Return of the Scotch Eggs

Start of the walk

Looking back down Grains Gill

Glaramara on the right of this picture

Looking up Grains Gill towards Great End

We set off again after a brief break towards Great End and our turning point Esk Hause.  I had been to Esk Hause before when we climbed Great End and Esk Pike.  It’s a very busy crossroads with many popular walks in the area.  At this point we turned left towards Allen Crags and could see the summit of Glaramara in the distance.  As we approached the following picture it was nice and clear and literally as I stopped to take the camera out of my bag the mist rolled in.  I still managed to get a reasonable shot of the Langdales though.

Harrison Stickle and Pavey Ark from near Esk Hause

As we walked over Allen Crags, I was feeling quite good, the climb had not been too strenuous and I knew I had plenty left for the descent.  However the climb from here was one of those frustrating climbs.  First of all it was one of my least favourite surfaces, a very rocky path where you had to pick your steps between the rocks very carefully. It was also one of those walks where you felt the next summit was the last, only to find when you reached the summit it was not.  The last two of these false summits were particularly frustrating as I rounded the summit and noticed a reasonable descent and then another summit!

Lincomb Tarns with the Langdales behind

We ploughed on towards the top although by now the cloud was rolling in on the summit which made finding it quite difficult.  We eventually reached the top around 12.40.  There was a shelter at the top although someone had beaten us to it.  We sat behind some rocks and had lunch, waiting for it to clear a little so we could find the way down.  We sat for about 15 or 20 minutes with the cloud only lifting very slightly.  A short while later it cleared enough to see a path down which we took.

At the summit of Glaramara

Very quickly we were at the top of a very rocky scramble, about 20 or 30 feet high.  We slid our way down the scramble to a path and headed off down in the general direction of the car.  As we dropped down further it started to clear more and more.  Peter was marching off into the distance and I quickly realised he was concerned that we had maybe missed the path back down to the car, which would have been on the left somewhere.

Fleetwith Pike in the centre and in sun

Peter was well ahead at this stage when I stopped for these 2 photos of a sunny Fleetwith Pike and Borrowdale.  Looking over to my left I could see Peter waving me over.  We had missed the path down and could see behind us the path back down to the car.

Borrowdale

However the only problem was between us and the path was a huge gully.  The only way to cross it was to go back up!  It was now approaching 3 pm and we were going to start climbing again.  Not the best news I had received!  The option was to continue down the edge we were on but end up 4 or 5 miles down the road and then face a long walk back to the car.  Going back up to come down seemed the lesser of two evils!  So we started to climb until we got to a point where we could cross the gully and then try to find the path.  The path was not obvious but eventually we found it and began to descend at last.  By now however my legs were finished and we were still around 800 to 1000 feet high and on a very steep descent!  Every step was painful and had to be carefully picked as it was very rocky.  This was the worst descent I have had since St Sunday Crag.  Eventually however we reached a wall and were then on the home straight back down to the farm and the car.  We reached the car around 4.45 pm, 8 hours since we left it!  A very long day but satisfying that another one was under my belt, that’s 6 this year with hopefully another one or maybe even two before 2013 is out.

See you on the next one, probably early November.