LAKE DISTRICT - JUNE 2013

DAY 1: SKIDDAW CLIMB - 3,054 ft
5 HOURS TREKING

Round two of The Lake District with many a missions and mountains to conquer now that we had much better weather compared to our last visit to The Lakes back in January.

We left London at 6am, hoping to get to the Lakes at a decent enough time to make the most of our first day there. So, with not much sleep and no breakfast, we got to our B&B where we stayed the last time, dumped our gear and went for a 5 hour trek up Skiddaw - England's 4th highest mountain!

                                                                           
                                                                                    ...Mr F studying his map, intently

                
                  The start of our route to Skiddaw......

  

We tried to find a car park that was mapped out for the start of the trek but we couldn't it, so we parked up by a little country road/lane called Brundholme Road and headed towards a sign that said "Skiddaw - 4 miles" There was no real challenge about the trek other than our lack of food and sleep. The route going up and back down was just a very steep gravel road which became quite tiring and not enough variation for our liking, but we can still mark it off on our list of mountains to climb and conquer.

                                
                                             Our very monotonous route to the summit......

                         ......Mrs F not looking very impressed with The route, but the scenery was worth it

                                                                             .....Almost at the top......

                                                                                                              ......The Trig point at the summit

            The boys enjoying their new adventures......

                                                                                     ........Mr & Mrs F at the summit of Skiddaw

                                                                                      .....Our two stones on top of the trig point

Once we made it to the top, we prayed together and thanked God for his provision and care for us during our trek to the top and asked he be with us as we make our long way down.

Mrs F quickly learned the reason why she wore knee supports everyday in The Everest region....Trekkers knee is a killer!!

The map and route which shows our route to and from Skiddaw. We were very fortunate to see a very rare Red Squirrel during our trek back to the car. It ran up a tree too quick for us to get a picture, but was still really great to see.

                                                       Mrs F was sooooo pleased to be back at the car again

DAY 2: HELVELLYN CLIMB - 3118 ft
7 HOURS TREKING/CLIMBING

Today was Mr F's birthday!! And what better way to celebrate it than to climb England's 3rd....Helvellyn! We started the day with presents, cards and a good load up of breakfast. The B&B had it's usual awesome breakfast of a good selection of cereals, croissants, fruit salad, yoghurts and fruit teas, with a hot option of full cooked English, a choice of any topping on toast, porridge and a daily special.

Now that we had enough sleep and were fed and watered, we were feeling good about our climb to the summit of Helvellyn. We were at the start of the way up by 9:50am and were very blessed with a beautiful sunny day ahead of us.

                                                                             .....The stunning views along the Kirkstone Pass

                                                                                          .....Getting ready to set off on our 7 hour hike

 
  Mr F crossing Mires Beck in June.....

                                                                                       ......Mr F crossing Mires beck in January

...Mr F climbing up in June

 

Mr F climbing in January......

 

                                                    ....Mrs F getting up, close & personal with the local residents

Our first glimpse of Helvellyn and our way back down on the right hand side....

We had a little pit stop off by the wall that lead us to the notorious Striding Edge for drinks and a bite of snickers and set off along our way again. Then Mr f asked where the camera was......Mrs F had put it in a gap in the wall and forgot to pick it back up again, so we had to retrace our steps along the wall until we found the camera.....phew!!

   
                The famous hole in the wall....

                                                                                                  .....Red Tarn at the bottom of Helvellyn

Our first glimpse of Striding Edge - a very high and narrow route over the top of the mountain leading up to the summit. Needless to stay there is no room for error for putting a foot wrong, most of the time the only way across is on your hands, bums and to climb down and up vertical drops. Several people have died attempting to cross Striding Edge, so with adrenaline pumping and the Holy Spirit by our side, we set off to cross it ourselves......

                                                    
                                                               .....Preparing ourselves for the start of Striding Edge

The sheer drop from the top of the narrow Striding Edge.....A bit nerve racking to say the least!!

This was by far the most dangerous and nervy part of Striding Edge - a vertical drop with no easy way of getting down. We chose to go down the right hand side as you look at it from the view below, which seemed the easier option, but by no means easy!!

And thanks to God's guidance and care, we made it across the notorious Striding Edge safely

   

                                                                                                         Looking back on Striding Edge.....

Our next challenge was the last part of the climb to the summit called The Chimney, and a climb is the literal word to use. Mrs F had to put her gloves on in order to climb and scramble up the vertical side of the mountain.

This dog has previously been featured in The Daily telegraph for his many adventures with his proud owner. Every summit they reach together, he sits on top of the Trig and has a great picture taken

Mr & Mrs F and The boys at the summit of Helvellyn

                                         

We once again prayed together and thanked God for seeing us safely to the summit. We now called these our 'Peak Prayers' :-) We always like to go a different way down to the way we go up. So we chose to go down Swirral Edge, we were on our bums and scrambling back down...but we loved every moment of it! Once we had come to the end of the scrambling, it was a narrow gravel route that was a gradual descent. After a while of this gradual descending road, it was becoming a bit tiresome and was becoming a strain on Mrs F knees. It was such an awesome achievement besides our tired aching bodies and would do it all over again.....

Mr F making his way back down the long winding gravel road while Mrs F looks back on our achievement.....The summit of England's 3rd highest mountain, Helvellyn. This is where we had our peak prayers, thanking God for his guidance and protection over striding edge :-)

                                             .....Looking back on Striding Edge and The Chimney climb

 

      Red Tarn beck that runs down the mountain that Mr F splashed on his face and in his words 'It was lush!'

      The long road back to the car......

It was awesome to be back in the B&B for a chill out and a soak in the huge bath before heading out for a birthday dinner and much needed Guinness and blackcurrant. Mrs F had discovered that when she put her gloves on to climb, it wiped off all the sun cream and the sun had frazzled her left hand which was very sore and very painful :-(

                                                      ....The wonderful deep bath that welcomed us back at the B&B

                                                                .....His & Hers Guinness and blackcurrant

Enjoyed by the birthday boy

 

 

DAY 3: THE OLD MAN OF CONISTON  CLIMB - 2276 ft
6 HOURS TREKING/CLIMBING

The day started out quite cloudy for our climb to \The Old Man Of Coniston , so we layered up at the car and had a quick scan to see which route to take up. After originally choosing to go around to the left side where there's a great big steep path, we turned around and chose to go round to the right towards Miners Bridge. Just a little way along the path, the weather changed and turned out to be another beautiful sunny, warm day. As we got further up, we came across the old mine....

 Mrs F all layered up and ready to get going...

....Mr F approaching Miners Bridge with another walkers excited dog

 Lots of slate around and old cable wires form the remainders of the mine

....Mrs F decided that there were too many pictures of Mr F and so took one of herself! :-) 

We came across this old miners tunnel, but didn't want to risk venturing in!

 

After we had climbed a fair way up a steady gradual path, we continued on the path which lead us back down to Low Water where we and quite a few other trekkers had a pit stop for a top up of food and water.....  

From Low Water, there are two ways up to the summit. One way is to walk around the back of the Tarn and scramble up, or carry on along the path upwards. Needless to say we chose the path! It was a very rocky road with a lot of steep stepping stones and fairly tough on the quads.....for Mrs F anyway!

....looking back at the rocky road leading up to the summit

                                                                   
                                                                           

  

 Finally, we made it to the summit after a quite enjoyable trek :-) Mrs F by the cairn

                                                    
   Looking back down on the zig zag road leading from Low Water to the summit.....

Mr & Mrs F standing at the top of Coniston Old Man, a trek well enjoyed to enjoy the views from the summit whist sitting and having a bit of lunch :-)

As we walked across the top and over towards Goats Water for our descent, the nippy wind picked up enough for Mrs F to put her fleece on, but soon took it off again once we reached the rocky road leading back down.

          

....A very picturesque photo of the boys with Goats water in the background




 A little chill out by Goats Water and where we had our peak prayer

Mrs F looking like she has 6ft long legs!!....

 

 

The walk back down via Little Arrow Moor was really quite enjoyable and really glad that we chose the route that we did. Looking back, we wouldn't have wanted to go back down via the way we came up due to it being quite strenuous on the old knees. All in all, we really enjoyed our climb both up and down to The Old Man Of Coniston :-) 

 

Back at the room, Mr F wasted no time at all getting stuck into his map looking at what walk/climb we could do the next day. Our original plan was to tackle Sca Fell on our last day in The Lakes, but was conscious that we had a 5hour drive home the next day and didn't want to risk injury or being seized up on the way home and having to unfold ourselves out of the car! So after some intense studying of the map.....

......And even more studying of the map....

 

 

DAY 4: PAVEY ARK CLIMB -700 METRES
4&1/2 HOURS TREKING/CLIMBING

So, Mr F decided that our final day of trekking would be Pavey Ark at The Langdale Pikes. The first part of the way up was slightly confusing and we went the wrong way twice, but we must have looked like we knew where we were going because a group of foreign walkers followed us!! :-)

We finally got on the right track and was well on our way. We walked up via Stickle Ghyll, a little waterfall and was a really enjoyable climb. It was a rocky road with quite a few steep steps to be made and the hot sun was making it slightly challenging.

The view of our climb from the car park....

 

 Mrs F tackling the stepping stones with her trusty walking pole....

         
                                     A view of the road ahead......

                                                       
Views of the road we've climbed so far                                              

 

 

 

 

        
      Mr F checking out the top....

 

Once we reached the end of the rocky road, the route turned into having to scramble and climb over boulders by the top of the waterfall. Once we got over those, it was quite a flat road towards Stickle Tarn. We sat by the Tarn and had a little munch and drink - a man came up to us and asked if we had dropped any gloves, at that point Mrs F realised that she no longer had hers in her pocket! Thanks to that man, Mrs f was reunited with her gloves :-)

 

We Decided to go to the right of the Tarn towards Bright Beck. By this time the weather was closing in a turned cloudy with a very strong potential of rain, so we had to be quick to get to the top and back down again safely. We got to the right hand side of the mountain where we had a real good scramble/climb up Pavey Ark. Mrs F was completely in her element, climbing and scrambling over big rocks....

...Having a little rest by Stickle Tarn

                         Getting friendly with the locals....

 

Mrs F at the top of Pavey Ark, admiring the view....

 

 

 Mr F pointing.....to something, think it was the start of our trek

....The view of Easy Gully from the top of Pavey Ark - a sheer drop going down and a very tough scramble going up.

Once we made it to the top and said our peak prayer, we sat for a bit before we had to make the decision of which way we were going back down. The weather was really closing in and looked like it was going to pour down at any moment. So we asked God to hold off the rain and keep us safe on our descent and we decided to go straight down the side of the mountain down a grassy verge with a few boulders to act as a path until we finally got back to Stickle Tarn.

The view of the side of Pavey Ark where there were people rope climbing and others were going up via Jacks Rake - a notorious grade 3 scramble all the way to the top!

 

....Looking back at our chosen route down

Looking back at the immense size of the mountain side where we could see people tackling Jacks Rake and a couple of mountaineers, which you can see in the picture below. Mrs F zoomed in as much as her camera would let her to show the scale of a person to the size of the mountain....Can you spot them???

 Looking at Easy Gully from the other side - you can see the gap at the top of the mountain where you would climb through and end up where we took the picture looking over from the top

Back on the road by the waterfall. Mr F went off road slightly to take a good picture of the water running off the mountain. We were rushing back down to beat the rain that was clearly waiting to pour, whilst there was still people making their way up!!!

After a few drops of rain that came down, we got back to the car safely and just as we predicted, we got into the car and it poured down!! It was as though God was holding it off for us :-)

.....The view of Pavey Ark from the car park....hidden under the cloud!....

 

All in all, a race against the weather, but we made it there and back safely with God's guidance. A really good scramble over the boulders at the top of the waterfall and an even better one by Bright Beck to the top. We do love a good scramble!! :-)

 

 

VERDICT OF THE LAKE DISTRICT IN JUNE 2013

 

 

Mr F: A truly beautiful part of the country in fact one of the most stunning places we have visited. Plenty to see and do even if walking/climbing is not your thing. A very different place this time around as the weather was awesome. Ticked off several of the highest mountains Helvellyn  being an awesome day with amazing views. This place has earned a special place in our hearts and I can see us returning here again and again. 

 

Mrs F: Absolutely loved The Lake District second time around! We were blessed with good weather in order to achieve our climbs and goals each day and loved every moment of the climbs, treks, scrambles and stunning scenery. We've seen some pretty awesome stuff during our Farnsie Nomads adventures all over the world...but we forget and more still don't even realise how amazing our own country is. The Lakes are a fantastic place to go even if you're not into trekking, just to appreciate it for it's beauty. Can't wait to go back in September to finally conquer Sca Fell and Sca Fell pike for our 2 year wedding anniversary!!! :-)