After six months of hiking, I’m diving in to take on the biggest mountain in England. I just did a lighter jaunt around Muncaster Fell the day before. Camped in Ravenglass, with just a short and rather beautiful drive towards the base of Scafell Pike.
The Route
The climb pretty much starts straight from the Wasdale Head carpark, have some cash ready as it didn’t accept card earlier this year, and there isn’t much nearby!
If you are me you walk backwards and forwards across the car park, deciding which way you’re going to go up. I always make too many routes plans, it’s good because I have some contingency exits plans whilst on most mountain ranges.
The Ascent
My plan was take the Brown Tongue Path up. It is known as one of the easier ways up, I expected it to be steeper as it was much shorter.
It follows a beautiful stream running down from the mountain range, and the path is paved all the way with bouldery steps. On wet or icy days these might be a bit harder to handle but they were dry and pretty well laid. Preparations were taking place next to the current path for some new stones to be laid.
About half way up it was definitely feeling like it might be the steeper option. My pack was feeling weighty and the energy I had started with was starting to drain. I don’t need to think twice though about whipping out the old Thermos and getting some extra caffeine in me.
From here on it was just a case of putting one foot in-front of the other. Simple, or so it sounds, but I really needed to pace myself. It’s something I’m still starting to struggle a little bit with. I have a tendency to start fast, and really attack the start of ascents, and then slow down drastically.
When I head to Scotland I’ll have to start thinking about this a little bit more. There is going to be lots of hiking and driving, on unfamiliar roads for 15 days in a row.
The final little scree scramble wasn’t the easiest. Being pretty knackered I probably should have just paused for a quick second, but I was determined to reach the top. I want to have my lunch break as the highest person in England!
Broad Crag
I came down the scree scramble, cutting around to the north east. It was a little iffy at times as the small stones did move underfoot. There was also a group of walkers on their way up so I was trying to be as precocious as possible as to not sending any rocks their direction.
Oh, my knees
I’ve got to admit my body was feeling it a little at this point. I had my knee wrapped up but it was hurting quite a bit on the way down. Since taking a fall during my first hike of the year on New Years day on Cannock and it hadn’t quite been right since. Also there was a small problem with a toenail that was a bit black and swollen. So I wanted to take the grassy route down from Lingmell to descend the mountain range. Even that was a bit of a push.
