Robert Mcgrady - 164217

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Walking Record

Details

Date : 29/08/2024

Duration : 5-8 hours

Style : Leader / Supervisor

Type : Quality Mountain Day (QMD)

Weather : Partially Cloudy

Wind : Gentle Breeze

Camping Type : N/A

Nights Camping : 0

Mountains : Catbells High Spy

Flagged :

Description

Our last walking day in The Lakes and I wanted to redeem the experience for my partner.
So I planned a route that we should have done on day one, but hey ho.
The plan is to park at the car park GR: 245, 212 and walk up Catbells to High Spy and drop down to Derwent Water and loop back to the car park.
We parked up at 08:00am and ascended 1.45km via the Skelgill Bank to Catbells. I can't believe the amount of soil erosion from the last time I was on this hill! It's horrible! What was once a small defined path is now a motorway of barren rock.
The scramble-y bits up to Catbells are polished as well, so I took extra care of my partner who was still gaining her confidence on this type of terrain. Again, I confidence rope may have been useful here.
We continued south from the summit for 700metres until we got to a 4 way junction GR:245, 192 and then started our 3.4km ascent to High Spy, via Bull Crag. Again a few scramble-y bits, but nothing too taxing. The path was easy to navigate and pacing was good. My partner was actually enjoying the walk, which ultimately is the goal.
We took at detour at Blea Crag to look out over Derwent Water, before picking up the path to High Spy.
We had lunch at High Spy and then started making our way back. Pacing was a lot quicker on the return journey and we made it back to the Hause Gate within an hour.
We dropped down East towards Derwent Water on the bridleway.. this was a rough and steep 700 metre path. Not to mention busy by this time in the day. At GR: 249, 187 we turned North and headed along another bridleway that almost ran parallel with the road. This section was 2.5km back to car... with another ice cream stop. They definitely know where to park to catch people coming off the fells.
No issues encountered on this walk and in actual fact, this should have been the day one walk! It would have been a much better introduction to the fells.

Area : North Western Fells

Essentially this area is encompassed by Lakes of Bassenthwaite, Derwent Water, Buttermere and Crummock Water with the southern boundary being the Honister Pass

Location

Marker
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