Sitting in my car at 7.00 pm, Sunday 15th March the threat of tears from pain, slowly turned to threat of tears of sheer relief that we had made it, the burning pain from my knee and the stinging from the heel of my right foot were a worry that we had not made it entirely unscathed!
"I don't think I can do it, If it is anything like that"............
The weather had indeed matched its promise sunny, warm, finally no rain, no mud, we were organised and off on time this was it, this was going to be great, nothing was going to stand in our way (except a couple of mountains, but hey we are fit(ish)) walking by 9am, home by 4.30pm at the latest 30K - brilliant - my route planning is getting loads better I thought.
We had decided to tackle Eastern lakes again - we had had such a great time (ha,ha) over there last time we thought we would give it another go (also the free parking is good)
Stage 1 - Longsleddale - Gatesgarth Pass - Hawswater (5km - Ascent from 189m - 600m at Gatesgarth, Descent 600m - 40m at Hawswater)
Sun shining, blue sky, steep hill, perfect! Steph and Sue still run away and have to wait for me every so often but put in the ipod and plodded along, fantastic drop down to hawswater which is stunning, admired the gigantic mountains on every side - (should have been worried r
ight about now!)Stage 2 - Round Hawswater - Weather Hill (10Km - Ascent from 40m at Hawswater - 670m at Weather hill, descent 0 - 2 hours up hill!!)
Going round Hawswater was a scramble, we stopped for our sandwiches on the edge of the lake still admiring the mountains on all sides. Set off up Low Kopp, bit of a struggle to find the right path I didn't want to carry my 2 maps as the route was across 2, so had rescued a 1976 map out of the bookcase, hadn't thought that much would change as far as mountains and the like go (wrong, it seems people grow forests in 32 years!) after an hour of uphill my legs felt like jelly, and I started to feel sick, and a bit dizzy - wondered about what the number is for the mountain rescue (999??), considered if I felt ill enough to suffer the embarrassment of calling them? asked Sue to ring Simon, who promptly told us "'no pain, no gain' get bloody walking" kept going up for another hour, finally reached weather Hill.
Stage 3 - Weather Hill - Red Cragg - High raise - High street (5Km - Ascent 670m - 802m at Red Cragg, Decent 802m - 792m at High raise)
I have nothing to say about this part of the walk I think I may well have blocked it from my memory due to trauma, couldn't even eat my emergency malteasers as I still felt sick!
Stage 4 - HighStreet - Mardale Bell - Nan Beild Pass (3km - Ascent 792m - 828m, descent 828m - 700m)
Finally feel better Hurah! feel a million miles from anywhere, the view is literally breathtaking, (either that or it's the gale force winds!) we are up in the snow again, we have now been going upwards for 4 hours and we realise that at some point we have to go down - noticed that the daylight was starting to change, to a lovely sunset........
Shit! Sunset! Bugger! ..................For weeks we have laughed at Sue and her enormous rucksack, her survival bag, torch and whistle.....I hope she lets us all share!
At this point we should have possibly tried to let our families know we were alive, and running a tiny bit behind schedule - (we had said we would be back by 4.30 - it was now after 5pm!)
Stage 5 Nan Beild Pass - Kentmere - Longsleddale (8km - Descent - 700m at Nan beild - 200 at overend - Ascent to 300m descent to 189m at the car!)
We were out of the wind, and away from the snow, and for the first 4K were pretty happy for the first time in several hours - this lasted until I said "it such a shame we still have that one last big push uphill" well that ruined the mood! the lovely sunset had also been a while ago and the temperature was dropping rapidly and by the time we turned on to the path to longsleddale it was just about dark.....now decided to try and let people know we were alive only to find that we had no mobile reception!....our first experience of walking in the dark, after 8 hours on your feet, when you feel exhausted.......
I can't do this..... not if it's anything like that...........................................
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