouldn’t be a good time to fall off! We all reached the top of the scramble safely and proceeded to go a little off track, as we worked our way back to the path, a group following us also made the same mistake. A quick shout of “it’s over here” corrected them and a following call of “we did that too” restored dignity.

The cloud seemed to be lifting a little and we thought that the wish for a view from the summit would be granted. It wasn’t. We reached the head of Piers Gill and suddenly it was obvious why people accidentally wander into its abyss. There is almost a path, gentle at first, louring the unsuspecting into its depths. Our view was suddenly obscured by the cloud and it stayed with us to the summit where we stopped to eat lunch and wait in hope for it to clear.

Lingmell

From the summit we could see that the cloud was breaking. Blue sky above us, cloud below, perhaps we were going to see an inversion. After a while we gave up and started to descend, as we did, the clouds parted and we were treated to a glimpse of the surrounding scenery. The summit was also clear so we turned round and went back up. 20 minutes later we were back at the top and so was the cloud. Defeated we headed to our next summit – Lingmell. As we descended again, the cloud cleared once more. At least we would see a view from Lingmell. No such luck; reaching the summit, the cloud came over once more and after waiting half an hour or so we headed down.

After a quick brew at the camp site, I drove us all to Nether Wasdale for Dinner at The Screes. On the way I stopped at the little lay-by next to Wastwater so Dave could enjoy Britain’s Favourite View (it was dark when we arrived the night before).

After being fed an excellent meal at The Screes, we headed back to The Wasdale Inn for some of its fine ales, here we debated what to do on Sunday. After a few pints of ‘Great Gable’, ‘Yewbarrow’ and ‘Liar’ we decided we needed punishing and the direct route up Kirkfell was going to be the punishment.

The Punishment

The weather on Sunday morning was hazy but the cloud base was above the summits. Dave provided the bacon and my Coleman F1 incinerated it, we received a few jealous glances from those who smelled our breakfast. Breakfast done with, water bottles filled and boots tied, we were off to meet our punisher. Surprisingly we made steady progress until we reached the scree which was hellish. For the second time this weekend I was thinking “falling over right now would not be a good idea”.

The summit of Kirkfell was pleasant; we ate our lunch and admired the hazy view. I described the coast to coast route to Dave and pointed out Haystacks which Helen and I had crossed in torrential rain a few weeks earlier. (pictures of The Coast to Coast walk can be seen on my website www.richardroworth.com just click event login and enter coast as the password. The pictures will soon be appearing on www.coast2coastwalk.co.uk too.

Descending Kirkfell, we were debating whether or not to include Great Gable or not. Our mind was made up as we met a couple coming in the other direction. Apparently a lady had fallen whilst descending the mountain and Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team were on their way up to save her. We didn’t want to get in the way and time was getting on so we headed straight down.

Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team

During the descent, Wasdale MRT members passed us on the way up to the casualty. They are all voulanteers and had left their Sunday lunches to carry heavy equipment up a mountain to help a total stranger. These people are un-paid heroes.

As we neared the valley bottom, one of the WMRT informed us that a helicopter was inbound and to take cover when it arrived as we would be in its downwash. Shortly after we could hear the helicopter approaching but the weather had turned. The cloud came in and the helicopter had to abort.

On the valley floor, the WMRT base informed us that 14 team members were carrying the lady down. Descending 900 vertical metres is hard enough without having to carry an injured person! When we reached Wasdale Head I put a few more quid in the MRT charity box that I usually do.