28 September: Planned Walk Break

Ordinarily I'd take a day off after a long run: days off usually involve nothing more than a bit of cycling and dog-walking, but these ones are going to be a bit different as I'm staying over in Grasmere with Adrian and Geoff and we're going hill-walking. It'll be alright though, I can surely handle a bit of a walk after all, can't I?

It doesn't feel that easy on Friday morning as we head up alongside Taylorgill Force by Seathwaite, on our way to the Corridor Route to Scafell. It's drizzly again, and cold in the wind, but even so, once we're up past Styhead, it's great to be in such inspiring surroundings. Cloud drifts across Lingmell and the great crags of Scafell and the Pike, and ahead of us is the great chasm of Piers Gill. The dull plod is over and we're on the interesting bit.

We see lots of people plodding up from Wasdale as we cross the faint track across to the screes below Lord's Rake. The signs warning visitors to stay out of the Rake because of the danger of landslip have long been buried under fallen boulders, but even so we're the only ones there this morning - quite reassuring given the amount of loose rock in this steep gully. The Rake itself seems to be relatively free of debris at hte moment: most of it seems to have tumbled down and out onto the lower slopes , so it's easy to haul ourselves up the right-hand side, looking up at the "Damocles Boulder" up at the top. This huge block detached itself from the wall of the Rake several years ago, and lodges itself there: its position is becoming more precarious with every freeze/thaw cycle and one day it's going to crash down in a shower of broken rock. We'd be extremely unlucky to be there when it does fall - even so, it's nice to be out of the firing line and up the West Wall Traverse. The walls of the gully close in at the top, just at the greenest. slipperiest pasrt of the climb, before we're spat out onto the misty summit plateau and go around to find the cairn and a couple of other visitors. It's cold on top, and although we briefly get a view, it's not a place to stay for long today.

We go down by Foxes Tarn, another horribly loose route, and double back to Mickledore. All this is just a way of avoiding Broad Strand, the rock scramble that a lot of people like to look at, before going around the way we've just come down. We meet a couple there who ask if we're going up. No, we say, but Geoff has a look anyway, squeezing through the gap to the platform. The rock is so greasy he has trouble coming back. The hesitant couple, who have been there for 20 minutes, are horrified to learn that he hasn't actually been up Broad Stand by stepping across to the platform, and promptly ask us for directions to Lord's Rake.

We continue in thick fog, up to Scafell Pike, with a thinner than usual throng at the cairn, then through the boulders across the ridge and down to Esk Hause, before making the long descent alongside Grains Gill to Seathwaite. We have a cup of tea at the farm before spending the evening back at the Lamb in Grasmere, which is full of people come to watch the England rugby team in its bid to qualify for the World Cup quarter finals.