2 friends and the coast to coast walk

Finally I have time to do some blogging (making Mark and Clare’s wedding cake has been filling my evenings since we returned)!

At breakfast with our fellow walkers (food at the Langstrath is great!), we looked out through the rain to the start of our days walk; the ascent to Greenup Edge.  It was a wet start as we climbed steadily up to Lining Crag, but it eventually stopped raining, although again it remained wet underfoot.  The walk up Greenup Gill is a lovely one; with great views back down to Stonethwaite and a stone path laid for much of the way.  We leapfrogged Sue and Graham(!?) several times on the way up, but took slightly different routes over Greenup.  It was no surprise to us when conditions underfoot deteriorated; the route over and down to Brownrigg Moss was boggy and indistinct, and it felt like we were just following streams at times!  The going was very slow, but eventually we reached Far Easdale Head. By now we were aware that we’d only come about 4miles in a fair few hours, and we began to doubt if we’d make it to Patterdale before dark (if at all!).  We thought about taking the lower level route down to Grasmere, hoping it would be quicker, but in the end we took the ridge walk; a very fortuitous error we now feel.  The ridge walk was absolutely great, boggy as usual, and pretty slow going, but super views of the surrounding valleys and lakes all along!  Snaking our way around Calf Crag, the Pike of Carrs and Gibson Knot, we eventually reached the infamous Helm Crag.

Today was a day of fighter jets; first on the way up to Lining Crag two zoomed overhead, then later when we were atop Helm Crag, another pair swooped below us, which was very cool!  You can just about make one out in this pic.

We saw lots of people on our trek along the ridge, lots of day walkers from Grasmere, some ramblers and a couple doing the C2C east to west.  They were heading along at quite a pace but stopped for a brief chat; we joked about the great conditions underfoot and they warned us that there was worse to come over Nine Standards…they were right as you shall see!

The descent from Helm Crag was tough; we realised over the course of the holiday that down hill was nearly always harder than up!  We were very glad to see the civilisation of Grasmere, even though by this stage we were pretty sure we’d not be getting to Patterdale, not on foot anyway!  Once in Grasmere we started to reunite with the walkers we’d met the previous day.  First, whilst we were investigating buses, we saw Wayne and Linley who like us, felt that walking to Patterdale would be unwise…we all feared being stuck up Grisedale Hause as night or cloud fell!  It turned out that buses were a no-go (we’d missed the last bus from Ambleside to Patterdale; there’s only 3 a day!) so we decided to share a taxi; the one taxi in Grasmere couldn’t take us until 6pm, but we easily filled the time mooching round the village, bumping into Douglas, Maureen, Pete and Judy, buying edible treats and having a refreshing tipple!

We were massively dissapointed not to have completed the day as planned, but our moods were soon lifted when we arrived at Grisedale Lodge.  The Varleys were hugely welcoming and the B&B was beautiful, and included home-made flapjacks!  We reunited with Wayne and Linley in the pub, and spent a fair while after dinner chatting away, and ended up having quite a late night!