Its been a couple of months since we were out so we were all looking forward to this walk. Steve was driving in his new Mercedes (very nice it was too) so he picked me up bang on 5.45 am and we set off to get Peter. We were on the road to the Lake District shortly after 6.00 am.

The options for today were the Newlands Valley with the possibility of up to four tops, High Street or Skiddaw. We decided on Skiddaw, I quite liked the idea of chalking off another top 10 mountain as I have to do them all eventually. So we headed over the A66 towards Keswick, arriving at our parking spot at about 7.45 am. Of course the customary pies were brought along by Peter although a request was made for the return of the Scotch Eggs, I will have to see what I can do for the next walk! It was quite a warm morning even before 8 o’clock so we knew we were in for a hot walk.

We set off just after 8.00 am heading off towards Dash Falls, passing through a number of gates with Dash Farm on our left. We passed by the foot of Dead Crags and Steve and Peter told me about when they climbed that route on a previous walk, whilst it did not look too arduous from the bottom as we began to walk around the Crags and got a different perspective you could see how steep it was and also the lack of good footholds. We arrived at Dash Falls about 9.00 am for our first bait stop. Although it was quite warm and the sun was trying to break through, as we stopped it started to rain. Fortunately it was just a quick shower and it soon passed. Dash Falls was not very high today, both Steve and Peter had seen it much higher they said.

So we turned right at Dash Falls and started a steady climb up towards Skiddaw summit, it was a very straight walk up to the summit of Bakestall where we turned left and could see Skiddaw in the distance. We decided to stop for another cuppa shortly after we turned left in a small

shelter. The higher we got the wind was blowing quite hard although it was still warm.

There was a short, flat stretch before we started to climb again although we all agreed that this last part of the climb was not as hard as the pull away from Dash Falls. We reached the summit at 11.30, it was very windy as you can tell from the pictures but I was very happy that one of the big ones was done!

The summit comprises a trig point, a view-finder and a small shelter. It was a bit breezy to hang around so we began to descend, just as we were leaving the summit we saw one of the strangest sights you occasionally come across on the fells, a bloke walking towards us, dressed as if he was going for a Sunday stroll to church, complete with some kind of man bag in his hand and even a brolly! This was over 3000 feet high in the Lakeland fells – amazing!

Anyway back to the walk, the descent towards the Long Side ridge was steep and made up of scree so quite slippy. Apparently Skiddaw is the only mountain in the Lakes that is from volcanic origin. When we got down to the start of the ridge we had another sit down to decide whether to take the ridge down or go straight down into the valley below and back to the car. Once out of the wind it was very warm and sunny so we had a good sit down, took on more liquids and finished off the last of our bait.

We decided on the route down into the valley, well it was my call and looked like the easier route! In the end I am not sure that it was easier! There was no path really on this route so we just headed in the general direction. The first bit was all scree, eventually falling into a grassy slope down to the stream. It was one of those nice walks back to the car, over a few fields and through a farm and over a stream.

We were back at the car by about 2.00pm and went into Bassenthwaite to The Sun Inn for a pint. Excellent walk, good weather, good company as always and we are hoping to try and fit another one in during July.