04 September 2012

The Great Slab Escapade, Langdale - Seatoller

5am on a Sunday morning is only good when it involves a day of mountains ahead and today was one of those days. Drizzle and rain as I left the house at 6 but the weather forecasters had promised a day of sunny spells and I was hoping that they would be right.
Arriving at the meeting spot in Seatoller where we’d leave one car to pick up later at the end of the walk we made our way down to Langdale where Bowfell was waiting for us and the sun was starting to come out. The water on the lakes we passed was so still the reflections of the surrounding hills looked like mirror images. Simply stunning.
Parked at Langdale, packs on our backs, smiles on our faces and 1 x manly type protien drink consumed, hehe! we headed towards the Band that would take us up the side of Bowfell with Crinkle Crags immediately facing us. There were only a few billowy clouds nestled on the top of the crinkles and it was easy to spot our path from a week ago.......bad step, naughty, naughty step!

 
 
 
 
 
 
A right hand turn off the Band would take us to the North side of Bowfell to the Great Slab via the climbers traverse and this was indeed to be the highlight of our morning. It was a brilliant path, following the contours of the mountain, round the back till we found ourselves at the bottom of the Great Slab. We’d met another walker on this path who was from the Borders and regaled tales of hills bagged and one’s still to be ticked off the list. Over on Bowfell’s buttresses we could see some climbers dangling from ropes and found out later in the day that these climbers were 2 walkers we’d met earlier in the day (G & his pal!) 
 
At the base of the slab was the “natural” waterfall, featured by the lovely JB on one of her programmes. Water from this fall is as clean as you can get, running straight through the rock and passing no sheep poo on its way out of the rock. True enough it did seem and taste clean so we filled a bottle to take with us for later. Cool and refreshing was the spray from the small fall as we stopped for picture moments before thoughts turned to climbing up the slab.
 
What an impressive piece of rock and I love my rock. We made our way through the rock to the side of the slab, some path, some scramble and all of it steep. Our aim was to get to the top for some more picture moments but to at least walk up some of the slab but not entirely sure how slippy the slab rock would be. Thankfully it wasn’t too bad and as I teetered up the last quarter of the slab I was blown away by how impressiveit was and certainly one of the best bits of the walk by far.
 
 
Lunch time number 1 was next on the agenda and a suitable “view spot” was acquired. The sun was shining, the wind was picking up a little and every now and again the cloud would billow over the summit of Bowfell and the disperse again just as quick. The views were amazing with known peaks all around us. It was like celebrity spotting. Blencathra over there, Helvellyn range over there, Lake Windemere over there, Skidaw over there and the rest........it completely took your breath away!
 
 
Lunch stop done and it was the last scramble onto the summit of Bowfell and just when you thought the views couldn’t get any better, round the corner before the last few steps to the summit was the Scafell range in front of us, dominant in its Lakeland home and looking beautiful as the sun highlighted parts and threw shadows on the rest showing it off perfectly. It was an intoxicating view and one that you couldn’t keep your eyes off of. The only other mountain that’s captivated my interest like that in a way that is enchanting, hypnotic and mesmerising is Tryfan. Could this range be a rival to my beloved Glyders???.....hmmmm we’ll see.
 
Video’s taken at the top of Bowfell showing the 360 panoramic views we had that day and then it was off down the side of the mountain again to find the path that would take us to Esk Pike. The wind was really picking up now and light fleeces were back on however it was a comfortable walk down to the plateau between Esk Pike and Bowfell. Esk pike was a nice summit, no falsies to tempt and tease you, what you saw before you was what was on offer and it was splendid. Starting to emerge from the other side as far as views were concerned was Great Gable (CG’s first!) and others. All looking splendid in the dappled sunshine. 
 


 
Coming off Esk Pike we were greeted by the sight of the Rescue helicopter. It seemed to hover a while over the flanks of one of the mountains then whisked off in the other direction and hovered a bit over there, so perhaps there was no emergency today but just a training exercise.  Which is a much nicer thought than the alternative.  
 
Allen Crags were next and this is where we planned to have lunch stop 2 as we didn’t want to ruin our dinner planned for later (much later as it turned out). On route we came across a Tarn which I renamed Infinity Tarn as it resembled an infinity pool in some faraway hotel, beautifully glinting in the sunlight it was indeed tempting. It had turned warm again and when its warm you get a wee bit sweaty and I'm a girly so when we were sheltered from the wind I skooshed (yes thats a word) a wee spray of some impulse to freshen up which resulted in the comment “you’re sandwiches are going to taste of that”, “I’m glad my lid is still on mine” ........the funniest comment of the day and even now as I type this I’m chuckling to myself.....a memory moment to keep.
 
Next was onwards to Glaramara where there would be 2 peaks to tackle (2, or 3 or even 4, perhaps 5, who knew !). The route to Glaramara was peppered with false summits and plateau tarns. More ups and more downs and finally the summit was in sight. But was it the first summit or the second and what was that other summity looking cairn to the left and the one we’ve just been on behind us??? Oh well we’ll just have to do them all and that way we’ll know we’ve been on the 2 that count and Wainwrights and Hewitts can be ticked off confidently.
 
It was time to start the descent and all I’m going to say about that is that it was arduous. It’s been a while since a descent caused me any difficulty and today my knee was playing up just a bit after its hard bang last weekend and started to make its presence known. I was definitely slower than normal but I had no doubt that I’d make it back in one piece just not as quick as I would have liked, grrrrrrr!
There was 1 last fell to conquer before the final descent. Thornythwaite Fell and to be honest we stuck to the path as much as we could, so I’m convinced that we did it as it seemed to form part of the ridge down from Glaramara to Borrowdale below. Another one ticked to add to an outstanding day.
 
 
After an hour or so picking our way through the rocks and grass we were on the bottom and making our way back along to the car park. The sun was starting to go down and the day was coming to an end and it would now be a race against the sun to get along the road to Haystacks to see if we could get a picture with the sun glinting off its lovely curves. Flying along the road through Honister Pass I was driving like a loon to try and beat the sun and by the time we’d reached Haystacks we’d missed it, probably only by a few mins but it was gone. Not to worry there’d be other times. 
 
Last stop was the pub for dinner and a reflection on the day. Tired, a bit mucky we tucked into some chilli and tried not to think of the 25 mile drive back for the other car  nor the 2 hr drive home but just kept thinking of the previous 10 hours and all the funny and lovely things that went to making it an epic and fantastic day.  To round off the day we were presented with the most beautiful moon ever on the drive back to Langdale. Large and looming in the sky it presented quite a special and magical sight.  Shame my camera doesnt do it justice but its another memory moment, stored in my head that I can enjoy for a long time.

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