I had to recover my GPS and camera from number one son who was away for a month geological mapping in the Lake District. Kim being a great fan of the Lake District hills suggested we do Haystacks and meet Stuart, but I wanted to go wild swimming at Black Moss Pot so looked at hills around there – Eagle Crag stood out. Eagle Crag is a hill that is often admired but seldom climbed according to Wainwright, from the river it was easy to see why – it looked one large set of interconnected cliffs.

Fortunately there is a way up, although we had a wrong path sort of start we eventually followed the dry stane dyke and headed up a steep incline. I immediately did two things – one was to get cramp in my leg as I crossed over a tree branch that was blocking the way and secondly stepped on a black rock which turned out to be a hole and almost fell down the incline. It was very hot and there was no breeze so water consumption was high (as well as hula hoops for the salt to stop a cramp recurrence)

It still didn’t look as if this hill was climbable once we reached the crags but the wainwright drawing showed that you clamber over the fence and follow the path to the gully then up the terraces and sure enough we made it to the cairn at the top with the sheeps skull on it. From there a cracking view meets you on all sides as well as down in the valley.

We called Stuart who was up working on High Stile and sure enough he answered and we waved although we were all too far to see anything. A paraglider was thermalling above the mountains across the valley from us.

Emptied my water, munched an apple and attempted to eat the melting fruit and nut chocolate without it getting everywhere. it was a hot hot day.

A ridge walk took us to Sergeant Crag, passing a rotten and very smell dead sheep. From there it was all downhill, and at speed. The descent to the Black Moss Pot swimming pond was in between two crags which saved a one mile detour down a more forgiving slope.

Kim led the way as I spent a lot of time on my arse careering down until bracken tied me up entirely with a bracken nappy and a stone managed to rip my shorts (not noticed until later when I was standing at the bar).

During one of these slides I managed to stand on a stone which hurtled downhill and gathering no moss was now gathering momentum and was heading towards Kim. I shouted and she turned thinking I was moaning again after falling when she suddenly spotted this ripple through the bracken like a raptor. She stepped to one side and it followed her she stepped back and again it was following with a final move it brushed past her leg by millimetres and crashed further down in the valley. I got a Paddington hard stare. She said later that what went through her mind was a radio programme about women being stoned in Iran, where the government approve stones in a Goldilocks size – not too small which would not be painful enough, nor too large which would kill the women too quickly,  but just right – maximum pain for longer time. She was wondering if this was a Government approved stone careering down the hill at speed towards her.

We took it easier after that as all the rocks were movable and the bracken was thicker grabbing our legs and trying to trip us up. Reaching the bottom with a tired sigh we headed down to the Black Moss Pot pool with some voice next to me mumbling ‘Why do men always take the direct route down a bloody mountain’

There was only one other person there – some naked hill walker setting a precedent so I stripped off and lowered myself naked into the water – which was much warmer than I had expected it to be (not as chilling as the Fairy Pools of Skye). I swam up to the waterfall which forms a jacuzzi with a rock lip and water pouring over the side  - it was tricky getting in there as it was a strong current from the waterfall pushing me away – you need to grab onto the rocks and pull yourself over the lip of the jacuzzi. A great place for a dip after a hill walk though.

We wandered painfully dehydrated back to the car with Kim telling Twilight Zone stories to reach the car and its water supplies. I swallowed the first gulp of the Cool Mountain Stream water and couldn’t believe it – it was like a cup of tea without the tea – the bottle had been heating in the sun all day.