After the week in the Peak District, I’ve spent the last few days having a “normal” family weekend and spent some time planning my Lake District trip, which starts tomorrow.
I made an overall map to chart all 114 peaks so that I can visualise the route and plan accommodation etc. But having done this, I spent a couple of days staring at the chart trying to work out a route and not really getting anywhere. I’m just not that familiar (yet) with the Cumbrian mountains and a series of triangles joined by lines to represent ridges doesn’t tell me anything about the terrain or whether there is even a route up.
About all I’d worked out was that I was going to need to do quite a big trek, using a combination of B&Bs, youth hostels and camping to get me where I need to go, and to enable me to get a respectable number of summits under my belt. So what that told me was that I need to focus on the centre of the Lakes where there’s a big concentration of fells, and because of that patchy accommodation. Maybe I will have to wildcamp, I thought to myself, although I’m not really sure what this will mean in practice.
With no route sorted, but sure camping came into it somewhere, I went out and got myself a lightweight(ish) tent and a lighter sleeping mat. I still neeedd a stove and various other gear so a trip to London the next day beckoned, which was ok as I needed to collect the train tickets anyway.
The pressure of tomorrow’s deadline loomed large, and yesterday I finally knuckled down and planned a route and booked accommodation for the middle weekend – in Little Town. The rest of it I’m planning to camp or make up as I go along.
I spent this morning packing everything and trying to find those last few spaces for some small items. I failed. I went out to buy bread for lunch and also came back with another rucksack – a monstrous 70+10 litre one from Decathlon. Everything went in like a dream and it’s much better featured than the cheap pile of crap I bought from Tesco.
Anyway, the plan itself is to travel out to Coniston and camp tomorrow, then walk over the Coniston fells and over Pike o’Blisco (or a lower route to the side) to the campsite in Langdale. Then to head up towards the Scafells and drop down into Seathwaite. I’ll then work my way over through the western and north western fells, getting myself to Little Town by the weekend. After that I’ll see how I go but will head vaguely back towards Ambleside for the return next week.
