Wasdale Head to Great Langdale – how pleasant it is.

Thanks Dennis Brown.

Well, a good day today but a poor result on paper. Only 8 miles and it took me fewer hours than I thought it would. Less hours is ok.

The day was cloudy, dry, but chilly throughout, although it started with a Muthafarter of a breakfast. The Wasdale Head Full Breakfast, with toast and tea. I was away by 09.45am hundred hours, with my pack feeling heavy but my heart feeling light.

Up the route I’d taken on Wednesday, the higher route, with a great last view of Scafell Pike to the right and Base Camp back down below.

It’s hard at clickety clicks with a 16kg backpack and a steep endless climb, but you just need to concentrate on the next yard, take short steps and control your breathing. And eventually you are up, over the brow and onto the next phase of the climb.

And eventually, with a sweat on my back from the rucksack, and a cold wind in my face, over the top of the pass and looking towards the Langdale Pikes on the left and Windermere in the distance.

It was a bitter wind, but it eased as I dropped down towards Angle Tarn, with Esk Pike standing guard behind.

When you’ve got a high opinion of yourself, like me, you get disappointed that the climbs are difficult and the descents are painful. When you’ve got a low opinion of yourself, like me, you expect to be crap at everything. The joys of being a Gemini.

One last climb up to the top of a pass beyond Angle Tarn and then a long drop to Great Langdale. What a great example of a glacial valley. They churned through here as recently as 30,000 years ago. That’s when Sheffield Wednesday were last in the Premiership.

I’d done well because it was a big climb and it was a difficult descent to the valley floor. I’d done very poorly, as most people would expect, and talk about behind my back.

The ice covered this area and ground out the valleys. As it receded, as the glaciers melted, it dropped big mounds of earth that it had carried along for millennia. Here are great examples. They’re called Drumlins and you can see them in the picture below. Waiting for me like huge Anglo Saxon burial mounds. If the Dead call me in please summon Tom Bombadil. Thanks, beyond any thanks we can give in middle earth, John. Nearly fifty years of sheer joy.

From here it was slog, down to the campsite in the trees on the far left. Overlooked by the majestic Langdale Pikes.

And looking back in the middle is the pass I came over from Angle Tarn.

A great day. Under canvass tonight for the first time this trip.

Night night.