Hardknott and Wrynose passes

[nigheandonn]

It seems like a long time since I've had a deliberate no-hills day in the lakes, but having discovered in the night that a) I couldn't bend my knee and b) you can't toss and turn in bed with a knee that doesn't bend, I wasn't sure I was going anywhere. By the end of breakfast my knee was at least bending again, and I thought I might just about be fit for the long walk out - the nearest Sunday bus stop was more than 9 miles away - but hills seemed like a step too far. I was worried about getting up and not being able to get down!

It was another glorious morning - even better than the day before, and Eskdale was all green and summery. It wasn't easy to see how I was going to get out, though, as the line of hills seemed pretty solid ahead.

Green Eskdale

It was busier, too - the car park at the Scafell path was pretty full, and other bits further on. I went on over the young River Esk, and past a view up towards the upper valley, backed by a pointy something that looks like it should be called Esk Pike, but seems to actually be Bowfell.

Young River Esk

Up the valley

The road does find its way up through the gap, but it's hard work. I'd meant to go and have a look at the Roman fort, but it doesn't seem to be signed, and I didn't see it until I was past and looked back to check what an indecisive large white van was up to, by which time I didn't have the energy to go back.

Warning signs

Hardknott Fort

The van obviously got a bit too decisive, because the next time I saw it it was stuck at the bottom of the second steepest bend, with three people trying to push it up and only being pushed backwards into a rock instead. They kept trying to get people to help them for quite a while, which was daft, because the next bend was even tighter and steeper, but I think they must have seen sense and retreated eventually.

This seems to have been a good weekend for fools - the folk on Broad Stand, this lot, and then a very polite young man who approached me at the top of the next pass to find out where he was - I wish I'd thought to ask him where he had expected to be!

Going down was almost harder, in a different way - I was taking it slowly, but my bad knee was not at all happy about the steep bits. I was also a bit worried about the chaotic cow noises coming from the bottom of the valley, as the road was marked as unenclosed, but fortunately, when I finally made it down to the junction at Cockley Beck, the cows were enclosed although the road wasn't.

Looking down to Cockley Beck

The next part, through Wrynose Bottom, was wonderful - flat and peaceful and with a lovely young river, and with the odd feeling of being in a valley shut in at both ends - I had to think quite hard to work out that the escape route was down the Duddon valley road. It even had occasionally patches of shade, which were lovely after so long in the sun.

The pull out the other end wasn't nearly as steep - or as long, because the valley was higher - and then I was on top of the second pass, ready for a rest. This pass also brought excitement in the form of paragliders, the afore-mentioned lost young man, and the three shire stone (which is surely only a one shire stone, although I know what they mean (and when someone has been messing around with the height of my office chair it always makes me feel like a three bear)).

Wrynose Bottom

Three Shire stone

Down again, and this time a whole wide landscape was opening out ahead, over Little Langdale to Loughrigg and hazier fells beyond.

Little Langdale

This time the road clung to the side of the hill, above a steep drop to the valley bottom, until they finally came together again around where the side valley branches off to Great Langdale. I hadn't quite worked out where I was until I looked over and thought 'I recognise that rockface' - which was indeed Pavey Ark, soon joined by an array of friends. The shark's fin of Side Pike was more of a mystery, although as soon as I found it on the map I realised I should have known.

Side Pike and Friends

On past the Ting Mound - not nearly so dramatic, but no doubt useful in its time - round a sharp bend, and past some loudly barking dogs.

The road was very narrow here - barely more than a lane, with the hedges trying to overgrow it - but that didn't really justify the way some of the cars crawled along looking terrified. Better than the ones who try to go too fast, though.

Ting Mound

The view towards the Pikes was getting even more classic - presumably this is a famous view and I just didn't know it.

Langdale Pikes

Along past the tarn, and I turned off just before the village in Little Langdale to take the track over to Elterwater, which was pretty good, although a bit busy with mountain bikes. A cake stall outside the last house was a good surprise, and it would have been unreasonable to refuse it!

Cake!

Elterwater seemed to contain *all* the people I'd been expecting to see in Eskdale and hadn't - it was quite a shock to come down from the lane, which had seemed reasonably busy at the time, to a bank holiday scene on the green which looked a bit like one of those beach photos from 50+ years ago, with people sitting sunbathing everywhere.

The tea room in Elterwater was open, but they turned out to be more fools, because they had apparently stopped selling sandwiches at 3, and although they had a reasonably steady stream of customers, they weren't packed the way the pub on the other side of the road was, where at least 10 people were happily eating sandwiches. So I had beer instead of tea, and a belated lunch, and a nice peaceful time until the bus came along and just about fitted in everyone who was waiting to take us off to Ambleside, which to be fair to Elterwater had quite a lot of people in it as well.

Then a journey home cursed with rail replacement buses - ordinary bus through to Kendal, Kendal to Oxenholme, Oxenholme to Carlisle, Carlisle to Edinburgh. But it could have been worse - they were quiet, and I suppose it's a slightly different view on the landscape. And it was a lovely evening until halfway along the Pentlands, when the world vanished and the mist came in as if at the flick of a switch.

The day off the hills was probably a good thing really - with the early finish with the trains off it was always going to be tight, and I now have enough leftover hills to decently make another weekend trip, rather than trying to squeeze things in. So plotting for August...

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[ChrisW]

I'm not so sure if all that was a good idea with the knee or not, I'm guessing the inflexibility is improved with light use. Still a lovely enjoyable walk with some cracking shots of the lakes, and at last some cake