What a great spell of weather we have had lately so we wanted to make the most of it and have a walk in warm sunshine rather than the rain and wind we normally get!  So we agreed to have a walk this weekend. I was due to pick Peter up at 6.30 am but when my alarm went off at 5.45 I made the schoolboy error of rolling over and I slept in until 6.15, so it was nearer 7.00 am when I arrived at Peters – oh dear!

We had already agreed to head over to Coniston this morning to tackle either Wetherlam or Dow Crag, the only two tops of the Coniston Fells not done yet.  We have had wall to wall sunshine for the past 2 or 3 weeks but the forecast for Saturday was more cloud in the east but sunshine in the west.  It took us until after Kirkby Stephen to see the sunshine coming through but it did.  We arrived in Coniston Village just after 9.15 am and parked in the main car park.

Strapping the boots on we started walking straight away, eating our pies as we walked.  We had both decided to bring light bags as we hoped we wouldn’t need additional layers or waterproofs.  My bag was laden with some bait and loads of water, about 4 litres, well it was going to be warm!

As we walked out of the village we passed a couple of Americans who asked if we were walking up that hill!  Amazingly they had no water and no bags, good luck guys!

We walked up past the Miners Bridge with some very nice waterfalls on our left. It was hard work, very hot and the sun was shining at this point.  We stopped a couple of times for water.  It was a great morning though and there were quite a few walkers out on what was the first day of the school holidays.  We passed a number of walkers staying at the cottages in the Coppermines Valley shown in the next photo.

We kept passing a couple who were also heading up towards Wetherlam.  Every time we stopped they came past us and you could tell they were frustrated at how we kept getting ahead of them.  To be honest I’m not sure how we did, they must have taken a very winding path.  There were many paths going off in different directions and you could see how easy it would be to get lost in fog, but no chance of that today.

It was quite a long slog to the summit with great views all the way of Coniston Old Man and Swirl How. There was also a great view of the Coppermines valley and the extensive mining that took place here many years ago.

We reached the summit just before noon and got a couple of photos in.  It was a busy summit with people coming and going.

We dropped down slightly to have a bait stop and to admire the views.  We could see many of the tops I had already done, Scafel Pike, Bowfell, Great End, Crinkle Crags, Pike O Blisco and our last walk Harrison Stickle.

We began to descend towards Levers Water where we were going to have a sit in the sunshine, however it was starting to cloud over a little now.  It was still very warm but certainly more cloudy than it had been in the morning.  I always enjoy these stops on a warm sunny day though where you can just sit and put the world to rights.

We left Levers Water down a path strewn with small, dry rocks past the mine workings and the Youth Hostel.  Eventually, we joined up with the path we ascended, just below the Coppermine Cottages in the photo above.  We got back to the car just after 2.00pm got changed and time for a couple of pints in the village.

A rare sunny day on the fells encouraged us to set a date for the next walk in 2 weeks time.