Lessons from the Lake District
“Scenes of great beauty unfold on all sides, and they are scenes in depth to a degree not usual” - Alfred Wainwright
The Lake District is England's largest National Park and is home to numerous spectacular lakes, quaint little villages and England’s 10 highest mountains. It more than earns its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We were lucky to live in and explore the Lake District for several years; getting lost (literally and metaphorically) in the mountains and valleys on a regular basis. The National Park is almost 1000 square miles, which means with a little effort you can find your own space. You won’t be in the wilderness but you can certainly feel remote. The mountains are often associated with Wainwright’s list of 214 and on any given day you’ll pass a weary often windswept stranger “bagging a Wainwright”.
As part of our Mountain Leader training and preparation for the Pacific Crest Trail we’d discussed trying to walk all the 214 Wainwrights, continuously over the course of a month or so. There are a few routes online showing what might be the optimal approach to this and it would certainly be an incredible journey. For various reasons we opted against it, primarily as we wanted a new challenge and experience (enter Sweden in May 2023). However, we did settle on a weeklong journey in Apr2022 that we would plan ourselves; we would wild camp and be self-sufficient throughout.
Over the coming months we refined the idea into something that resembled a plan. In terms of what we wanted from the walk, we needed distance and were aiming for c. 15-20km per day; we’ll be hiking 30-50km per day on the PCT; plenty of ascent (tortuous with big bags but necessary for our training) and to see how much food we could carry – we’d refill our water enroute from streams and rivers. Our approach to food was freeze dried meals, which is and was completely fine but not hugely cost effective and our thinking on this has developed a lot, we’ll talk more about that another time. We settled on a vague loop that was roughly 100km in length, flashed our fancy online OS map up on the tv and set about some more detailed planning.
The Lake District can get busy, but in our experience the further north and west you can get (i.e. the further it is for people to travel to) the quieter it tends to be. Because of this we ruled out the southern Lakes of Windemere and Coniston. Instead we started at a small campsite by Brothers Water, not too far south of Ullswater in the northeast and close to the 800m mountain section “high street” named literally as it was used by the Romans to travel from Penrith to Ambleside and beyond – a fact that we love. At the campsite you can pay to leave your car parked up for a week or more, although given the looks we received this is not common.
We won’t breakdown our exact route here, as to be honest it would be quite boring/ make little sense if you weren’t looking at a map or a bit geeky about navigation (which is fine by the way!). However, the names and places we refer to can easily be found online or on a map and if you would like more information by all means get in touch with us.
Day 1: Brothers Water to Brownrigg Moss
Day 2: Brownrigg Moss to Kirk Fell
Day 3: Kirk Fell to western shore of Ennerdale Water
Day 4: Ennerdale Water to Blackbeck Tarn
Day 5: Blackbeck Tarn to Skiddaw Little Man
Day 6: Skiddaw Little Man to Clough Head
Day 7: Clough Head to Brothers Water
Did we make it? Yes. Did we stick to our route? Not entirely….
As mentioned, a big part of this trip was for training and to learn lessons. Of course, we had an amazing time, but we also learned a lot. Here are some of the take ways for us that we now factor into our trips. Some of this is just good practice, but even with good practice sometimes you need to live it to really reinforce the message:
Give yourself options and don’t be afraid to adapt your plan to make sure you stay safe and enjoy yourself. Day 1 we immediately altered our route to avoid what looked a rather perilous climb when we came face to face with it in the rain, with heavy bags and late in the day.
Navigation. Where to start…at this point we were still learning how best to navigate and we were in a phase of micro navigating a lot of the time. Identifying every little feature. This can be quite rewarding but it’s painstakingly slow and not compatible with a long journey. When you’re travelling longer distances over multiple days you should be able to move fairly easily be simply knowing what to expect from some good planning. We got a lot better at this throughout the week and subsequently. If you’re training for a mountain leader qualification, it’s a good one to bear in mind.
Even in one of the wettest parts of the UK, have in mind where your next/ nearest water source is. When high up there were times we had to travel to find a water source we trusted, not ideal after a full day of walking.
Check you’re actually getting what you need from the trip, whether it’s training or just having a good time. Have a coffee (out of the wind and rain preferably) and talk through how things are going. By day 3 we realised that we were struggling with the distance and level of navigation. We wanted to continue our focus on the navigation so we shortened some legs (we never made it to Skiddaw or Helvellyn!).
Admin – some people just seem to get this, others not so much. We were probably in the middle. Make sure you know where things are in your bag and you can get to them easily. This sounds obvious but even on a day hike if the rain comes down and the wind picks up you still want to be able to operate normally without unpacking everything in a gale at the top of a mountain. In all seriousness, if you’re tired it’s easy to get lazy about this, you skip on an energy bar or some water, you don’t put your gloves on etc. Before you know it you’re cold and making bad decisions.
Dry bags – buy them before you learn the lesson of not using them. Especially if you have a sleeping bag with you…
Mice will find your food. Protect it well or prepare to share your dinner.
We practiced using a group shelter that we brought with us, it was actually super handy just to get a break from the weather on a couple of days, although almost too cosy and awful to then step back outside. I guess the point here is to practice with your kit and know how and when it works best.
So that’s about it. Guidebooks are great and there’s no need to go off piste on a walk like this, but we found the whole process massively more interesting and rewarding for us personally. Hopefully our writing style will develop over time so bear with….! G&C
