Dear Mum, no waterprrofs, got sunburnt - no photos today
Here’s a useful tip from the mountaingoat Salesman’s Training Manual: Let the customer pay for his waterproof garments before telling him that the weather forecast is good.
It serves me right, clever sod, telling people not to forget their waterproofs. I’m on holiday, so I get extra Lake District. Today should have been Lord’s Rake Revisited but the weather was even worse than Saturday so I decided to do something else.
By the time I got out of the Barn Door shop, still wearing my new waterproof trousers, it had stopped raining. By the time I had got half way up to Black Sail Pass I had changed into my shorts (yes, I keep a pair in my rucsac) and folded my jacket up and into the rucksack.
The ascent up Kirk Fell from Black Sail Pass is excellent if you like a bit of “hands on”, follow the right hand fork when the path splits to clamber over the rocks rather than trudge up the loose footpath. Factor 15 goes on half way up this ascent. Once you get to the summit of Kirk Fell, contour round to the right of the two summit tarns for extensive views of Great Gable.
The descent to Beck Head is followed by one of my favourite climbs up to the summit of Great Gable. Plenty of people at the top, I get asked to take a photograph almost every week and this was no exception. The guys sit up against the rocks, “what spectacular mountain scenery do you want as a back drop” I ask, what about having Scafell and Scafell Pike in the background. “Oh! is that Scafell Pike?” they both ask, and a voice from another party asks “which one is Scafell?”.
Down the Breast Route to Styhead, that would have been a difficult route before the path was built and now it’s just hard on the feet. Over to the Corridor Route, only to Lingmell Col and down to Wasdale so I can see where I went wrong on Saturday. Scafell looks like a beast, just waiting to be tamed.
...... and yes, because the weather was terrible I didn’t take my sun hat, I am now making beetroots feel pale.
Andy Wallace 24th July 2001