Saturday 3 July 2004 - A Sort of Biathlon Day

This rather historic posting is for Andrew. I hope it brings back happy memories. The time was soon  before Sue and I took a long trip to the Pyrenees after I'd completed some management accounts for a June year end, otherwise we'd have gone by now...

Here's my account:

Sue and I were up at 6:30 to enjoy chocolate croissants before loading the car with two bikes, bike gear, walking gear and camping gear (actually no problem apart from the risk of oil impregnation) and setting off at 7:30 for Bowness.

Stopping at the South Lakes services on the M6, we spotted Andrew's Volvo and joined him for a pot of tea before continuing to the ferry car park at Bowness. It was raining, so a spacious area under a tree canopy came in very handy for us to assemble and oil the bikes and get ready.

Half an hour later, at 10 am, we set off on the route. We rode slowly through Bowness and Windermere. (Andrew later suggested an alternative through a Windermere housing estate to the right - check next time).

Then we endured a short distance along the horribly busy A591, before turning first left along lanes to eventually join Dubbs Road and pass Dubbs Reservoir. By now the showers had subsided and the views across to Troutbeck were good.

It was a lovely technical descent to Troutbeck (Sue and Andrew walked quite a bit of it). 

Then we took the narrow path up to Troutbeck village and the long ascent up towards Jenkin Crag.

We stopped for quite a while at the bench overlooking Windermere. A lovely spot. On the way, many common spotted orchids in the verges, and still a smell of garlic in the woodland sections.

 

We continued on to Jenkin Crag. En route there is a quick grassy section. I misjudged it and caught a pedal in a verge. This catapulted me down a grassy slope. Quite fun really. Out of sight of any onlookers, but they did look puzzled when they passed. (I was waiting in a rather odd place and I was busy straightening handlebars and saddle.)

Ahead of the others again, I strolled across to Jenkin Crag before heading down the last rocky section (I got off for a 10 metre section down wet rock) to Ambleside, where we enjoyed a 20-minute stop, with ice-creams purchased from a girl with a very limited command of English. The ice cream ran out and the refilled machine squirted ice cream all over the hapless foreigner, but we eventually got the goods (12:40 to 1 pm).

After watching swans with six cygnets (swan angry with radio-controlled boat), we continued along the road towards Hawkshead, passing High Wray and Low Wray, and always keeping left, until reaching the Dower House at the top of a crest. From here we descended enjoyably to the lake and stopped to look at birds in the wood. Thrushes, and other birds on trees in the distance -  Nuthatch maybe. Earlier, birds of prey had been seen over the hills near Troutbeck.

This lovely track continued all the way back to the ferry on a now dry day. The thick foliage allowed only brief views of the lake, but we heard the shouts of water skiers and the swoosh of waves reaching the shore from the various boats traversing the lake. 40p each saw us across the ferry and back to the car park (£4 pay and display), where we enjoyed a bite to eat (pork pies for me and Sue) before all travelling in heavy traffic up to Braithwaite (3 pm to 4 pm).

Here's the route (click on it for a better version) - 30 km with 700 metres ascent:

And so, our new Hilleberg Nallo 2 tent joined Andrew's older one at the Braithwaite campsite. Andrew shared his first brew on his new stove, and after that nice cup of tea we went to the excellent campsite cafe for a baked potato before setting off on Phase 2 of our biathlon - the ascent of Hopegill Head.

17:35 - Braithwaite
19:20 - Grisedale Pike 

We met a person on the way up, he was slow and singing, the only person seen other than a few on the ridge the other side of Coledale.

Sue and I had a Brocken Spectre experience for a couple of minutes. It was quite unexpected - cloud drifted into Coledale and our reflections in it were caught by the low sun.

The strongish wind didn't deter us from continuing to Hopegill Head (20:00 to 20:15), from where we descended gently to reach the Red Lion by 21:45, after a lovely pink sunset, to enjoy a drink (Bailey's for Sue, who seems to have slowly recovered during the day from a serious hangover) with a couple of Geordies.

Spots of rain before a showery christening for the Nallo 2.

Other points of interest:

• ascending Grisedale Pike - Hospital Plantation - we surmised it may have been named after an ancient 'isolation area' used for people with contagious diseases. Yes, GP6 (Wainwright) confirms that the solitary dwelling on the Whinlatter Pass road (now 'Lakeland View') was once a Fever Hospital;
• lovely path up Grisedale Pike - see Wainwright's GP8;
• on the ridge walk from Grisedale Pike to Hopegill Head, good views of the lush cliffs of Hobcarton Crag, known for being the habitat of a rare Alpine plant, the Red Alpine Catchfly. The lush green colour is due to bilberries amongst the grey and silver rocks;
• Force Crag Mines on the descent of Coledale below Force Crag, have what looks like a new portaloo in evidence. The mine was always a rich one but not continuously worked. When Wainwright wrote his guide in 1964 it was again operating, after a lengthy closure, for the extraction of barytes - a mineral form of barium sulphate. The mines are now closed again - the days of the McKechnie Brothers of Wainwright's era (GP4) presumably being over.

Here's our route - 14 km with 900 metres ascent:

My diary entry ends, but we are pictured at breakfast the following morning. The camera used was our first Olympus Digital that took rather low resolution (1600 x 1200 pixels) images.