The highlight of the trip was the weekend in Threlkeld near Keswick with Ayshea, Helen, Jenny and Ali. Ayshea and I had a great time on the last girly weekend, some 18 months ago, when we ran the Snowdon Horseshoe. I was excited about repeating the experience. I had printed off a proposed route which took in 4 of the Lakeland passes and which was, on paper, 14 miles in distance and passed through some of my favourite areas of the Lakeland Fells. I was hoping it would provide a good training opportunity for the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon in early July. Fortunately, Ayshea was up for it, mad for it, whilst the other 3 chose to do Striding Edge and Helvellyn. The weather was good Saturday morning, so we parked at Seatoller and headed up the road to Honister Pass where we would start the offroad running. From there, we headed across the fells and down to Buttermere which provided some good running, but with a steep descent down to the valley. The views were just amazing - it was fantastic being back on the fells again
From there, we headed straight up the hillside to the left of the photo, to Scarth Gap, followed by another steep descent down to Ennerdale and then yet another steep, fast ascent straight up to Black Sail Pass. There was no stopping us - we were both going strong and fuelling well on energy bars and gels. From there, another steep descent took us down through the beautiful, wild Mosedale valley and some ace running through to Wasdale, where we both admitted that we were starting to feel tired. Hardly surprising seeing as we had covered 16kms and taken in a fair amount of strenuous ascent and testing descent and we had not exactly been hanging about! But there were no overwhelming aches or pains that would prevent us from completing the route. From Wasdale, we headed up a rising traverse to Sty Head, with Great Gable on our left and Gable End to our right with a fantastic view back down to Wasdale.
We took it steady as we headed up to the Col and were relieved when the highpoint was reached and we managed a gentle jog down to Styhead Tarn and then commenced the descent down Styhead Gill to Stockley Bridge - we could see the Borrowdale Valley and the end of our route in sight in the distance
The valley floor gave us the final opportunity for a weary jog 2.5kms back to SeaToller. We had been out for 5 hrs, covered 27kms which included 1700m of ascent and descent. The profile from my garmin GPS said it all;
We were pooped and in need of refuelling - a visit to Booths supermarket in Keswick did the job. Although tired and with slightly achey legs from all the descent, I was on a high and chuffed to bits at what we had accomplished and at how my body had held up.On Sunday morning over breakfast, Ayshea asked what I fancied doing before we had to head home to which I replied 'something steady, a gentle jog, not too much up and down' .... so how come we ended up ascending Hall's Fell Ridge from Threlkeld ....
(the local residents were not in the slightest bit perturbed by our presence.....)
...up on to Blencathra Saddleback and then a steep descent down Blease Gill back to Threlkeld! This equated to a further 866m of ascent/descent and 8.7kms covered in around 2 hrs 20 mins! But the running up on the top was superb and the views towards the fells spectacular.
It was then time to head back down south and after a quick chilli cooked up by Ali, she deposited me at my hotel at East Midlands airport from where I had an early flight back to Carcassonne this morning. It had been a cracking trip. I returned to Pissou to find that Andy has been busy while I have been away and has installed the new shower tray and shower cubicle which he has also tiled and grouted. What a difference! I should go away more often ;-)
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