Lake District 29th September 2014

Lake District Monday 29th September 2014

Monday, and the weather was fair. After a walk on Sunday we decided on a more leisurely day and photographs at Aira Force waterfall near Ullswater.

Aira Force

The National Trust car park at Aira Force just off the Ullswater lake-side road between the A66 and Glenridding is usually busy through the summer season, but not too bad at this time of the year. We paid the fairly expensive car park fee (about £5 from memory I think for 4 hours).
It's a short walk to the lower bridge at the bottom of the falls, about a mile I guess, though quite a bit uphill.

It was good with it not being busy, giving me a chance to set up my SLR camera (Canon 6d) on a tripod, and using a 10 stop neutral density filter and slow shutter speeds: gives the pleasant blurry/milky water effect. The sun shining through the canopy helped too.

Also a chance to get off the path and carefully down to almost stream level, to get shots looking up towards the lower bridge.

A nice steady few hours, then we packed up and walked back to the car, and headed off to Pooley Bridge.

Pooley Bridge (Ullswater)

The plan was to take a motor boat out onto the lake, but this plan soon failed when we found the boat place closed. Ah well, there was always photos and ice cream on such a pleasant day!

The view across Ullswater from Pooley Bridge marina to the Earl of Portland boathouse. You can stay there for mini-breaks (for a price!!)

Reflections on Ullswater

Kirkstone Pass- "The Struggle"

After ice-cream in Pooley Bridge, we headed to Ambleside and I bought a new ruc-sack which doubles as a SLR camera back - a Jack Wolfskin that does both jobs, nice! Then back via "The Struggle" over Kirkstone Pass and to Portinscale. 

Portinscale Marina


An evening photo session, to try out my new camera ruc-sack and some more long exposure shots of the sunset over Portinscale Marina. (Similar to some shots I made earlier in the year but using my new SLR)

Fairly pleased with the top two, not sure about the last one...

Lake District 27th/28th September 2014

Lake District Saturday 27th September

After only a couple of weeks back home we were going to the Lakes once again.

Saturday, up the A1, across the A66, and headed for Keswick for supplies, then to our digs...

This time staying in the village of Portinscale, right on the shore of Derwent Lake, near Keswick.

We had stayes in Portinscale twice previously at the Marina apartments, which were basic and small but relatively cheap, and at the 'apartments' at Derwent Manor Hotel (ended up with a 3-level cottage despite booking an apartment!)

This trip, we were staying in a converted hotel called Harney Peak, which is now privately let apartments. Ours was No.7, and was okay without being anything amazing.



The bedroom wasn't huge so not a lot of room for extra storage of ruc-sacks etc..... and just the one bedroom. A reasonable size bathroom with shower over bath, all clean and tidy.

The only bad point was the window you can see in the bedroom on the above photo was right next to the street at low level, and we did have a bit of noise sometimes in the late evening and early morning. Even though it's only a small village there is a bit of footfall from the Derwent Manor hotel up the street and people trekking through the village to and from Keswick.



Lake District Sunday 28th September

Wansfell Pike - 7.5 Miles

A little cloudy, but not bad for late September, we decided on a shortish walk out of Ambleside and up Wansfell Pike to bag a Wainwright fell.

 

We parked up in Ambleside at the university car park (£5.80), and headed off at 10:15 into the town past Barclays bank and following the signs for Stockghyll Force waterfalls.  The road led uphill for a while then a sign-posted left turn through woodland tracks slowly rose to the head of the falls.

We stopped to admire the falls, and then headed off right and through a turnstile aftter a few hundred yards, leading to more open land.

A fairly steep, stony, path then led up to Wansfell Pike (1584ft), with good views down to Ambleside and then across Windermere in the other direction.

Don`t know the couple in the picture below, but the bright jackets were a good contrast against the view!

Looking a bit wind-swept!

Continuing over Wansfell we descended the other side, down to a wide track

Still catching those views down to Windermere:

Descent down was gradual and along mainly easy tracks, no difficulties back to Ambleside.
All in all a pleasant walk with some good views.

We finished at 15:15, having spent a pleasant 5hrs wandering.

Our Walk Score: 7/10

Lake District Thurs 18th September 2014

Lake District 18th September 2014

Thursday - Helvellyn via Raise

Thursday brought a forecast for good weather, and so an early start was prompted for us to tackle Helvellyn. This walk was not going to be by the usual route most take via Striding Edge, but from the Western side near to where we were staying. The approach is via Sticks pass and then traverses the Northern spine of the range by Raise and Whiteside to Helvellyn Summit.

The route would begin from Stanah, just a few miles up the road from Bram Cragg farm, and we parked at the community hall arriving a little before 9am. Parking fee was £2 in the honesty box, which we were more than delighted to pay for a full days parking. 

After getting all our gear together for a long day, we set off up a narrow lane through the small hamlet of Stanah and over a stile at the lane end onto more open ground. A small waterfall presented itself at Stanah Gill, and some pictures had to be taken. (Hand held - no tripod today)

The route climbs through bracken quite steeply and quite relentless for a mile and a half or more before reaching Sticks Pass. Here an interchange of 4 paths allows travel to all points of the compass. We rested and our destination headed us South towards the summit of Raise. 

There was still some low lying mist around, though quickly changing and moving, revealing the landscape.

After a short push uphill we were soon to the summit of Raise (2900ft) and took another well deserved rest.

The picture below shows the path we had taken to Raise Summit and by now it was getting busier.

Myself in silhouette reaching Raise summit - nice picture Susan!

From Raise we headed a similar distance again to Whiteside with a short descent and another short ascent.

Whiteside Summit (2851ft) and the mist is really beginning to clear now as we headed nearer to mid-day. Whiteside is named after a rash of Quartz stones on its Western slope.

From here the Helvellyn ridges could be seen with Swirral Edge nearest and Striding edge out of view though in the above picture. 

Looking back from Whiteside Summit the path we had travelled.

From Whiteside we could see ahead a steep and rocky ascent up to Helvellyn Lower Man, see picture below.....

Nearly up Helvellyn Lower Man (3035ft)

From Helvellyn Lower Man, the going is then easy with a wide flat plateau leading to the summit cairn and shelter of Hevellyn itself.

The view from Helvellyn Lower Man down the path we came

Helvellyn Summit shelter (3116ft), and time for a rest and eats, very busy now with people reaching the summit from all directions.

These shots show Red Tarn and both Swirral edge leading to Catstye Cam and Striding edge leading down to Glenridding.

Above: Some braver peeps tackling Swirral Edge

The broad flat summit of Helvellyn and cross-wall wind shelter. 
Helvellyn means "mountain lake of the hunting ground".

Above: Striding edge, see the dots that are people!

Above: Looking down onto Swirral Edge

After a long rest, taking in the fantastic views and more eats we set off back to Helvellyn Lower Man, then continued along this path West rather than descending the way we came.

We had seen some mountain bikes at the summit (how hard is that, carrying bikes up much of the way). The bikes appeared again, though one chap ripped his tyre and went down, luckily not too near the edge!  

Our route down headed with fair steepness and typical rockiness for about a mile.

Thirlmere reservoir was now in view. 

The picture below shows the descent route looking back , quite steep and rocky.

We then  headed off north west along a less distinct sheep track that was the white stones route.
Here, rather than continuing down, the path heads across the steep terrain taking us back towards Stanah. The path slowly descended, but then at a point we had to quickly descent to meet the final path. It was here we encountered some difficulties as the route down was steep and very far form obvious. After a few false turns we found a way through thick bracken but it was far from pleasant.

Finally we reached a decent path and near to ground level this took us back to the bottom of the Sticks Pass path we set off form that morning. The final mile was tiring but thankfully easier going.

We arrived back at the car park 18:30 having left 09:00, some 9.5 hrs earlier, a long tiring but satisfying day.

The view back up our descent route from the Swirls Car Park just further up the road.

Our Walk score: 8/10