Showing posts with label Ullscarf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ullscarf. Show all posts

04 February 2018

213 down, 1 to go - Hurrah!

Well we're almost there.  Ullscarf, Chris's 213th Wainwright was in our sights.  After leaving the car park we walked a little bit along the road until we came to the gap in the wall that would take us right and onto the path up the side of Steel Fell and up to the base of Ullscarf.  By all accounts it was to be a boggy walk but fingers crossed the ground would be a little bit frozen so we wouldn't have as much wetness as we'd read in other peoples accounts of this particular walk.

Once we were on the path through the valley the scenery was brilliant as always and the sun in the sky and lack of clouds meant that the walking, so far, was quite pleasant.

Up through the valley we eventually reached a small tarn.  Behind us was the Helvellyn range with its magnificent snowy tops with big fluffy clouds starting to move in and to the left of us was the route over towards the Langdales with white hills as far as you could see.  We'd been in this valley before, on another epic day, but our target now was to the right of us and up, what seemed to be, a non existent path.  Oh the joys !

Let me explain my joy, being off piste or having no visible path is my least favourite part of any walk.  It does weird things to my head and all I can ever think of is "We're doomed"when of course we're nothing of the sort but every time it just gets me that way.  In this case there was nothing else for it but to make our way up.

So off we went up the steep, wet, rocky, slippy, relentless and energy zapping side of the hill.  It took absolutely ages and seemed like it was 2 steps forward 3 steps back most of the way.  Chris motored on and was up at the top plateau way before me but I just dug in and kept trying to move forward and upwards and soon enough I was at the top.  Not the top of the hill, just the top of this part of the walk but at least it was easier going underfoot.

That climb up was exhausting and took me a few mins to get my breath back but off we went along a now more visible path towards the trig point which marked the summit of Ullscarf.  It was still a good 20 mins walk but not as steep and the ground was pretty decent so the walking was good.

Finally at the summit we met another man out for the day who'd come the other way who was, like us, enjoying the views.  We only had few mins to eat a bit of our sandwiches before heading down off the summit.  Although the days are getting a little bit longer we still had no idea how boggy it would be going down and getting off the hill in daylight was the plan.

The initial path down to the woods was decent enough and we soon turned right again into a wooded area.  This is where things became a little bit trickier.  The path through the woods was rocky, steep in parts and incredibly wet with very little available to get a good grip on and quite a lot to slip on so we had to concentrate and pay attention to where we put our feet.  Most of my way through the initial part of this forest was clutching to anything at the side of me, branches, trees, ferns just to keep my balance and not go head over heels.  Precarious was a good way to describe it and after going for what felt like hrs, Chris checked the map and said, Oh we're only about a 1/4 way through the forest.......another joyful moment!
Luckily the rough bit was short lived and we found ourselves on a much better path further through the trees and it didn't take long before we could see the road ahead of us and soon we were back at the car. Another Wainwright ticked for me and the penultimate one for Chris.  Rannerdale Knott is the final Wainwright for Chris as the plan is to have friends join us on the final Wainwright so Chris picked this one with the thought of it being accessible for all.  What a great day that will be !

After getting back to the car we decided to take a quick trip to The Dog & Gun in Keswick.  And so ends another great day - roll on the better weather and more wonderful trips into the hills !