Tuesday 18th May- Drive for about 6 hours to eventually get to Wasdale head car park. Foolishly pay for "all day" parking, then proceed to walk to the top of Scafell pike in 1 hour and 15 minutes, I actually had to check with people, is this it? this is the highest point? I guess I walked the direct route, this was easier than cat bells, yet cat bells is half the height.
Wednesday 19th May - Drive the nice little 17 mile trip to Helvellyn from where I am staying in Keswick. Leave car park at 9.40am, climb up striding edge, across the top, then down swirral edge, then walk back around the mountain back to car park by 12.25. So 2 hours 45 minutes round trip, ignore google saying this is 6 hours plus. I am fast though and only one old chap went by me who was very experienced and was running. I didn't want to run as I wanted to see how long it would take me at my natural pace.
later on Wednesday 19th may.....
I went and had a look at the stone circle on my way back to Keswick, sat by some sheep shit and read my book and ate for a while, then tried to go back to hotel, but couldn't find anywhere to park, so drove to the lay-by by Scales village and climbed Blencathra.
Blencathra is in my opinion a much scarier climb than Helvellyn.
I went up sharp edge, and this felt a lot more dangerous than striding edge. I think this is largely because no one else was around, I could only see one other person way up ahead of me on sharp edge, and very few people on the other routes, whereas Helvellyn seems a lot busier so you feel confidence in numbers.
Once on the top I came back down on Halls fell ridge. This was great and lasts a lot longer than swirral edge. I imagine climbing up this way would be a lot of fun as it would be climbing for a long time rather than the endless walking up slopes that mountains have so much of.
I think I took about 3 hours total to get back to the car so similar size walk as doing Helvellyn, but a lot more of this is fun climbing and less up hill walking for ages just to get to the mountain. So I would certainly recommend Blencathra as being just as much fun if not more fun than Helvellyn so it seems a shame it was so empty, or perhaps I just picked a very quiet time at 3pm on a very sunny day.
Thursday and Friday rained so I didn't do any other mountains although the blister on my foot wouldn't have been happy with more anyway. This is what happens when you think you are clever going up mountains in a pair of old Nike air max without the laces done up.
