Sunday 16 to Tuesday 18 April - Coniston & Nether Wasdale

When Mick entered the Lakeland 100 last year we had good intentions for recceing the course. We would start in November with a short trip, then spend a couple of weeks up in the Lakes in April, and another couple of weeks in June, with perhaps another short trip on our way up to and/or back from Scotland for the TGO Challenge.

Flies have been landing in the ointment from all over the place. A micro-trip was tagged onto the end of a trip to see Ma-in-Law in December, but our extended April trip wasn’t able to happen.

On Saturday 15th, however, we concluded that we had a short window of opportunity. If we left home on Sunday afternoon, Mick could do Coniston to Wasdale on Monday, Wasdale to Braithwaite on Tuesday, then we could nip over to see Ma-in-Law Halifax and come home either Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.

It was around 1730 by the time we arrived in Coniston on Sunday, but by then most of the cars had departed from the road in which we intended to spend the night. Only about three van-lengths of the road in question are flat, and two of them were free, thus Erica got settled in for the night.

We were up at 0615 on Monday, by which time Sunday’s rain had abated, leaving behind low cloud and dripping trees, but an otherwise dry day. Mick trotted off into that cloud at just gone 0730, and not many minutes later I was on my way to Boot.

Having run 35k on Saturday and 12k on Sunday, I was having a well-deserved rest on Monday, so there was no trotting out to meet Mick this time. The extent of my activity was a gentle walk around Boot to see if I would be better moving to the station car park (on the plus side, it was only 150 double paces off Mick’s route, so he could detour to Erica for food and resupply, rather than me needing to loiter on the route for an unknown period of time to hand stuff over to him; on the downsides, it would cost £2.50 to park there (versus the free car park I was in) and there was no mobile phone signal, unlike in the free car park). Having managed to get a message through to Mick, I moved there about half an hour before he was expected.

After his pit stop, it was an easy drive from Boot around to Wasdale Head, where Mick duly arrived only about 10 minutes after I expected him.

Wastwater – like a millpond

Mick’s route. 31km with 1250m ascent. A lot of waterlogged ground was encountered on the way, as evidenced not just by his account of the day, but by the smell of his shoes!

Church Stile Holiday Park in Nether Wasdale (5 miles/20 minutes away) was our home for the night on Monday. £26 for a small square of hard-standing without electricity. I can’t call it good value for money, but the toilet block was immaculate and Mick was greatly in need of that shower (or maybe I mean that I was greatly in need of Mick having that shower?).  A fantastically quiet night was had, but we reduced our value for money even further by leaving 4 hours before the 11am ‘you must vacate your pitch by’ time.

Mick was deposited just short of the road-end at Wasdale Head, to rejoin the route where he’d left it yesterday when he’d detoured to where I was parked on the green. He soon had second thoughts about the wisdom of following that bit of route when, within 150m of leaving Erica, a foot shot out from under him on the sodden ground and he covered himself in mud. I might have witnessed it if I hadn’t driven off the moment he got out the car. It’s a long old drive around to Braithwaite and the extent of my research into where I could park had been about two minutes whilst using the campsite wifi (only available at the reception building) on Monday evening.

Erica made like Goldilocks once she got to Braithwaite, after a lovely scenic drive. The first spot she tried was too busy with passing traffic, so I popped out for a walk around to check out if there was anywhere better. She then tried two spots in a nearby street (one of them twice), but not wanting to risk inconveniencing any residents, I wasn’t happy leaving her there. She eventually settled into the last remaining space by the Orthodox church.

After a couple of hours of tea-drinking, snacking and general faffing, I finally gave myself a motivational talking to, got my running gear on, and headed off to intercept Mick, on this occasion coming across him earlier than expected, even though he felt like he was moving slowly.

Glorious day. People were out in force.

Mick’s route. 22km, 1250m ascent. Much more by way of rocky paths and less bogginess

The wind that had pushed me up the hill was now against as we headed back down together, but it’s definitely better going downhill against the wind rather than up.

Walking from the location of the Braithwaite Check Point back to Erica, I gave Mick the option of extending his day after lunch, by continuing along the route into Keswick. Then we looked at the map and realised it was only a few kilometres, and they were along the pavement of the A66 and a cycle route. No real benefit in recceing that bit, so no point in putting more effort in on the back of what he’d already done.

Plans then needed to change. There was no extra night in the Lakes, and no visit to Halifax. Whilst sitting in the Boot car park on Monday (the one with phone signal!) I’d received a phone call that required us to be back home by Wednesday morning.

It feels like it was a long way to go for two days, but I suppose that many a person who works Monday to Friday thinks nothing of going away from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. It just feels short given the usual nature of our trips, and due to the inability to tag on other things we would have liked to have done (calling in on Conrad; seeing Ma-in-Law).  

 

9 December 2022 - Coniston & Boot

I was typing a post about a 'smash and grab' trip to the Lakes last week, when I felt the need to refer back to my post about our previous such trip, only to find that there was no such post. I duly started writing one, but with a voice in my head getting more and more insistent, with each detail I covered, that I'd written it before. On the third search around my laptop, I finally found it. So, rather belatedly, here's a post that I should have published on 9 December last year: 

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Having had our intended trips in November thwarted*, and with Mick needing to get in some recces of the Lakeland 100 route, on Wednesday I suggested to Mick that as we were going to Halifax to see his Mum, it would make sense to tack on a micro-trip to the Lakes.

“But we haven’t got time!” Mick protested. I set out a proposed timetable and argued that we did.

“But the weather!” he protested. I reassured him that it wasn’t going to be any colder than it was when I recce’d Howtown to Troutbeck on 12 April last year, thus waiting until spring was no guarantee of warmer weather, and it was unlikely he’d get a better day in terms of sunshine and air clarity.

I concede it was all a bit of a rush. We had a guest (and a late night) on Wednesday, weren’t in a position to start packing until 10am on Thursday, and we were due to leave for Halifax before noon. It transpired that there were packing omissions.

Friday morning came around and only a few minutes behind schedule, Erica’s windscreen was scraped clean of frost and north from Halifax we headed. Here’s a little collage of Erica’s thermometer during our drive:

With 25 miles to go it was still reading -7. Yikes! I’d promised Mick that the coldest it would be was -2 and that it would get up to +2 whilst he was out.

Then the sun came up. The temperature rose. By the time we reached Coniston it was a comparatively balmy -2 degrees. Mick was soon out the door and heading up towards the mines and almost as soon, I was off to drive around to Boot.

Taking my pick of spaces in the empty car park there, I could have stuck the diesel heater on in the back of Erica and merrily sat there knitting for the next few hours, but with conditions so glorious I soon had my trainers on and set out to reverse the L100 route to intercept Mick.

Frosty, but glorious day

Spot the F-15

I can’t say that I put on my finest display of navigation…

A=Boot; B=Harter Fell

Zoomed in

...which could have been a problem if it had persisted, as I really needed to make sure I was on the same line that Mick would be taking for fear of us passing like ships in the night.

With the Lake District not having much by way of mobile phone signal, I knew little of Mick’s progress. The only message I received from him was as he approached the top of the Walna Scar Road. Based on the timing of that message, I did some calculations as to the earliest, and latest, possible times that we might meet each other. The earliest possible time coincided with one of my accidental detours, and whilst I was reasonable confident that we couldn’t have passed there without seeing each other at a distance, it still created a niggling doubt.

As the ‘latest possible time’ approached my stress levels rose, as I pictured Mick having slipped past me and reaching Erica whilst I was still heading in the opposite direction – not a problem had we remembered the spare car key. Having finally reached a point where I had a good view ahead of me, and still seeing no sign of Mick, I stopped in the middle of the path, pored over the map to check my distances and calculations (yep, they all stacked up) and was just dithering over what to do, when I looked back up and saw a chap heading towards me, waving. Yay!

What I’d failed to take into account with my calculations (yet again!) was that, with this being a recce for Mick and with it being critical that he found the exact path (no “I should be over there so I’ll just cut across”), he was spending quite a bit of time reading the course description and checking the map (his watch stats say a quarter of his time was spent stationary).

For obvious reasons, I knew the correct path back to Erica, but me leading Mick wasn’t going to be beneficial for his purposes, so he continued checking the course notes and making mental notes as we went. On the one hand that slowed us down, but on the other hand whereas my outward leg had been at a relaxed pace (i.e. I walked), on the way back there was frequent trotting along.

By the last significant descent, we had lost the sun behind the hill and the temperature had plummeted again. I went from ‘comfortable’ to ‘I wish I had a fleece’ (another packing omission) and whilst I gave passing thought to putting on my insulated vest, I didn’t think to put on my spare baselayer. I did switch from my thin gloves + fingerless mitts, to my Buffalo Mitts, which soon brought my hands back to life.

Sun's gone, temperature's falling back to sub-zero

It was approaching 3pm by the time we got back to Erica. Having misjudged how long the outing would take, neither of us had taken lunch with us, so that was the top priority, together with drinking multiple cups of tea to remedy my lack of water over the previous 3+ hours (my water bottles were another packing omission).

The sun was just sinking out of sight by the time we pulled out of the car park to head home, where we arrived just in time for bed.

 

(*Footnote added in April 2023: Off the top of my head, November was ruled out due to the need to do some work on a rental house, but with uncertainty as to the date when we would be given access we were held at home in a constant state of waiting.)