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Binsey then Bakestall
This Sunday saw a return to the fells after a disappearance of over 2 months through illness and bad weather. Although I've been out and about geocaching on and around the Furness Penninsula, I've not managed to get anywhere near the climbs and therefore was somewhat dubious as to how I was going to manage a significant climb on my return.
With this in mind, Damson & I packed a sack and headed up the west coast and round through Cockermouth to the foot of Binsey, planning on testing our legs (all 6 of them needed the practise) on some lower slopes before commiting to anything bigger.
It turned out to be no where near as bad as expected and we were up and down Binsey within the hour collecting a cache along the way for good measure. It had only just turned 11 O'Clock too so whilst we were in the area I drew up the route for Bakestall on the GPS and took the 5 minute drive across to Peter House Farm parking at the road side and heading up the Cumbrian Way path round the Back O'Skiddaw and up the trudge to Dash Falls.
Up till now the weather had been dry but grey and dull and we'd just about managed to stay below the cloud line. On approaching the Dead Crags this dramatically changed and visibility was down to about 30m as we pressed on to the top of the falls and hooked right at the gate to follow the wall up the steep bank to Bakestall's summit after getting a view from the bridge at the top of the fall.
As predicted, I stopped for a few more breathers than I may have done a few months back but the moist air kept me cool and the path was clear enough for good progress to be made. On reaching the top of the wall and a large cairn, I was unsure exactly where the top was and the visibility had decreased further so we had a plod around the paths on the summit for 5-10 minutes to see if any other cairns showed their faces. I assume the largest of the ones found was the summit true, where Damson & I tucked into a pork pie & some dog biscuits (or should that be the other way round).
Another cache was grabbed near the summit before taking a more direct and altogether wetter route down the western flanks on a mixture of good and almost non existent paths back to our starting point. Once again the GPS was invaluable in those conditions and most of the time I was just following the arrow on screen as I didn't have any decent views until much lower after dropping back below the cloud line.
Lack of any type of organisation on my part meant that my Nikon was not powered up before setting out in the morning and only when I reached the summit of Binsey did I realise the small 35mm did not contain a memory card to record the days grey washed out scenes. So these are another two that are bagged but with plans to return to get a picture of Damson on the summit. I believe that's 4 in total now that I have to re-climb ! (Or that's the excuse I'll be giving to Ellie anyway !
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