On our first trip to The Lakes (as a couple), we spent a very poorly plan, yet highly enjoyable weekend in the shadow of the Langdale Pikes. Despite our entire lack of preparation and attempting a walk far beyond our capabilities the place captured our imagination and before we left we'd settled on a return trip. Maybe it was the peace and tranquility, maybe it was the seemingly secluded camp site, maybe it was the beauty of lambing season, maybe it was the fact there were three pubs in walking distance.... who knows!
This trip showed us how far our skills and knowledge had developed in the last few months. We planned a walk before leaving the house instead of asking an elderly women in a fleece for a route, which ended up taking us on a jaunt up the vertical side of Wetherlam giving up half way and still walking 21km. Ok maybe our improvement was from a very low bar. But progress is progress in my book.
This time we planned to take on the Langdale Pikes, following another route from Walk Lakes with a little help from the man himself Alfred Wainwright and his Pictorial Guide to Lakeland Fells (cheers for the borrow dad, we'll get it back to you soon, honest!).
This trip showed us how far our skills and knowledge had developed in the last few months. We planned a walk before leaving the house instead of asking an elderly women in a fleece for a route, which ended up taking us on a jaunt up the vertical side of Wetherlam giving up half way and still walking 21km. Ok maybe our improvement was from a very low bar. But progress is progress in my book.
This time we planned to take on the Langdale Pikes, following another route from Walk Lakes with a little help from the man himself Alfred Wainwright and his Pictorial Guide to Lakeland Fells (cheers for the borrow dad, we'll get it back to you soon, honest!).
The walk began in the national trust car park behind The Stickle Barn, a pub, which serves excellent local beer and one of the aforementioned within walking distance of the camp (quick side note: it also has a bunk house to the rear, where I recently remembered I had spent an eventful new year as a six year old. I remember dancing, it raining and my mum getting shamelessly drunk! Well it was new year.)
Back to the walk. A good 80% of this walks climb happens immediately on leaving the car park. A rocky (possibly pitched, I'm still unclear of the exact meaning of pitched path) path rises steeply along the side of Stickle Ghyll, up and up and up, for about an hour. The path was clear but the Ghyll itself, normally a striking feature of the landscape was barley noticeable. Instead of a gushing mountain stream, the path took us along a rocky gash in the mountain with barley a trickle of water and the occasional shallow pool. This summers heatwave was still in full swing and the staff of Stickle Barn had informed us the night before that Langdale hadn't had proper rain fall in two months. The Ghyll is the only water source for the Barn and it's neighbour, The New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, and the hot spell had left both without enough water to serve food, and barley enough to keep the bar in operation. My inability to get a veggie burger and the nerve racking possibility of no pint at the end of the walk really highlighted how fragile these landscapes are and the risks of global warming. I might sound over dramatic, but if I can't get a meal in a country pub I can up and leave but the plants and animals of the Lake District don't have the same choice.
The Ghyll gets no more watery as you climb higher. Our guide talked about finding appropriate crossing points and the tricky nature of crossing the fast flowing water but we could have crossed at almost any point without testing the waterproofing on our boots. The scar where the stream should be gets broader as you reach the top and I can see how this could be tricky to navigate in wetter times. A short scramble after this broadening, the crater of Stickle Tarn, framed by the wall of Pavey Ark, appears almost from nowhere.
Back to the walk. A good 80% of this walks climb happens immediately on leaving the car park. A rocky (possibly pitched, I'm still unclear of the exact meaning of pitched path) path rises steeply along the side of Stickle Ghyll, up and up and up, for about an hour. The path was clear but the Ghyll itself, normally a striking feature of the landscape was barley noticeable. Instead of a gushing mountain stream, the path took us along a rocky gash in the mountain with barley a trickle of water and the occasional shallow pool. This summers heatwave was still in full swing and the staff of Stickle Barn had informed us the night before that Langdale hadn't had proper rain fall in two months. The Ghyll is the only water source for the Barn and it's neighbour, The New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, and the hot spell had left both without enough water to serve food, and barley enough to keep the bar in operation. My inability to get a veggie burger and the nerve racking possibility of no pint at the end of the walk really highlighted how fragile these landscapes are and the risks of global warming. I might sound over dramatic, but if I can't get a meal in a country pub I can up and leave but the plants and animals of the Lake District don't have the same choice.
The Ghyll gets no more watery as you climb higher. Our guide talked about finding appropriate crossing points and the tricky nature of crossing the fast flowing water but we could have crossed at almost any point without testing the waterproofing on our boots. The scar where the stream should be gets broader as you reach the top and I can see how this could be tricky to navigate in wetter times. A short scramble after this broadening, the crater of Stickle Tarn, framed by the wall of Pavey Ark, appears almost from nowhere.
Stickle Tarn was an oasis after our hour long climb. Boots off, toes in water we decided to snack on our retro purchase of Kendal Mint Cake and peruse the original inspiration for our mountain challenge. My dad originally sent us a copy of Wainwright's Pictorial Guide to Lakeland Fells after a brief conversation about fancying a trip up to the Lakes. It appeared on our door mat before we even had serviceable walking boots and I had a brief flick through it's alien pages before sitting it on a book shelf and ignoring it for the past 6 months. Now my dad is a persistent fella and he has since lent us several more of Alfred's pictorial guides. I don't mean to appear ungrateful but I am a millennial. My attention span has been irreversibly damaged by 90s kids TV and the internet, if it doesn't have a listicle or a gif, I'm Debra Meaden (I'm out). Wainwrights books were like no guidebook I'd ever seen. Line drawings and apparently hand written text. At first glance I had no idea how I was supposed to follow his instructions and they were written in the 60s, every sensible traveller knows that a Rough Guide from before 2017 is out of date and can land you in all kinds of trouble. But we had endeavoured to walk the WAINWRIGHTS and my dad just wouldn't stop sending us these damn books. So on the most recent trip we thought we should give them a go and 'The Central Fells' was unceremoniously chucked into our walking bag. Cup of coffee in hand and Kendal Mint Cake in mouth we though sitting in the shadow of Pavey Ark might be a good spot to give Wainwright a chance. Not a fair chance. I basically thought Liz was mad for making us drag this bloody thing up the hill.
Each fell has it's own section. A description of it's natural features, some maps describing the best routes up, sketches of the fell and it's summit and descriptions of the best routes down. Liz started by reading aloud the natural features of Pavey Ark, and I was transfixed. In his wry and slightly off hand manner Wainwright captures the hills, their surrounding landscape and the experience of exploring them. As his name has been so linked to the Lake District I expected reverent treatment of this land but if you want a gushing description of the beauty of the landscape Alf is not your man. I soon realised if he's not impressed he can dismiss a fell in one killer phrase 'has nothing to recommend it'- read it's dull as fuck move on people. I'm surprised no one has ever decided just to bag the Wainwrights Alf himself thinks are worth a short. As for the maps themselves, turns out the Lakeland fells change rather more slowly than down town Budapest and a 60 year old walking guide will do you rather nicely. The paths described were clear as day and his advice that the 'North Rake' path up Pavey Ark was good for 'short-legged individuals' was much appreciated. My short legs carried me easily to the top of Pavey Ark and over to it's not too distant big brother Thunacar Knott (one of the fells Wainwright thinks isn't much cop). Here our walk suggested we curved round to Pick of Stickle and Harrison Stickle but once you're over Thunacar Knott the Langdale Pikes open into a vast plateau and guided by our Wainwright we followed the plateau over to Sargent Man and High Raise. The slight (2 hour) diversion was well worth it. On top of Sargent Man we met a Carlisle women who was bagging the Wainwrights for the second time and could name every peak we could see (which were numerous given the gloriously clear day). Inspired by this fellow bagger we trucked on, over the moor like terrain to High Raise and back to Thuncar Knott to rejoin our original path.
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From Thunacar Knott the rest of the path looked like a breeze. A quick hop skip and a jump to Pike of Stickle, Loft Crag and over Harrison Stickle. We'd be in the pub in no time (we even started to plan an afternoon trip into Ambleside to purchase some new gear). Fool me once Lake District! Shame on you! Fool me twice Lake District! Shame on me! Fool me thrice and I should probably have my right to roam withdrawn. But fooled I was. The crags and crevices of this particular part of the lakes means that scrambling is the order of the day. We could walk between the peaks in no time at all, especially due to the fact the bogs were still dry as a bone, leaving us with dry feet and a pleasantly spongy surface to walk on. But the final ascents were more akin to rock climbing. I spent about 10 minutes walking backwards and forwards at the bottom of both Pike of Stickle and Loft Crag before I realised the path I was searching for didn't exist and I just had to clamber up the side of the rock face to bag this pair. 
Final climb of the day (we definitely weren't taking our trip to Ambleside by now) was Harrison Stickle. The fell I think of when I think of the Langdale Pikes. Towering in the south east corner of Stickle Tarn and a feat in it's own right, Harrison Stickle was an amazing way to end our day. When we started the ascent we realised how far we'd descended from Pavey Ark. The steep sharp climb barley took us higher than the original summit. But that 36 extra metres gave us the most glorious view out over Stickle Tarn, the central fells and beyond (we think we could see Windermere but we couldn't be certain).
The afternoon sun was hot and Stickle Tarn was so clear beneath us, it was time for the decent. The mirror image of our morning ascent, down, down and down we went. The path took us across a huge bolder field. From above I didn't know how we would make this decent without falling to a certain death (always look on the bright side, it's just the kinda person I am). Alf promised us cairns marking our way, but how could Alf be sure that mere piles of stones wouldn't have moved in the intervening 60 years, he couldn't! We were definitely going to die! As we entered the bolder field there was an enormous cairn marking the beginning of the path, and then another barley two metres further on, and then another, and then another. You couldn't swing a cat without hitting a bloody cairn (I do not advocate cat swinging people), even I could navigate this path, the only real danger was I tripped over one of the totally unnecessary cairns. By the time we reached the bottom my feet were burning and I took the opportunity to dip my toes in the cooling tarn. I was very jealous of a group of women who stripped off and jumped straight in. I think a towel needs adding to the essential walking gear. So this is our new record. Seven Wainwrights- one day.
12 Wainwrights down! 202 to go! Lessons Learnt
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