Back to the tents to attempt homemade irish whiskies… taking advantage of Mr and Mrs D’s new ‘camping-not-flying’ tent, which had a foyer, if you please, complete with armchair seats made out of their thermorest mattresses (although not quite to the style of the nearby wigwam, which had an outdoor table set up with candelabra!)… Gordon pumped up his impressive petrol stove, which enthusiastically burst into life to heat up water for the coffees… some careful testing of the proportions of coffee/milk/whisky by Graeme and our nightcaps were ready! However my first night in the tent was not a huge success as Mike couldn’t get comfortable, and spent most of the night wriggling about, chucking clothes around, turning torches on and off, and a constant stream of chuntering and swearing….
Friday: Scafell Pike from Seathwaite, and Ullswater paddle.
Morning dawned with the promise of perfect weather – what were the chances of that? A flying trip cancelled, but good weather in the Lake District?!! unheard of!
The BBQ was a bit reluctant to get going, but eventually we stocked up on egg and sausage rolls, coffee and fruit juice, and set off a bit later than planned. However we were handy for Seathwaite, and were walking by 10.30 – miraculously the parking didn’t seem too busy even by then!! Glorious walk up over Stockley Bridge, following Grains Gill up to Esk Hause, then a bouldery walk around Broad Crag and up to the summit, which was again surprisingly not as busy as I’d expected. The cloud base was just above the summit, so we could see all the views (being on the highest hill in England!).. the pasties were very welcome, and Gordon pricked up his ears as I described the notorious ‘Broad Stand’.. an ‘obvious route’ between Scafell Pike and its neighbour, Scafell, but strictly not for ‘walkers’, as it involves some quite exposed rock-work…. .. So Gordon bounded off to investigate, with Graeme going along armed with camera, curious to see what it was all about but planning to probably come back and join us on our way back leaving Gordon to his ‘adventure’! Jill and I were firmly sticking to our original plan of returning via the Corridor Route and Sty Head Tarn!
We had a lovely walk back – the Corridor Route was a great contrast to our ascent – the stunning ravine of Piers Gill changing character as the clouds scudded over – sometimes throwing it into menacing shade, then miraculously clearing again and plunging it into sunshine! All the time we were overshadowed by Great Gable, sitting proud at the head of Wast Water. Graeme quite quickly joined us, and we continued along the Corridor Route as he recounted watching Gordon carefully picking his route up Broad Stand – it looked pretty challenging, and even Gordon was taking his time to work out some of the moves, so he decided to leave him to it!
We got back down to the car just after 5pm, having half expected Gordon to catch us up on the way down, so were mildly concerned (Jill, as is customary, slightly more than mildly, it has to be said!) not to have seen him. Mobile phone reception was pretty bad all day, but Jill decided to go and try to call Gordon’s phone from the payphone ‘just in case’… while she was away, Graeme showed me the paragraph in his ‘high mountains’ book which recounts Scafell as a confusing mass of gullies, notorious for accidents…. we decided not to read that bit out to Jill!! Tension was mounting as Jill then decided to start walking back up the path to see if she could see him, and we started putting on our boots to go with her when she suddenly shouted ‘he’s here!’……. BIG breaths of relief!!!
He had had a ‘bit of a beasting’… and had indeed been caught up in the mass of gullies, not helped by a misunderstanding with 3 ‘old chaps’ who had pointed him down an impassable route… several dead ends of hard scrambling and height losses of several hundred feet at each try…. even with all of that he was only about half an hour behind us….!!!!
