20/08/07 Patterdale to Shap

Lunch, the breakfast of champions. This is actually the 2/3'rds point (again, reverse photo order).

Coming down off Kidsty Pike. Treacherous, steep, long. Of course there were older hikers, women and families doing it too.
Hero shot - Kidsty Pike.
"Oh yew'll take the HIGH road and I'll take the low road". No wonder the Roman soldiers were so fierce in battle - they were still pissed at having to hike up THIS road!
Leaving Patterdale for Shap.

Yes, 16 miles is a long way; even broken into 1/3rds. 1st up and over. 2nd lakeside. 3rd crossing fields and roads.

Awoke at 0700 to children playing (how nice), peeked out and saw the clouds covering the hilltops and hanging low. Eyepatch back on.

Suddenly it's 0815 and I need to get going! I did brew a cup of coffee and eat a Cliffbar (while I'm here - the Cliff Walnut/Oatmeal/Raisin is wonderful!) while I packed up. Metholated spirits STINK and the pepsi-can stove doesn't do well on it. My trio next door were very nice and helpful after all, saving me 3/4 mile roundabout to the trail start.

First it was up to Angletarn Peak and Angle Tarn. Not an arduous climb, but steady. Kept taking photos and even stopped to bury a cache for CLT, my friend and real adventurer from Hong Kong who is planning the same hike next year. Along the ridge to the Knott and Kidsty Pike I hooked up with a family of 4 - including a 10yr old daughter and 14 yr old son who were likewise coast-to-coasting. We met at the High Street junction - High Street being a road built by the Romans so their soldiers could cross the Lake District while conquering Britain. Anyway, the family put me on the right path to Kidsty Pike (peak) and we took photographs of one another.

Heading down was murder - toes jammed into the toe-box of my shoes, slipping, extending my knee, etc, and a long - long way. Started bonking on energy along the way so planned a lunch at the end of the 2nd 1/3rd (after the lakeside walk).

Haweswater Lake was not like Ennerdale. More vegetation and narrow path with lots of rises and falls. Made good time, though. I can feel some foot work will be needed tonight, little toes need wrapped, and the top of my right foot has bad feeling - like the laces are way too tight an the knot is under the shoe tongue instead of on top. Hurts more on level tarmac than going downhill or up (which is odd, because everything else hurt more on the hills!)

Haweswater Dam looks like something from 633 Squadron - Dam busters, when the RAF practiced skip bombing in WWII. After Burnbanks there was some vagueness to the rout, and I missed Shap Abby and added another bit to the trip. Arriving in Shap I had a pleasant surprise: the Chancey Family, who'd had a tough time from Borrowdale to Grasmere (as had I). Judith fell in a stream and bruised her knee, and Jack, the youngest, got a great whack to the face very near the eye from a returning gate. Then after dinner the Ellis family came through (from High Street). Ian even offered to pick me up from Robin Hood's Bay and transport me to the train station at Whitby on my final day.

Tomorrow is 21 miles.

21?

What was I thinking?