Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Lake District (blog)

Hello everyone.

It has been a while since I last wrote anything however I have had a busy few days so I thought that I would keep you up to date. Peter the Dutchman came over on Wednesday and we went up to the Lake District. A shopping trip to Ambleside was the first order of business and I managed to buy my self a new 150 weight long sleeve Icebreaker base layer. I like it a lot as it is nice and light and also quite warm. Peter was very impressed with the new light weight Paramo clothing particularly the Quito jacket and Velez light weight trousers, however the Quito jacket only came in Orange or Green which is not what he wanted and the trousers do not have the option of a long leg length so did not fit correctly. Peter did manage to buy a new rucksack saving 1.5kg off the weight of his old one, and also a new pair of inov8 light weight sandals for river crossings.
Then we went off to Elterwater to the YHA there, this is quite a nice little hostel that is relatively cheap, also in the village is a lovely pub called The Brittania. The food and beer here is very good highly recommend, and surprise surprise this is where Nat found us when she arrived at 21:30 after a long drive up from London.
Thursday was the day we had planned for our walk, and what a good walk it was. From the village follow the path that crosses Slater bridge in Little Langdale, then around to Greenburn beck and onto the ridge overlooking Wrynose pass. From here it was onto the summit of Great Carrs, Swirrel How, Coniston old man and then back to Swirrel How for a walk down the Prison Band and a descent back into Greenburn and then to the Three Shires pub for a well earned beer.
Today was a day for a bike ride. I have a cyclosportive planned for mid April thy goes over a few Lakeland passes, with this in mind I thought that a ride from Skelwith Bridge to Eskdale green and back again would be good practice. This meant a route taking in both Wrynose and Hardknot passes in both directions. The journey up Wrynose from Little Langdale is the hard way and I was definitely feeling it by the time I got to the top. At the summit I had a couple if cars behind me who had been there since the bridge so I pulled over to let them overtake, this is when one of the cars stopped an this big bloke got out and came towards me, I thought he was going to hit me for holding him up, I could not have further from the truth. He extended his arm and said he wanted to shake my hand as I had done so well, it dis not feel like I had done well as I was shattered. The descent and climb of the easy side of Hardknot went well an this just left the descent of Hardknot and a return journey to worry about. On the way down, just after the twin hairpins if you know it, my front brake stopped working and the rear brake started to overheat and loose efficiency. This led to a very scary attempt to stop without hurting myself. 15 mins later and front brake adjusted so that it worked well I was able to carry on. The ascent of Hardknot from Eskdale is great, a hard steep start then a gradual climb before the 30% grade finish. It's the twin hairpin bends when you start to feel it, but the whole ascent only lasts for 15 minuets so it is not too bad.
That's it from me today, thanks for reading.

Jayne

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