Borrowdale to Patterdale

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Monster of a day!

Up nice and early at 6.30, breakfast for 7.30 and off at 8.00. Ready for the day.

Up, up and away for today. Straight into the first beast of a climb to Lining Crag. Nice gentle start through to Stonethwaite before we start to go up. we look up at a HUGE monstrosity called Eagle Crag - looks enormous, but a bit concerned since the guidebook says that we’ll be looking down on that soon(ish). So up we go - already starting to get steep and rising above lovely waterfalls. Still steeper until a beast of a climb to the top - more like scrambling up these rocks. Finished! Except we weren’t - over the top just to see another peak even higher that we needed to go up to Greenup Edge Pass. That under our belt we were now looking down on Eagle Crag and watching the easy riders “only” hiking that for the day….

Got a bit lost at the top for a while - really boggy and no clear path. Stopped for a drinks break and gathered our senses to get back to action. Eventually found a path that led down (but not to the north east valley as apparently this was a major no, no according to the guidebook). It was getting a bit slippery under foot, as Ellis can tell you when he fell on his back side. Then met the stoney path again, across a little stream where we topped up with water before another 2.5 hours back down for lunch at Easedale.

Lovely sandwiches and fifteen gallons of water later we were off again.

A nice gentle stroll for the afternoon? No chance. Had another beast of a climb up to Grisedale Tarn. Again it started okay (as most of the climbs have started), only to get steeper and steeper - maybe it’s so that you don’t really notice (you really do). The peak fools us again when we reach the “top” only to see more climbing to get to the new top….

Over the new top and there it is - the Tarn. A lovely sight as it means the two beasts of climbs are now behind us. A nice stroll to the end of the Tarn and off with our shoes for a paddle. Ellis now freaks out when he sees the skin has left his little toe and he has a blister. A bit of Tarn foot spa and a blister plaster later we’re off again down the valley on the home stretch. Only another 5 miles to go.

One thing you learn is that going steep downhill is only marginally better than going steep uphill. So it’s a graft for the next hour until we get closer to the bottom and on more even ground. What could go wrong now - we could smell Patterdale.

Got lost, that’s what went wrong. Over the wrong field and needed to go an extra mile on a new route into town.

Over nine hours after setting out we finally made it to YHA Patterdale.

Quick shower and ready for dinner. I think they must have a great sense of humour here - they serve dinner upstairs and must love seeing people try to get both up and down those stairs…..

Off to bed at 9pm and ready to fight another day!!!

(Couldn’t add all the photos today since they haven’t uploaded from the phone - will sort this out tomorrow as too tired right now).

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