Mellbreak and 4 others

The proposed route were a double, first off was a five Wainwright route and then a 2 easy Wainwright route just north of the main one.

My morning didn't start well as I have a chest cold and sore throat, but still felt OK. I think if the walk had been the day before I might have posponed it, so we were lucky on that account.

Arriving at Maggies Bridge car park, we set off back up the road to the start of Mellbreak. I have often wanted to climb Mellbreak on it's northern ridge as it looks steep and exciting. However, there was only a few places of excitement and lots of scree to climb. This was my first Dewey this year, I had previously climbed Mellbreak's southern Wainwright top many years ago.

Mellbreaks north ridge, the route is the scree just the right hand side.

After we had bagged the southern top we head back over onto the saddle and dropped down to Mosedale to climb a pathless sided Hen comb. Once bagged, Ross suggested we follow the fence line to Gavel fell, the next Wainwright. On the map the bridleway looked best, but as usual changing a plan once seeing the lay of the land can be a bonus and a short cut.

A view of Honister Pass in the distance.

The weather up to now had been cool, breezy and sometimes sunny. Now it became colder and windy. A slog upto Blake Fell meant at least we were closer to finishing. At the top we decided to split up. Ross was to take on his main objective Burnbank Fell and me on Carling Knott (a Dewey). We met up just before Holme Wood.

The loneliness of a long distance walker, mountainmanjuniour is the spot

Ross sleeping like a ...er, log!

The completed route for me, but Ross bagged the Wainwright Burnbank Fell.

We had both agreed to drop the 2nd route as I had been feeling tired and I have a strange injury to my ankle which I'll investigate further but I think it my be related to my boots innersole.

A slow drive back through Buttermere followed, to the amusement of Japanese tourists on a bus as I had to squeeze my car past their coach. I loved the comment from Ross "Did you see their faces?"....NO, I didn't because I only had 1 inch clearance either side of my car! The last place I wanted to look was up :-0 

It's now Monday morning and I'm coughing my lungs out!!!!

All the ten's

Just a quick update on a me and Mountainmanjunior's walk of the Kentmere round last weekend. Also my apologizes for the lateness as I only had my laptop available and I didn't know my password - LOL

I realised early on that there was 9 Wainwrights in the Kentmere round, but Mountainmanjunior had already bagged High Street, and that 2 Wainwrights (Sallow and Sour Howes) were fairly close. This would have meant a good 10 Wainwrights on the 10th of October (10th month) 2010....Wicked! 

I parked at Troutbeck, just beside the river and next to the church. First thing was I had forgotten how to reset the GPS - DOH. This took at least 1km to rectify. 

As sometimes happens it wasn't easy to spot the top heights of a Wainwright and both Sallows and Sour Hows meant we had passed the tops without realising it. The GPX file does confirm both bagged....phew!

As soon as the Sallows was bagged we started on the Kentmere round going in a clockwise direction. I had elected to go ultra-lightweight and this had the effect of me being fairly easy going up the long ridges of Yoke, Ill Bell and Froswick. At the beacon of Thornthwaite Crag we ate some sandwiches sheltering from the wind. Up to now the day was cool and hazy.

Mardale Ill bell was a bit troublesome as we didn't find a path up from our direction, although it was probably there but due to my impatience we cut across rough ground and almost immediately found the top.

A lengthy and rocky ascent lead up to Harter Fell and from there a whole long ridge meant an easy bagging of Kentmere and Shipman Knotts. We had completed the 10 Wainwrights fairly easily and I was feeling quite good and not even tired.

We cut through some right of ways past lovely fields, streams and bridges to Kentmere village itself. Now was our hardest test, the bridle path of Garburn Pass back to Troutbeck. It was littered with small to meduim sized pebbles and stones. It twisted your ankles and strained my knees. The worse was on the descent side and at one point my right knee had a shooting pain. The only course of action was to try and find the smoothest route through.

It was only the Garburn Pass that drained me of energy as we arrived back at the car. A quick energy drink and we set off to travel as far as possible before it got dark. I don't like driving in the dark :-(

The following day only tight Achilles heel and a bit of tiredness showed. I must be fitter then I thought.