Newlands Horseshoe walk

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This morning I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm. Usually when this happens in a tent I'm straight up, what with hard floors and shiver-inducing temperatures not being the best pre-requisites to a good lie in. Not so today. The combination of a new tent, down sleeping bag and fancy self-inflating mattress (back when ah were a laddie, we didn't get any o that fancy crap!) has created the perfect early morning relaxation environment. Only time will tell if its a good thing, or if it will just turn me fat and lazy. As a sign of things to come, I snoozed the alarm for a half hour.

I pulled myself out of the tent at about 7am to see that I wasn't the only person out and about on Ambleside football pitch at this hour. One of the other jugglers (we're camped for the World Juggling Day weekend) was up and about over by the showers. I brewed up, had a chat to him for a while (sorry mate, forgotten your name) and headed off to get the 8:30 bus up to Keswick.

It never fails to amaze me just how much it costs for buses up here. It set me back £9.50 for a return ticket, on a journey of 30 miles taking 40 minutes. I'll take that though to avoid train lines getting built through the surrounding scenery. The bus driver was the typical Lake District type and I was treated to what I'm almost certain were handbrake turns round banked country bends at 60Mph, trust me, nobody is getting any sleep on this service! Not that I'd want to, the views of the various lakes as we trundled north were truly stunning in the morning light.

I arrived into Keswick around 9:15 and popped into Booths for food, drink and hayfever medication. Did I mention at this point I looked like I had some awful African disease? Red, swollen, bloodshot eyes, a hacking cough and enough snot to drown half of Bangladesh. Lovely. Luckily the pills kicked in pretty quickly and I wasn’t suffering shortly later.

I intended to do the Newlands Horseshoe walk which is a route along the ridge of several fells and mountains which form the boundary of the Newlands valley. It comprises Catbells, Maiden Moor, High Spy, Dale Head, Hindscarth and Robinson. Not only would it be a challenging walk - around 20 miles with my extra sections from Keswick, and a maximum elevation of 753 meters, but I’d be treated to stunning views of several valleys, and almost all of the main fell ranges in the Lake District!

I know the route from Keswick to the foot of Catbells pretty well so didn’t need the map for this section. The initial stroll across the flat fields towards the river, over the amazing bouncy footbridge and on through the woods down the side of Derwentwater were both beautiful - mountains rising in front of me and the first foxgloves providing some stunning pink and purple colouring - and a good warm-up for the pretty steep accent up the first section of Catbells.

Met a nice fellow halfway up this rise who was obviously having trouble - leaning heavily against a rock, hands on knees desperately trying to get more air into his lungs. I had a quick chat to him and gently broke the news that the top of Catbells wasn’t in fact just ahead, but that he’d have to walk another mile or so along the ridge to gain the summit. We stood and looked out at the view for a couple of minutes, I never get bored of this view out over Derwentwater and despite the clouds in the sky the light on the water looked absolutely superp.

I continued on up, turning around every so often to take in the sights of Derwentwater to the north-east and the small villages and lakes to the north-west. Once over the initial climb the majority of the distance to the top is easy-going and offers a lovely view of the path ahead as it snakes first to the top of Catbells and then onwards towards the peak of High Spy. Another 15 minutes and I was at the summit. Last time I was here the wind was howling around us, but today it was almost still. If you’re not into long hikes but still want some stunning all-around views Catbells is one of the best possible options, it will take an hour to walk up but you won’t be disappointed.

One thing which always surprises me while I’m out walking is the number of people who make no effort at all to prepare. A couple in their early thirties came over to me as I was walking up the ridge towards the top of Maiden Moor to ask for directions. No walking boots. No map. No waterproofs. I don’t pretend to be the most prepared of trekkers, but if you’re going to go spend a day out in the Lakeland fells I would think those three things are the minimum you’ll require! I pointed them in the right direction and continued on, hoping they wouldn’t have to be rescued later when one of them discovered just how much ankle support a trainer really can provide.

Being on this ridge really gets to something inside me. I always love to be high up and it often feels like my mind, or consciousness, expands to fill all that empty space around me. Things become simpler when there is less to get in the way of your thoughts. But this ridge also offers something else beyond that. The line reaching away in front of me offers a journey through this empty space at the roof of England, it challenges me to see it to completion. Many times during life we feel we are walking along a thin line above the abyss and this ridge offers a wonderful physical counterpoint to that. Walking one line can help you to walk the other.

So I carried on up High Spy, passing many cairns and small pools huddled secretly among the grassy hillocks along the way. Once over this point the path continues southwards for a time before I move off to the west - the base of the horseshoe. I stopped for lunch here above a pool, watching other ramblers descend the side of Dale Head towards me. Dale Head is the high point of the route at 753 meters and the walk up looks very steep, but once at the peak the rest of the walk will be a much more relaxed route down the hills back towards Keswick.

The scramble up to its summit was indeed difficult and I had to take a rest halfway, but when I reached the top I was rewarded with some of the best views of my entire life. To the north the ridge I had approached along, and the ridge I would be descending stretched away in parallel, to the south the lake-land mountains could be seen in stacked up layers. Amazing.

The route back was a fairly gentle walk along the ridge for a way, followed by a series of steep drops which often required some light scrambling, I was rewarded with great views of the crags of the western side of the fells I had walked across earlier and soon found myself at the foot of Robinson - the final fell in my route.

From there it was a half-hour walk through some great farmland back to the foot of Catbells, and I then followed my route from earlier in the day back into Keswick. I called into Booths to get some bottles of Old Rosie cider to take back for the guys at camp and collapsed, tired but happy onto the upper deck of the bus, to take me back to Ambleside and the much more relaxed nature of a juggling convention.

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