Scafell Pike

>>  Saturday, October 27, 2018

After the success of Snowdon (the highest mountain in Wales), my ever patient walking friend agreed to take me up Scafell (the highest mountain in England)

It is 3,209ft.  We drove up to the Lake District the evening before and stopped in a youth hostel.  There were down pours all night,  but the rain stopped as we drove for an hour to get to Wasdale.
We were going up the 'easy way' but it is a mountain all the same, not a walk in the park.

Talk note of the pink line, the one that points to the river crossing.  It's relevant!
So, as I said, it had rained heavily overnight and the river that I understood was not usually hard to cross was a torrent.  People were crossing it though and doing it ok.

I, however, after dithering in fear ended up on my hands and knees in the water and then wading to the other side.

I was soaked and we had a long way to go.
I sat down on the bank on the other side, swore a lot, cried a bit, changed my socks and we headed up the mountain.

Technical fabrics are a wonder and I dried out quite quickly really.

I stomped up the mountain for a while with wet anger at my own stupid clumsiness and internal shouting at myself about how useless I am.
The anger energy took me a long way up.
But walking is a great healer and slowly I reminded myself that yes, 100,000 people might walk up here a year but that is still 0.15% of the UK population.  So it's ok to get wet, 99.85% of the population don't even bother trying.
As seemed to be my mountain luck, I couldn't see where I was headed other than into the clouds.
And at the top, we were in the clouds!
But whilst we sat for a while eating our lunch, it blew through a bit.
And what goes up, must go down so back through the river it was.

I did not keep my feet dry but I did stay on my feet this time so I saw that as a win!
It really is beautiful here.
And so the long drive home began.

Maybe my patient friend will walk up Bennevis with me, he assures me there are no rivers to cross!

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