Kirkby Stephen to Gunnerside – a Yomp!

My sis put up her tent, heated it up, cooked dinner, washed up and cooked breakfast. I ate in it, slept in it and ate in it. Then I left my rucksack in it for a long unencumbered day yomping. It was dry when I set off but there was intermittent rain throughout the day. Perhaps the driest place was here.

Wainwright was here.

Turning right (southwards towards Yorkshire) the river running past town was great.

The track then climbs steeply up, to over two thousand feet, with thickening cloud. Halfway up was an old wooden seat, like something out of Lord of the Rings. With clouded, but still impressive views.

Higher up there was a stone throne. This definitely looks like where Frodo sat on the seat of seeing on Amon Hen, gazing towards Mordor.

But the seat of seeing wasn’t seeing much.

It was all beginning to feel a little weird when these huge cairns appeared out of the clouds.

And this was the highest seat of seeing of the three. But it’s brock.

The ground got decidedly boggy from here, often taking five minutes to cross a small stream, digging walking poles into deep mud and retracing steps to find drier ground. Luckily someone had knocked wooden stakes deep into the ground every 50 yards to mark the way, as any path had been erased by the bogs. Finally, after a couple of hours and a slip in the mud, I made it down towards the valley floor, as the sky cleared.

It was still intermittent deep bogland, but not as deep, and a path was mostly visible.

A few miles short of Keld was a farmhouse with a tarmac track leading up to it. Looking at my map, if I followed the track round and down to Keld, instead of following the footpath through bogland, it would only add on another mile. Done!

I made great time on the solid surface and was soon around the road to the bottom of Whitsun Dale where the Beck I had followed flowed into the Swale.

And below that were some decent limestone cliffs.

Passing through Keld the valley gets very steep and, with the aid of a knotted rope that someone has installed, I scrambled down for this view. Awesome!

Now it was a five mile slog at the tired end of the day, down the valley to Gunnerside. And waiting there was my dear sis to take me back to the tent, via an Indian restaurant to pick up a joyous takeaway.

Great day.

Night night.