Me and the Pooch Go Camping

There was a certain amount of unfinished business at Rosthwaite, so me and the dog went back. The campsite was closed, or, at least, locked but this didn’t deter us from putting up the tent and the farmer came, declared that I must be mad and charged me nine quid for three nights. It would have been four, but there was a storm involving drifting snow and closed roads on the Monday, so there was some slight delay…

 

And so, Wednesday dawned wetly. The wetness went on most of the morning so, after consulting the dog, we decided to have a longer snooze than we should have done and eventually, when the last drips of drizzle had splattered the tent, we set off, up through Stonethwaite and on up the impossibly steep path towards Dock Tarn.

At the part where it levels off a bit, we turned left for the bagging of Knotts, a 400 metre TuMP where, it seems, nobody goes, specially not Wainwright or any of his fans and acolytes. This turned out to be an error, however – we should have turned right. (dhuhh) Thus, we missed the bagging of High Crag, which was definitely on my List Of Things To Bag, in favour of Great Crag, which wasn’t , as I’d already been there.

It was such a nice walk, though, so far, and Great Crag – a Wainwright (more dhuhhh) has a cracking view. Innocently, and forgetting that I’d already been here some thirty years ago, I congratulated myself, kissed the dog, embraced the summit cairn and severely damaged a  Warburton’s Thin thing, charged, as it was, with some Mackerel with a twist.

The rest of the walk was rubbish. The path goes North through an area of lank grass, of no use to man nor beast, bog, (frogs quite like bogs, I suppose) and dying heather – a sloppy. squelchy walk over a poor landscape of which the National Trust should be ashamed to have allowed to deteriorate into this mess, frankly.

I pointed Lucky towards the Riverside Bar at Rosthwaite for a brief moment of celebration for the bagging of two new hills. Lucky likes this pub for it’s warm fire and the fact that everybody seems to like him there – the barmaid even knows his name. She doesn’t know mine, though!

Except, I’d only bagged one…

It chucked it down big time from about six at night till well after  Thursday lunchtime, melting much fell snow and turning rivers and streams into raging rivers and streams. This meant that me and Lucky got lots of sleep. I read more Beowulf and sipped scotch whilst Lucky ripped up bits of paper between bouts of doggy snoring and doggy  running and yelping dreams.

So, it was late when we set off for Keswick for the bagging of Castlehead and Grange Crags – both of which provide superb views for very little effort – thus three ticks for the trip – I thought I had four – and I missed my little Birkett, stuck, as it is on the side of Glaramara and permanently in hill-fog. It’ll wait. I’ll do it later with a proper walk along Glaramara and Allen Crags.

Lucky did get four ticks by the way – he’d never been up Great Crag.  There’s nothing worse than a smug dog.

Couple more pics below…