As the fantastic summer slipped away and I always seemed to be too busy doing something else I kept finding more and more reasons to put it off – too hot, family holiday, triathlon club relays, too windy – but it wouldn’t go away and on Friday 14th September I knew I had to have a crack or go bonkers over the winter thinking about it.
I had intended to go a week earlier but the high winds had put me off. I’m not sure I would have got round if I had tried as I reckon I would have been pretty cold coming off the hill and even colder getting out of the water. Hats off to those who were braver than me and got round safe and sound a couple of days before and after.
Stuart and Carol had been all set up to swim and canoe the lake sections with me last week but with 18 hours to kick off I had no-one to help on the hills or in the water. A quick text to Martin, “Are you free tomorrow?” and swim support was sorted. No-one available to run though, but with a decent chance of clear tops and not too much wind forecast I was good to go.
On Friday night it was still breezy but the forecast was consistently saying that it would calm down on Saturday and that the cloudbase would lift to well above the tops for most of the day so it looked safe enough to go for it. I left the moot hall at 5am and took a risk in taking the Carlside route up to Skiddaw rather than my usual Latrigg route. As it was a last minute decision I hadn’t reccied this section but had heard it was fiddly through Millbeck so feeling a bit of a cheat I relied on my Garmin to guide me onto the fell. The trouble was that with no reading glasses and a dim headtorch I couldn’t really see the screen anyway! Luckily it also beeps when you go off course and beeps again when back on the right track – not so helpful for the detailed route finding but good enough to get me through the village with just a few wrong turns and without stumbling through too many gardens.
The main problem now was trying to relax and not blow everything on the first hill, trying to climb efficiently and knowing that every wasted effort now would come back to bite me later. The clag arrived at the top of Carlside but apart from the usual breeze on top of Skiddaw it remained calm and by the time I turned for Bassenthwaite at the summit daylight was beginning to push through the murk. On the descent I found a cracking line of scree and rock through the heather down to the top of Dodd Wood and started down the forestry road when my Garmin froze! I wasn’t intending to use it to navigate any more but really wanted to record my times on each section. Pressing all the buttons in every different combination and rhythm whilst running down didn’t do any good so I gave up and swore at the trees. Luckily my fantastic swim support and psychological counsellor (Martin Bluck) offered me his watch when I met him at the car park. Gratefully I strapped it on and Martin took mine away to try to reboot it.
After an inordinate amount of faff getting the wetsuit on (a theme for the day that only got worse and worse as I got tired and greasy and the wetsuit got wetter) we ran down to the lakeshore and swam across without much drama. It was pretty chilly though and I didn’t feel my feet again until well into the woods on the way up to Barf. Martin took my wetsuit to make sure it was clean before Crummock and swam back to his car on the other side towing it behind him - which apparently dragged rather more than he had expected!
I had really enjoyed the solitude on Skiddaw and after the swim it continued to be a solitary affair. In fact after Jo waved me off at the Moot Hall at 5am, Martin was the only person I saw until I flashed past a couple of walkers on Whiteless Pike five and a half hours later. I always knew that this would be my fastest section as once on Barf the climbs weren’t too steep and there was plenty of nice fast downhill and real runnable terrain. I’ll gloss over my rubbish route finding on the whinlatter forest trails (what was I thinking? I’d reccied this bit!) so was very pleased to arrive at Hause Point slightly ahead of my most optimistic schedule.
I was expecting Crummock to be cold compared to Bassenthwaite and it was, but it also seemed to be much further than I expected. I think it measured 600m of swimming rather than the 400m I had read from the map and with Martin sighting we went pretty well direct. We went from the gravel beach, not that there was much of it, rather than from the point which probably accounts for the discrepancy. It was also clear that there was a good few metres of extra lake compared to some of the reccies I’d done during the summer drought.
Shivering and shaking out of the water and onto the rocky shore we were confronted by a herd of slightly surprised young bullocks. They kept my mind off the looming climb ahead for a few minutes while I got changed and walked past them but very soon the ground reared up in front of me and Mellbreak wouldn’t be ignored any more.
I’d been dreading this climb as last time I had reccied it we hadn’t found a decent line at all, but after seeing comments on the facebook group I tried further left and it really paid off. A bit of bracken and heather to start but pretty soon a grassy rib that took me all the way to the summit plateau. Timing was pretty much spot on schedule for this climb even when trying not to exert too much. But from there on it started to unravel a bit. I was indecisive about the best line across to Scale Force (there had been a lot of bracken last time I was there) and in the end didn’t go high and didn’t go low so had the bracken to contend with but still had all the climbing.
The climb to Red Pike is a joy when you’re in no hurry and the sun is out, but on Saturday the wind got up, the clag came down and I struggled to keep the pace up. By the time I got to High Stile I wasn’t actually sure I was on the summit so faffed a bit checking the GPS on my phone and then pushed on a couple of hundred metres to the true top.
Upon starting to descend towards Buttermere I found a dozen or so walkers milling about obviously a bit lost. “Look a runner!” someone said, “He’ll know!”. I tried to put my head down and run on but ... “Excuse me mate, is this the way to Haystacks?”. So I stopped (any excuse for a rest) and spent 5 or 6 minutes showing them where we were on the GPS, where I was going and which way they wanted to go. They wouldn’t believe me at first as apparently I was heading for Ennerdale! They seemed so convinced that I started to question myself so had to double check and even then I wasn’t absolutely certain I had got it right until I was halfway down and out of the clag.
In my hurry to get away from the walkers I missed the path at the top, not that it is great anyway, and stumbled down through wet slippery boulder fields until finding the path again lower down. It was great to see Martin and Kim on the lakeshore and it was time to struggle into my soggy wetsuit again. The swim was chilly but thankfully nice and short and we had Jo on the far shore in her orange cap to aim for!
A run up to the road in the wetsuit started to warm me up and a couple of pots of rice pudding and a gel later I was dry(ish) and ready to go just as a brief shower hit. All in all I was really lucky with the weather all day and this heavy shower turned out to be pretty much the only proper rain that I encountered.
I thought I’d probably lost a bit of time on the last section but wasn’t looking at my watch any more and instead was looking forward to the next section which felt like home ground. The Robinson, Dale Head, Catbells loop from Portinscale is a favourite midweek summer’s evening run for us, driving over from Tynedale after work. The only problem of course is the climb (crawl) from Buttermere up to Robinson. I’d only done this a couple of times before and if it wasn’t for the Frog I’m not sure I’d ever do it again! Anyway, it passed, eventually, and I had the usual panic about which part of Robinson was actually the summit before pushing on to Dale Head. When I’m feeling good I run every step from Robinson via Hindsgarth to Dale Head but certainly not on this occasion. As soon as the ground stopped going downhill I was walking which was the story all the way to Otterbield Bay. I’d done all the fell sections alone and apart from the lost walkers on High Stile and the usual people on Catbells had hardly seen a soul all day – what a privilege to have the hills to myself!
The hardest part of the day was not giving up at Otterbield bay. I stumbled down to the lakeshore to see Martin, Kim and Jo all waiting for me and if they’d given me a sleeping bag I would have got in and not come out all night. The water was not looking inviting! When I had looked down from Grisedale Pike earlier in the day the lake looked glassy and smooth with faint ripples from boats but now it was grey, breezy, choppy and distinctly uninviting. Best thing to do is not to think and crack on, so that’s what we did. Definitely chillier then a week ago and definitely a lot more water in the lake. I’d been looking forward to the Swallows and Amazons adventure of crossing the islands and although I did enjoy it, it wasn’t quite as I had pictured it! Definitely have to go back next year and do it again in warmer weather and enjoy it a whole lot more! Even so, with my teeth chattering and my numb feet stumbling across the islands I was grinning from ear to ear and so pleased to be able to enjoy the adventure.
We made landfall on the point and clambered up the gravel cliff. The quickest change of the day and then I was off on the run in to Keswick. After my struggles on Dale Head and Maiden Moor I thought I’d be walking this bit but somehow (the icebath effect of Derwent Water or perhaps the call of the Moot Hall??) I seemed to be running pretty well. A few steps of walking when the path reared up just before town and then I was bowling past Fishers and more people than I’d seen all day. They must be used to wild eyed, desperate looking, sweaty people arriving in town by now as no-one blinked an eye. Jo was there to meet me with a big hug
I sat down at the top of the Moot Hall steps and didn’t move for half an hour whilst Jo got me a huge hot chocolate from Costa, which they kindly gave her for free!
Wow, what a day! After my Bob Graham 8 years ago I was pretty sure I’d never do it again – but after the Frog, I thought – wow, what a route, must get fitter, must do it in the sunshine, must do it again!
The End
