At last we are down to the final handful of fells to conquer.  The final five are all in Wasdale and today we were planning on Lingmell.  It was my turn to drive and as it was a long drive I intended picking Peter up at 6 am.  I was only 5 minutes away from home and realised I had forgotten my walking socks, so had to turn back.  It would have been a painful walk with just lining socks in my boots!  So it was about 6.15 am when I got to Peters.

We arrived at Wasdale Head just after 9 am.  As we drove towards the little bridge entering the National Trust car park, we are sure we saw Chris Bonnington driving out of the car park.  The car park was busy with Three Peakers but still plenty of spaces. We parked up, booted up, Scotch Egged up and began walking at 9.25 am.

Start of the walk

The path lead us up Lingmell Gill initially until we reached a gate.  At the gate we could follow the path up towards Brown Tongue or veer left up a steep grassy slope.

The grassy slope looked very steep and from this viewpoint the path looked the easier option.  We decided on the grassy slope though to get the steep climbing out of the way.  Also this route would avoid the traffic from the Three Peakers on the way to Scafel Pike.

In the distance we could see a stile and this was our first target.

It was a fantastic day in Wasdale, tee-shirt and shorts all the way.  The views were also amazing. We were right in the heart of the biggest mountains in the lake District and we had a ringside seat.

This is a very busy area at this time of the year as people attempt the Three Peaks challenge with maximum daylight.  The area is littered with camp sites and car parks to deal with the seasonal traffic.

We were now approaching the stile that had seemed so far in the distance.

The Scafels

Most of the time when we are walking around here, the Scafels are in cloud, but not today.  We could see them in all their glory. So a good opportunity to take some photos.

Strangely, Scafel always looks bigger than Scafel Pike!

The Summit of Lingmell

Onwards and upwards toward the summit and the views got even better.

The grassy slope was now more rocky over the final kilometre to the summit.

We reached the summit just after 11.30 and only a little over 2 hours climbing.

It was such a nice day with just a little breeze, and it was still early so time for a long bait stop.

The Descent

One was all we could realistically do today, Pillar and Scoat Fell were some distance.  Whilst Scafel was possibly within reach it was a tough ask for me especially. We descended in the direction of the route to Scafel Pike, heading towards Hollow Stones and then down Brown Tongue.  We had passed about three people so far today, that was about to change as we hit the M1 of the Lakes in May, June and July.

Mickledore was the route we took up to Scafel Pike when we did that, to avoid the crowds.  Brown Tongue was very busy with some weird and wonderful sights.  People wearing very basic trainers, one person dressed for the Arctic and one bloke with a wedding dress!  I suppose it was a Royal Wedding day.

We got back to the car just after 2pm.  The car park still very busy, we started the drive home.  We just had time to stop at the Sportsmans Inn on the A66.  Only 4 left to do now, so a very satisfying drive home.

See you on the next one, hopefully in June.