In Search of Armboth

Thursday, 30th June

I've got to stop climbing the fells I have never done just in order to tick them off in my walking books. There is good reason why some of these fells have not been climbed by me before and slowly but surely I am beginning to understand some of them. There are carparks by the side of Thirlmere lake for instance which are not marked on the map. They have footpaths signposted from the road which when alighted upon lead bloody nowhere! I found the right one at about twelve, even though I had started early. The right footpath, the one leading to Watendlath (Armboth on the way) was quite delightful. With the sun shining down and a wall of rock to the right, beck to the lift, with Dire Straits's Romeo & Juliet on the i-pod - great, until reaching the top. The OS map says that Armboth is on the right and Wainwright, on the left. I went left but although I scrambled through bogs and rocks I could not find a summit cairn anywhere. I consoled myself with the thought of maybe getting to Ulscarf, or the tarn at least but to no avail. I ran out of time and finally settled for the tea-shop at Watendlath, which was still open when I sailed in as was the pub at Rosthwaite. But whether I found Armboth, I shall never know.

One of the Watendlath ducks.

Sharing Hesse with a friend.

The tea shop at Watendlath

Watendlath

Saturday, 25th June

Another walk to Watendlath in brilliant sunshine. Marcus is still feeling poorly so we need long flat walks - the tea shop at the end is also a good incentive! This time we did not get mauraded by the yob geese as they had had goslings and were busy looking after them.

We took books, to sit in the sun. Over the past couple of years I have made it a point to endeavour to read some old classic literature amongst my preferred contemporary stuff so today I was reading Hesse - The Glass Bead Game, which has taken me an age to read because, to be frank, I am not much keen. I adored Siddhartha, which I read many years ago but this one really isn't doing it for me. Anyhow, no longer in competition with the geese, the ducks have come into their own. They are much more polite of course but very tame, taking food straight from your fingers. The female mallard, unlike myself, seemed quite interested in the book.

View from Steel Fell summit, looking West

View from Gibson Knott to Grasmere

A Bad Day on Steel Fell

Thursday, 13th June

I don't often have bad days on the fells and to be honest, this day wasn't bad as such. I had planned to walk to the top of Steel Fell the long way, around a large loop encircling the Greenburn valley from Grasmere. In hindsight it would have been better had I attempted the walk the other way around and ascended straight up over the summit. As it happened I got stuck at the top; unable to descend as I was unable to ascertain the level of the drop etc. and ended up walking all the way back down the way I had come. This brought the time of the walk to over seven and a half hours, which I hadn't really prepared for. It also meant that the Gingerbread Shop was closed by the time I got down and a good many other shops as well. I arrived home, drove straight past the entrance of my lane to the nearest garage and gorged myself on a large bag of liquorice allsorts (current favourites at the moment). I needed sugar, I needed food - God I was tired.

As I say though, it was not really a bad day, simply a tiring one. And I did give myself a bit of a telling-off for having a whinge. Sitting on the edge of ridge with the late afternoon sun kissing my shoulders, the smell of sheep and grass filling my nose and a vast expanse of mountain in front of me, I was really in no position to moan, I felt.