LAKE DISTRICT - JUNE 2015

DAY 1: SEAT SANDLE - 2,415FT
              STONE ARTHUR - 1,652FT
5 & HALF HOURS OF TREKKING

Here we go again!! Back to the Lakes for Mr F's birthday week as always and this time without Mr & Mrs S as they couldn't make it. So instead of hiring a cottage for the 4 of us which is what we'de normally do as it's cost effective and more self efficient...and fun, we went back to our old faithful Hawksmoor B&B in Windermere.
Unfortunately we couldn't get a room with a bath which we normally do as we love a good soak after a day on the mountains, but there were no bath rooms left, on;y a shower, which was big a love;y enough anyway.

We didn't set our alarm for our usually silly O'Clock, we just woke up according to our body clocks, which wasn't too late anyway and was on the road by half 8. Once we got to the B&B and dumped our things in the room, we headed out for our first couple of mountains. Mr F had worked out a week of 30 mountains!!!

Our Large Shower Room

Mr F Getting The Bags Ready

Our Room

On our first day, we usually don't go too mad and like to brake ourselves back into the mountains gently so not to knacker ourselves out for the rest of the week....unfortunately, it wasn't a gentle break in as much as we would have liked it to be, but as Mr F says, we're made of tough stuff!!

We headed back to the lay by where we have parked up several times before for various routes and summits, including Helvellyn via Dollywaggon Pike and Helm Crag...

Setting Off From The Main Road

The weather forecast for the week was supposed to be quite good, not overly hot in terms of blazing sunshine but the humidity was around the 90% mark and good climbing weather. However...as previously discovered, the weatherman doesn't always get it right! We needed to wear our big coats and gloves still as it was fairly overcast and a bit nippy when the wind blew!

Mr F decided that the way we would go up both of these mountains would be the 'straight up' approach. Good if you wana do it in a speedy time and avoid the long winded steady climb route...bad for your ankles though!! We were on a constant grass slope for both mountains and since we couldn't do a ridge walk from one mountain to the next, we had to go up and back down on a slope....twice!!

Mr F Going Up To Seat Sandle

Our First Selfie Of Many

Once we were on top, we were well in the cloud and realised how cold it was once we stopped to look at the map. Mrs F had to put her gloves on as we made our way over the wall and followed it back down towards Grisedale Tarn (via a slope!) The weather on the fells changes in an instant which never seems to stop amazing us - one minute we couldn't even see the Tarn but knew where is was in relation to where we were, then a second later the cloud cleared and the Tarn came into a clear view....then went behind the cloud again!

Seat Sandle Summit

On Our Way Down

                         

Mr F Selfie...As Always!

Looking Back At Seat Sandle

We made our way down to the path where you had the option to carry on following it back towards to main road or you could make a very sharp turn left up the slope and head towards Stone Arthur. We turned left! We headed towards a cluster of rocks by a lone tree and continued to followed it around to the summit of Stone Arthur. There was group of girls heading further up to what we thought was the actual summit of Stone Arthur and not where we were standing and thought it was. So Mr F got out his satmap which confirmed we were on the summit of Stone Arthur....thank Goodness because neither of us were up for going up to where the girls were going!!

Stone Arthur Summit

Mr F Double Checking!

Heading Back Down

Mrs F Fisrt Selfie...Also Of Many!

  

Once we were down, we headed straight for our other faithful...The Ship Inn for food! We did bring clothes to wear in the evening which added to the weight of all our luggage, but we didn't wear any of it because we always ended up going straight to get food after coming off the mountains! The food there is really reasonable compared to the rest of the lakes and it's good. wholesome large portioned dinners. A tough first day introductory trek....

DAY 2: ARNISON CRAG - 1,424FT

              ST SUNDAY CRAG - 2,756FT

              BIRKS - 2,040FT

5 HOURS 15MINS OF TREKKING

So, day 2...DRAMA! Before we came away, Mrs F noticed that Mr F had a swelling come up on the right side of his face which he had before the last time we were in the lakes that turned out to be a sinus infection. Mrs F thought he actually had a gob stopper in his mouth! So we took the sinusitis spray with us just in case. Well, we woke up and he looked like a hamster that was storing food in his pouch!! So after breakfast, Mr F headed to the doctors just down the road that Phillipa recommended. However they couldn't give him an appointment until 12pm, so we couldn't get out on the mountains as soon as we wanted to but instead took a walk to Bowness to have a mooch and kill time.

On the way to the doctors Mr F got the diagnoses he needed....an abscess! He knew this because it burst in his gum and had to spit all the nastiness out...gross! We still went to the doctors anyway to see if they could give him antibiotics, which they couldn't do because it was a dental issue...how crazy!! She confirmed it was an abscess and that he just needed to keep his mouth clean, which he had already bought and swigged TCP.

So once we were done at the doctors, we headed straight for the mountains to finally start our day of trekking....

Mr F Looking Like Alvin The Chipmunk!

 So once we had parked up, we headed up towards the foot of our first mountain, Arnison Crag. Once we made our way up via a high wall, we had to make our way through a field of ferns as Mr F said it would be the better option to just go straight up and at it rather than to head over to the other side and round and up. However, the 'straight up' approach was one that was a little tedious now from the day before and it's 'straight up' approach. So we started to make our way up and stopped for a little bit before continuing on.

Then after we had spent a while with our ankles bend up on what seems like a vertical climb, Mr F decided to change the coarse....much to Mrs F's delight!! He said that it would be better to go straight over to St Sunday Crag and then come back to Arnison and Birks. Mrs F was having none of it! We had already committed to making our way to Arnison so we going to see it through. The route up was hideous, it was spongy with no firm foothold and quite a steep climb with no clear way up or even a little trodden path/way where previous walkers have been, so we just had to pick the best route and go for it doing the best we could.

Mr F Using The Walking Pole To Point Out Something

Our Second Selfie

The Way We're Heading For Towards Arnsion Crag

Having A Little Break Before Going For The Steep Slope

This is the horrible uneven, spongy, awkward slope we tackled. Mr F was trying to keep the moral good by encouraging Mrs F with 'We're nearly there look, you can see the top of the ridge! This meant nothing to Mrs F as he had been saying that for past half hour! Bless him for keeping up the good spirits though...

This Is So Much More Than A 'Face Of Fatigue'!

The Way To St Sunday Crag

A Picture On Top Of Arnison Crag - Mr F'd Ankles Weren't Happy About The Slope Either!

The good thing was, although we still had to climb to St Sunday Crag from Arinson Crag, it was a much straight forward nicer route which didn't take too long at all. WE had both been wanting to do St Sunday Crag for a while now so were glad to have finally ticked this one off of our Wainwright list...

Muggles, Buggles & Juggles On The Summit Of St Sunday Crag

         

Family Photo

Mr F Consulting His Wainwright Book As Usual Procedure

The Way To Our Final Mountain For The Day...Kirks

Mr F Trying To Smile With His Lumpy Face!

We made the trek up and over to Kirks to find the smallest summit marker we've ever seen...we wouldn't even go as far as to say it was a small cairn, just a pile of rocks!
From here, it was a ridge walk out to the descent, having to negotiate our way down a little scramble of rocks before being on a path that wound round and finally down onto ground level.

Mr F Looking Unimpressed At Kirks Summit

Mrs F Analysing The Mammoth Slope We Just Conquered

The Rocks We Had To Scramble Down

Once we were down, we walked past some sheep which is not by any means an unusual sight in the fells. However, it is unusual to see a calf randomly in amongst the sheep!

As we did the day before, we headed straight to get food which went down very well! We always pick up the signal in the car for Lakeland radio which we quite like and they were doing a Jukebox classic night for 3 hours, which was really good and carried on listening to it when we got back to the B&B.

Another hard day...talk about being chucked straight into the deep end!

DAY 3: NEWLANDS VALLEY HORSESHOE
              CATBELLS - 1,481FT
              MAIDEN MOOR - 1,887FT
              HIGH SPY - 2,143FT
              DALE HEAD - 2,473FT
              HINDSCARTH - 2,385FT
              ROBINSON - 2,417FT
6HOURS AND 45MINS TREKKING

Well, what a day ahead of us! 6 Wainwrights in one fell swoop...actually, 6 fells! (excuse the pun) It looked like a nice day too which was nice as so far, although it's been warm we've had a lot of cloud covering. So we headed to a car park where there was an honesty box to put £3 in to pay to park all day. So far we had managed to dodge paying to park anywhere but as we're honest people, we paid our £3. However, just because there is an honesty box, it doesn't mean that everyone is honest about paying! Mr F got asked by a couple where to pay and when Mr F pointed out the box to them, they decided to just walk right by it! There are 2 problems with this...1: The dishonesty of people and 2: When too many people aren't being honest, there will eventually be a ticketing system in place to ensure everyone pays that will no doubt be a lot more than £3 to park all day....be honest and pay up people!!

Usual Routine Of Mrs F Taping Her Knees In The Morning

The Steady Route Up To Catbells

There were quite a lot of people out today. So far we had only seen 3 other trekkers on our gallivants. But this is quite a popular route to take as it's pretty straight forward and a nice day. There was also a school trip which added to the masses. As it was a really humid day, Mrs F was getting through her electrolyte drink a bit too quick and warned by Mr F to slow down with it as we still had a long day ahead of us. It was quite a good feeling to still feel quite strong regardless of the heat and powered on through and up overtaking a majority of people who had stopped to catch their breath and have lots to drink...

Catbells Dead Ahead

Regardless of how intimidating this looked, there were still people out with their young kids, as young as 2 we would say walking up this!!

We had a baby scramble before reaching the top.....

Our First Of 6 Done...Catbells!

Our Horseshoe At A Glance

Moving on swiftly to Maiden Moor, we noticed that the masses of people who carried on after Catbells were becoming less & less. There were now only a few people that carried along the horseshoe.

Final Route To The Top Of Maiden Moor

Once we were at the top, we had a little pit stop and Mrs F put her coat back on as the weather once again changed in an instant and a load of cloud came over and was quite windy. We noticed that a plane was coming through the mountains practising their low mountain range flying and was coming back around to come right over the top of us. This was Mrs F's chance to finally get a video of it to show what an awesome noise it makes as it goes over and had plenty of time to get the camera ready. However, this was a fairly new camera and she didn't know that as soon as you switch to video, it starts recording. So as it came over, she pressed the button which actually stopped it from filming and took a photo instead!! Rather anoying

Looking Mountain Number 3...High Spy

So in order to get to High Spy, we had to come down slightly to go back up again. We came across a little Tarn that looked like people had previously camped by. From here it was a straight forward stepping stone route up the High Spy, but the humidity was still quite high even though the cloud was now covering majority of the sky, so was a slight slog in the heat....

Interesting Shaped Rock In The Path!!

Mrs F By The Tarn

On Our Way Up To High Spy

On our way up, we randomly came across a shed! Mr F had a look at why it was there and it was the builders who were repairing the path. You could see where and why the path was being repaired, there were quite a lot of big gaps where it looked like previous stones had been unearthed.

From High Spy it was like a Big Dipper walk - we were up, down, up, down from one summit to another, but it was a fairly simple ridge walk, so not too strenuous.

Making Our Way Up The Path

Summit Of High Spy

Mr F Was Quite Proud Of This Selfie!

A Look Ahead At The Horseshoe Ahead Of Us....3 To Go!

Mr F Having A Guzzle Of Electrolyte Drink

On Our Way Up To Dale Head

From Dale Head we walked out to  Hindscarth before heading onto our final summit for the day....Robinson.

Mrs F was having trouble with the wispy bits at the front of her hair! We were by now on our way to our final summit for the day...Robinson, that looked like a bit of a steep straight up path from every angle, including when up close to it!

The Final Climb To Robinson

On Our Way Down From Robinson

On our way down, we came across a fairy challenging scramble down. Mr F went one way and Mrs F went another, just because we each found our own way to get down. It was quite a tough little unexpected scramble...

                                                               Our Little Scramble Down....

Looking Down The Valley To Where We Were Heading

Mr F Checking The Way Down

Once we were off the scramble, we followed the path to a certain point, but we couldn't keep following it because it would have taken us over a different way to where we needed to be and go. We needed to head around to the right so we looped back to the start, as it was a horseshoe walk.
We found a faint part on the grassy slope heading down to the tarn that Mr F confirmed was definitely the right way to go....Mrs F checked with him a few times!

On our way down off of Robinson, Mr F found on the floor a mens bracelet that looked brand new and hardly worn, so we took it with us and emailed trail magazine to advertise that we had found a bracelet and hope to get it back to the owner. Mr F looked the branded bracelet up online and it turns out it was only just out as new!

We got down to the tarn and walked back through the valley which was a really lovely place to be. There were lambs playing and it was just so peaceful, it was a calm warm late afternoon...just a really lovely walk back.

Once on ground level, it was a loooooooong walk back to the car, which we knew about before we started. It's part and parcel of doing a horseshoe walk unfortunately.
We were walking for such a long time along a secluded country road. Mr F tried to get as close as he could to a rabbit before it hoped off and then we came across some horses in a field that Mrs F just had to go and say hello to and feed them a yoghurt biscuit that they both loved....

Our Long Boring Walk Along The Country Lane

We reached a point where it looked like there was an option to cut across over to the start off the horseshoe at the bottom of Catbells and ultimately the car. Mr F got out his map and confirmed that this road would take up to the main road that leads to the car instead of walking all the way round and going the long way. So we walked another fair way up this other little road and got to a dead end by a farm!! We jumped a farmers gate into the field thinking we could just walk across the sheep fields (hoping not to get air riffled down by any farmers) but we quickly came across a barbed wire fence that was impossible to get over...it looked like we had to back track which was so disheartening.
Mr F was so adornment that he read the map right (as questioned by Mrs F) that once we climbed back over the gate, he double checked it. He was so sure that the main road would pick up just behind the farm that we took a chance and walked behind the farm. How could we have ever doubted him!! There was the gateway to the main road that lead us straight back to the car :-)

It was still about 15mins before we was back at the car. We didn't really stop for a proper lunch although we did make one and Mrs F had a little dizzy stumble which was her body's way of saying "Eat something fool"! So she had a tracker bar and felt better.

Our Final Road Back To The Car

As per routine, we headed straight for food and then back to the B&B, hoping for a good nights sleep after a long day.....but oh no! Mrs F was in quite a bit of pain with her hips that night and it was a really muggy night, so took ages to get to sleep. Then at 5am, the person right above us was walking around their room doing various things including what seemed like a river dance! They were literally walking around in their room with heavy feet until we left our room for breakfast! Needless to say that Mrs F was in a very grumpy mood indeed!! Inconsiderate people who wake her up is by far her worse thing ever!!
So we did mention it to Helen at breakfast and she thought it may have been people leaving that day and packing up to go, but turns out it was just one lady! Phillipa came out to see us once we had finished breakfast and said that she had a room free with a bath for us to move in to for the remainder of our stay and if we packed everything up in our room, they will move us to our new room. Turns out they moved us to their best suite!

So we went back to our room and packed up everything which didn't take too long at all and put some in the car which we could take back later so no to leave them with too much to move.


   DAY 4: WHITE SIDE - 2,832FT
                 RAISE - 2,889FT
                 SILVER HOW - 1,292FT
3 & HALF HOURS THEN 2 & HALF HOURS TREKKING

So, after we had packed up the room, we headed out in our waterproofs as it was pouring of rain. It was that horrible fine rain that tends to get you more wet. But, as we're not fair-weather trekkers and use the philosophy of  'No such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing'

So we planned to go and do the Dodd's which are a group of mountains close together, that all include the the name Dodd. We parked in a lay-by and walked to the start of another sloped climb in the rain and eventually ended up heading into a cloud. It wasn't at all cold, just wet and windy...

Mr F Ready To Embrace The Rain

Our Way Up Ahead

 As we were heading further into the cloud, visibility was becoming quite poor, so Mr F had to rely not only on his own good sense of direction and the Wainwright book, but more on the Satmap to ensure we were on the right track. As we neared White Side, the wind was really kicking up and it was difficult to even hear each other. Mr F took a video to demonstrate it...

We Were Heading Straight Into This!

Mr F Pointing The Unseen Way

We Finally Managed To Find The Summit...Didn't Risk A Self Timer!

The Road To Raise

Although the wind was blowing at around 40mph, Raise wasn't actually too far away, so we done our best to stay upright and walked over to it. From there we were supposed to carry on to the Dodd's but from past experience of making bad judgements calls to carry on through bad weather (see our 2014 April, blog for details around that!) we decided that it would be foolish to carry on the way the weather was and so headed back down from Raise....reluctantly, but the safest. Mr F had to check his Satmap again to make sure we were heading off in the right direction as there was a crossroads we came across where we had to turn left and would have been quite easy to miss it.

Looking Rather Wind Swept At Raise Summit

It got to a point where we were having little runs here and there to get out of the cloud and wind as quick as we could and because the wind was actually pushing us down too! In fact we both loved a bit of fell running and wouldn't mind getting into it a bit more. At first we were on a grass track that eventually lead us to stepping stones. At one point, we looked back and saw that the cloud had cleared slightly and was almost tempted to head over and do the Dodd's after all, but we had already made the decision to go down and the first decision is usually the right one. But we did plan to come off of this mountain and go and do another little low one somewhere else. Apart from a film, crew who were heading up, we didn't see anyone else who was crazy enough to be out on the fells in this weather!

Heading Down Into Non-Cloudy Territory 

Since we were already on a roll with making our way into farmers fields on this trip, we thought we'de continue with that by also heading off into a farmers field and having to turn around! We contemplated jumping the gate that said 'No Access To Main Road' but would have meant walking right through the farmers back garden of his house, so after deciding that might be a bit cheeky, we had to back foot up the side again and make our way across, over a bridge and back where we picked up the path where we started and back to the car. Once back at the car, Mr F got out his map and book and had a look at what we could do. He decided that we could head over Grasmere and climb a little one called Silver How that is number 202 in the 214 Wainwright peaks height order.

We've driven past Grasmere but never through it and what a lovely little town it is. We parked up for free again along the main road and walked down towards the town. Before we got to the main town centre, we turned right and headed up the road that was the start of the walk to Silver How. Well...for a little fell it did punch a steep climb at the beginning! Then when we had walked up and through the bottom, we reached the never-ending stepping that took us up to the summit. Just goes to show that just because t's not that high, doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be easy!

Look at Skiddaw for example - number 4 on the list for height at 3,053ft but it is literally one road up and one road down with no challenges whatsoever. Quite boring actually (see our 2014, July blog)

Heading Across Back To The Car

   

 

The Start Of Our Walk To Silver How

Usual Seen Of Mr F Checking His Satmap

Looking Over Towards Loughrigg

The Way Up To The Summit

The Never Ending Stepping Stones

We reached a point near the top where we could have gone straight  up with the stepping stones or cut off and do a little scramble to the summit. As we were both fed up of the stepping stones and really warm, Mrs F suggested just going up and at it...so we did.

Heading Of The Stone Path....

...And Onto The Summit

We didn't spend too much time on the summit as we wanted to get down and head to a bakery for cake! So on our way down we came across an old man who was perched up against a wall with his 2 walking sticks, wearing his shirt and tie...bless him! So we asked if he was OK and he said that he was just having a little breather and that he had done this walk plenty of times before as he only lived at the bottom of it. So after talking for a while it turned out that he was a famous lake district fell walking book writer and Chris Jesty, who revised Wainwrights books, done all the maps for this guys books! And his friends were part of the Edmond Hillary Everest expedition. He was also part of a few climbing clubs and was wearing his Rock & Fell Climbers Club badge that Mrs F asked him about. He not only had done all the Wainwrights a few times and more in the lakes, but had also been trekking all over the world including the Himalayas and it was nice to chat about the same places we had been to and shared stories. His name was Bob Allen and we could have stopped to talk to him for hours, but we had to get down and he had to get up, so we said our farewells and all went along our merry way.  Mrs F was really gutted not have had a photo taken with him. But when we had got back to town and had a little walk around and got our cakes, we went into a little bookshop and found one of his books!

We left Grasmere and went straight back to the hotel this time as we were eager to see our new room...and boy was it a room! The bathroom was really big with a tele built into the wall for you to sit in the bath and watch it, the shower had a stop/start button on the outside as well as the inside, the room itself was lovely and big and we had the balcony. They had kindly moved our things in the room and Mr F had 2 birthday card waiting for him on the bed. We organised our things and since the sun was still shinning, Mrs F had a little sit outside on the balcony whilst Mr F was reading up on what to do for his birthday the next day. We didn't bother to et showered and changed, we just headed straight out for food and came back to enjoy the spoils of our room....especially the bath with the tele!

The Tele In The wall That Looks Like A Mirror

DAY 5: MR F's BIRTHDAY!!
              ROSSETT PIKE - 2,106FT
              ESK PIKE - 2,903FT
              ALLEN CRAGS - 2,572FT
7 HOURS TREKKING

So today is Mr F's (& Muggles) birthday! We started the day with cards and presents before heading down to breakfast where Trevor put a little sparkler in Mr F's hash brown!
We headed back to Langdale which we thought we would never have to go back to, but we still had to do Esk Pike which was next to mount doom, Bowfell. We parked up in our faithful Dungeon Ghyll car park and instead of heading to the left down the path that took us through the farm, we headed right and walked through the valley that we always could see from above. We did want to have a day, preferably today where we got the bus like we did before, but Mr F looked at bus times and it just didn't really fit with breakfast times and the first bus we would need to get from Windermere.

It started out to be a nice sunny morning, but didn't last very long as we headed further through the valley and into the windy cloud....Mr F decided that short video blogs was the way to go now...

Birthday Presents

Not Sure What Mrs F Is Doing...Maybe Praying!

We found it quite bazaar that 99% of the lambs that were around were black with white mothers...maybe they were all adopted! 

Mrs F Tried To Sneak Up Behind Them For A Photo

The walk through the valley was quite a long one before we got to the stepping stone point. There was a man who walked back and forth looking at his map not overly sure of where he was going, but ended up just behind us and a couple who went completely off course and ended up over in the grassy area! There were quite a few people out today, all heading in the same direction. Up round to the left of the valley and towards either Allen Crags, Esk Pike or Great End that leads to Sca Fell. We however once we got to the top of the never ending stepping stones came back on ourselves slightly to do Rossett Pike. The weather as usual had taken a turn from sunny to really not sunny, but cloudy and windy again!

En route To The Stepping Stones 

On Our Way To Rossett Pike

Summit Selfie

From Rossett Pike, we headed down off of that and carried on with the masses on the path that lead us to Angle tarn. The guy who seemed lost was still behind us at this point and stopped at the tarn as we did, then carried on when we did. We made a joke and said that he was probably following us!

On The Way To Angle Tarn

As we walked further up, we headed deep into the cloud and visibility dropped. We got to a crossroads where Mr F had to check his Satmap to see where we needed to go. At this point, the man who we thought was following us asked where to go. We asked him if he had a map and he said he had his I-Pad...really?! So we showed him the way. Once we got to another crossroads, we turned left for Esk  Pike and the guy started to follow us and asked if we were heading for Sca Fell...so he really was following us!! We put him on the right track and made our way to Esk Pike...Mr F done is final video blog...

The Way Ahead

Mr F Consulting His Map

              
We headed deeper into the cloud and it had an all too familiar feel of when we got lost on Bowfell to it! As we were nearing the summit, the noticed there was an elderly man in shorts coming up to the summit too. He asked how to get to Bowfell but we strongly recommended against him going in the current weather conditions, so he asked if he could join us on the route down...another rescue by us for the day! We headed off of Esk Pike and back to the crossroads where we put him on the road for Great End. We did feel quite concerned for him...

En Route To Esk Pike Summit

Summit Photo

 From the crossroads, we headed back towards where we came up to make our way over and up to Allen Crag. On the way, we came across a foreign couple who had backpacks like they were climbing Everest and asked us how to get to Sca Fell....seriously, what is it with people heading out and not knowing where they're going?! We could really understand why mountain rescue gets frustrated with having to go out and rescue ill equipped people. Mr F showed them on the Satmap where they need to be heading but to be honest, we didn't think they really understood it or even what we were saying as their English wasn't great. After we seemingly rescued more people, we headed down to the wind shelter where we sat out of the fierce wind and had lunch...Mr F had a birthday photo with all the boys, including Cuddles who came out with us for the first time! :-)

The walk up to Allen Crag was pretty straight forward and didn't take long at all to get to the summit...

Allen Crags Summit Photo

Esk Pike & Bowfell In The Cloud Where We Had Just Been

We followed the path back towards Rossett Pike and stopped to make a decision as to whether we were going to head back exactly the same way we came, or head over to the left and climb down to the valley that way via Black Crags. Since we're not fans of going back the same way we came, we opted for the latter.
However, Mrs F wasn't overly convinced this was the quicker way although Mr F was totally convinced it was. Black Crags was a challenge in itself, it was a steep slope leading to the path that connected up eventually to the valley floor, but it seemed to take forever to reach the path! Once we were on it, it was a long walk down, so we had a pit stop on rock big enough for both of us to plonk down on and admired the valley view before heading off. We entertained ourselves by playing a game where we had to name the most of something, for example who could name the most James Bond villa's and Tom Hank films...it made the walk down less monotonous and fun!

Back At Angle Tarn

Looking Back At Where We'd Been In he Cloud

The Gorgeous View Of The Valley

Mr F With Pike O'Stickle In The Background

Black Crags

Eventually we made it to the valley floor and the walk back to Dungeon Ghyll seemed to last forever. But, we eventually made it back and stopped to have a well earned soda and lime with the rest of masses. From there we went to the Ship Inn for a birthday meal. Mr F had been eyeing up the Chille Nachos all week and so for his birthday, he had them...all in all, a good birthday day for Mr F :-)

Mr F's Birthday Nachos

Mrs F's Mahoosive Portion Of Lasange

     















 The Beautiful View From Our Table...

DAY 6: GRASMERE WITH MRS F's DAD & MERYL

So on our last day, we didn't know if we were doing another little day on the fells before heading back home or spending the day with Mrs F's Dad & Meryl. The weather was quite nice, so we met up with them and headed into Grasmere as it was a lovely little town to have a wonder. We walked through the church yard where William Wordsworth and his family were buried. Then spend some time in the Daffodil Garden where people had their names engraved on the walkway stones and where they were from. We found a couple of places that were close to where Mrs F grew up and where Mr F was born, but Meryl couldn't find a Blackburn one! So we walked around trying to find one and eventually near the end of the walk, we found a couple.

William Wordsworth Grave

Then from there we were tempted into the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop that smelt divine to buy some home made gingerbread and Mrs F' Dad bought some fudge. The gingerbread wasn't as we thought it would be - as Mr F put it, he though it was going to be more like a McVities type thing! It was crumbly on top and more like a biscuit, but nice nice. The fudge that Mrs F's Dad bought however was delicious! Then we went for a walk around the shops and went in to the church where Meryl bought a handmade card for her daughter. Then we headed towards Easedale Tarn which the guy in the book shop said it was about a mile and half from the main road. Turns out the tarn was further away than the booker keep said, so we turned around but it was still a nice walk through the woods country lane.

We didn't spend too long walking around and we still had to make the journey back to London. So after a nice morning and early afternoon spent together, we said our farewells and we started the long 5 & half hour journey back to London. It was really lovely to spend some time together...

VERDICT OF LAKE DISTRICT IN JUNE 2015

Mr F: Considering It was June the weather was grim with exception of our day on Catbells. As a wise man once said "There is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing" . A great week although not as many Wainwrights ticked off as we had wanted, but I guess they are not going anywhere. Bring on September.

Mrs F: The weather was somewhat different to last year when we came in June (see our 2014,July blog) where last year we were trekking in t.shirts and shorts most days and dipping our feet in the tarns to cool down. This year there was a lot more cloud covering but as mentioned, we're not fair-weather trekkers so a bit of rain didn't fuss us. Although Mr F planned out an epic 30 mountains, we were held back by the weather but made the right decisions each day. We said a prayer at the beginning of all our treks and had our peak prayers which was and is always a first most importance for us. The Lord kept us safe and well once again and kept Mrs F's IT bands and knees pain free! :-)

It was so lovely to be back in the lakes for Mr F's birthday just the 2 of us this time....78 Wainwrights down....136 to go...COME ON!!