England Coast to Coast: Day 6
I don’t know where to start to describe Day 6. The stage today was a long one, 16 miles from Patterdale to Shap, and as I overnighted in Glen Ridding about a mile north of Patterdale, I got a bonus mile. Yay, me! In addition, this day was the last bit of walking in the Lake District National Park and it certainly did not go gently into that good night. Reviewing the route the night before I was dismayed to see several things on the map that did not make me happy. The first was a climb over one of the higher hills of the Lake District Park, Kidsty Pike, followed by what was described as “a steep descent and you might need to use your hands”. Checking the map it looked like all of the elevation that was gained over four miles was lost in a mile. Furthermore, once down the hill (dare I say, mountain?) along the path that then followed a lake-turned-reservoir, my map indicated “annoyingly steep ascent” on part of the route. Overall the book cheerfully informed me that the total altitude gained (and lost) was about 4400ft. So on the longest day yet I was facing the most altitude changes yet. To top it all off I checked the weather and thunderstorms were being predicted for late afternoon with rain happening randomly anywhere past 11am. Absolutely wonderful….
One of the pages from the book I am using showing the map for part of the day. You can see an example of the type of information. All in all it has been great and very useful.
So, weighing all of the factors, I decided to get an early start. Forget breakfast, which was not going to be available until 8am; I would be long gone by then. I figured if I got on the path by 6am I had the best chance of getting down on the other side of the mountain by 10:30-11:00am at the latest. My goal was to not be descending in the rain through the steep section the book warned about. I had developed a healthy respect, as previously mentioned, for what my book described “steep”. I left a note for my hostess letting her know I had changed my plans and charged out of the inn right on time. It was already raining so I had put on all my rain gear, including my poncho, and headed down the road a mile to Patterdale to pick up the trail. I pretty much had the road and the trail to myself- no surprise that early in the morning. As I got to the trailhead for the climb I saw a sign posted with a small map stating “trail has been washed out, proceed with caution or use alternate route”. Great! Looking at the map I spent 15 minutes or so trying to determine if the trail they were referring to was my trail or another one- there are tons of trails in the hills and they had just drawn a large circle on the map with no specifics. I decided I had no choice but to go find out, but I felt fairly comfortable since I had spied an alternative route on my topo map in case I need it later.
After climbing for 30 minutes I turned and snapped this looking down to my start. The sky had cleared for a while.
With some trepidation and a little worry, I headed up the slope. It was a gradual ascent, thank goodness, and I went into “power walker” mode; I was a woman with a mission. Today was not the day for leisurely strolling and enjoying the landscape. The theme for today was get to point B as fast as possible and avoid thunderstorms and rain showers at bad moments (not like I had a lot of control over that last one!). The rain had stopped and I peeled off my rain jacket and poncho and looked back down to the valley where I had come from. Figures- the sun was shining. But I could not complain too much since I was fairly dry at the moment myself.
A little less than half way to the top I stumbled on this beautiful tarn”
I got a fair way up, maybe 40% or so and arrived at a small pond (tarn) in a meadow and it was beautiful and I had to slow down to enjoy it for a moment. Others clearly thought so too since I saw several campers around the water. So I have to admit that the beauty of the Lake District stayed constant all the way to the end! About this time I noticed a guy on the trail ahead of me and eventually caught up to him. He had a fairly heavy pack and was not moving too fast. Like me, he had started early in order to avoid the worst of the weather. We chatted for a bit then I moved by him. As I climbed higher it started getting drizzly and damp; I was moving into a cloud and so the beautiful scenery disappeared hidden by a gray mist.
Kitsby Peak as I approach it, unfortunately surrounded by clouds.
There was a tricky point near the top along the final ridge where the path disappeared into the not uncommon rocky ground and I spent some time trying to find the cairn that marked the turn of the path east. I could see that the path split, one led south-east and one led east but I was not sure I was at the right intersection. From the map in my book I knew I had to turn east, but at the point marked by a cairn. There was no cairn anywhere, although with all the rocks strewn about I was worried it could be easily missed. I was standing there consulting both my topo map and my book when the guy I had passed earlier caught up to me. That was very fortuitous as we then compared his map, my map, (we had the same books so no need to compare those) and better yet, get a reading off of his GPS. After a discussion we decided the way forward was south. Now understanding exactly where I was on my map, I was dismayed to see I was not as far along as I though I was, unfortunately. But feeling confident I headed off again moving off in front of him.
And to really bring my point home, this is the view I had from the peak. A lovely cloud, which brought with it rain and a chilly wind. I did not linger.
Eventually as I got closer to the top it started raining again. Rather I should say that I walked into a healthy cloud. On with the rain gear, but not the poncho, it was a bit windy too, and cold. I did put the backpack cover over my backpack in an attempt to keep it from getting soaking wet. In general it was pretty miserable and I just wanted to be down the other side of the mountain. Finally I reached the top but due to the cloud surrounding it, the view was nonexistent, the wind was fierce and I did not pause to savor my achievement. The imperative to be “down” was driving me forward, and my hands were cold. I had my hood up but that mainly kept the wind off my head helping me keep a little bit of warmth.
The path continued directly east over a grassy knoll, but even when it disappeared from time to time, I knew I was going in the right direction. I kept moving, grimly waiting for the perilous descent promised me by my guide book. The cloud had drifted off, thankfully, so at least I could see and I was not getting wetter. Up ahead, looking down into the valley with the reservoir, my eventual destination once down the hill, I could see blue sky so I had double reasons to be there. The path descended steeply in the grass but I knew that was not the place I was dreading. Nonetheless I had to continue watch my footing since the ground, both the grass and the numerous rocks, were wet.
Coming down the peak and looking ahead the trail just seemed to drop off but that was not the point the book was talking about.
Eventually I came to “the place” and yep, the path dropped off steeply. Looking back up the hill I was disgusted to see that the peak I had just descended from was surrounded by blue sky and clear as a bell. I bet the view was spectacular but that moment had passed for me- I was moving forward and down, albeit slowly and carefully. I am not ashamed to admit that I did use my hands and occasionally, my butt, to get down that part of the path- it was like climbing down a gully in places, with more vertical drop than horizontal forward progress. I simply took my time and was not surprised to find an hour had passed by the time I had descended to the lake, where it was still sunny. Looking at my watch, I had met one of my goals- to get down the other side of the hill between 10:30 and 11:00am. It was 10:40, I had been walking for 4.5 hours but I still had eight to nine miles to go so the day was by no means over.
Here is the steep part of the path, which is hard to visualize without someone standing in it for reference, but it was steep, trust me!
The path took off along the northwest side of the lake and wound its way to the other end where the dam was located, turning the originally small body of water into a very large reservoir for the local cities. I could not see the other end as the lake curved off to the east but the map showed me the other end. It was going to be pretty hard to get lost during this part of the route since the plan was simply “follow the lake”. Knowing that the “annoyingly steep ascent” was still in front of me but happy with the progress I had made so far, I headed off down the trail which paralleled the shoreline about 100 meters up the slope. When I finally reached the “annoyingly steep ascent” I had to agree with the book. it was very steep and very annoying, especially since there was no reason why the path should not have been able to continue along at the level it had been. I think that is where the “annoying” part of the description came from. But, having no choice, I climbed it.
The path along the lake. You were not going to stray anywhere else.
All in all it was a pleasant walk along the lake and I was able to move fast since the path was more or less level. After about an hour I looked behind me and saw a cloud coming down the peak along the lake and with it, rain. I sped up and tried to race the system, but after 30 minutes, it had caught me and I was in the rain again. On came the rain gear and the poncho, again. This time the rain was rather pleasant. There was no wind to speak of and it was not cold. It did not last long, either, maybe 20 minutes and by that time I was at the end of the lake and through the gate that marked the end of the Lake District National Park. The good thing about this is that the “coast to coast” marker signs started reappearing (they don’t have them in the Lake District Park for some reason) and the path finding became a bit easier.
Being chased by a cloud. I lost the race and was soon in the rain again.
Five miles to go and I was back in fields with cows and sheep walking along streams or rock walls and guided by signs. I was ready to be done. My boots were soaked through, my socks were wet and I was tired and looking forward to stretching. That did not stop me from admiring the countryside as I powered through it (I was still walking pretty fast). Everything was so neat and tidy and laid out in perfect squares that you could point your camera in any direction and get a shot worthy of a post card.
My impatience to be done grew as I neared my goal. I had in my head that Shap’s Abbey would be the end point, for all practical purposes. It turns out the abbey lies outside of Shap a little over a mile and that last 20 minutes was mentally tough! I was done, in my head, when I reached the abbey. I should have looked at my maps more closely so I did not psych myself out! Finally I arrived at the B&B and got dry, cleaned up and then went in search of food and a well deserved beer. No soccer tonight but that is OK because I won’t be up for much longer!
The post card perfect English countryside.
All in all today was a very intense day, lots of physical challenges, lots of mental challenges and I probably experienced every emotion that you could, all in the space of less than ten hours. I went through worry, dread, anxiety, joy, peace, contentment, annoyance, disgust, happiness, and probably several others I have forgotten. Now all that is left is exhaustion and anticipation of another adventure tomorrow. Good night!
(By the way, the expected thunderstorms passed over Shap around 3:30pm, about an hour after I arrived, but they did not dump anything on this area but looked really menacing further east. The day here stayed sunny and pleasant.)
Whew, Glad to hear from you! I was waiting for your blog this morning and kept thinking where is it. That park must be huge. It is certainly beautiful. Do they have many forests? I didn’t notice many trees. Love, mom