Upper Swaledale Interlude

Me and LTD and Dawn went to Keld for the camping and a bit of swimmin’

Just a bit upstream from the campsite is Catrake Force – a series of , would you believe it (?) small cataracts with stupidly deep plunge pools of tea-coloured water, so brown you can’t see your feet. It was this lack of visibility in the tootsie department that caused me to walk off the slippery underwater slab I was sliding my feet across into the deep, cold, brown wet stuff. Not so much a dignified dive, more of a panic-filled plunge.

A bit later, after traversing the edge of the pool for a bit and launching myself into a proper, controlled swim, I decided to test the depth and walk a bit. A secon panic-filled plunge ensued, except that this was fairly brief.

Then, a bit later, whilst exploring the waterfall, I headed, gingerly, back towards basecamp and then remember thinking “This is probably going to end badly” as my feet headed skywards and my head towards rock. It soon became clear that I’d got away with no significant injuries as I slid, more gracefully across the slab towards that deep, cold, brown, foaming pool.

We returned tentwards for tea..

In the morning, we had a less incident-full ramble down Swaledale, up Swinner Gill, across the moor (using the new unwild-the-moors steps and slabs provided by YDNP), along the edge of Gunnerside Gill and back up the Dale to Keld where we found JJ.

A wet and midgey night followed, relieved somewhat by a smoky fire we lit in a fire-tub-thingy provided for the purpose by the campsite peeps. Me and Dawn provided a camping tea (tinned stewed steak, tinned veggies, tinned spuds). This was outrageously substantial and LTD had to help out at the end. It has to be said that LTD moved not at all from his cosy pit for the next 12 to 14 hours. He does enjoy a nap, does LTD, specially when full of Butcher’s Tripe and half a gallon of camping stew.

In the midgey morning, Dawn went for another plunge in the river whilst JJ cooked a substantial breakfast, after which we forayed UP the Dale, mainly to Wainwath Force, which m, being roadside, got quite busy, and then up the CtoC path to Ravenseat farm where we had a nice cuppa with scones, cream and jam. At this point, it started raining again, but not heavily.

We returned to Keld by a short path parallel to the CtoC path , and a fair bit of road.

The knee stood up reasonably well to the 10 miles of the first walk, but was whingeing a bit by the end, and still didn’t like steep downhills, but the 6 miles on Day 2 caused no issues at all and it all felt really quite well.

We have some Welsh plans quite soon, and we did some light planning for this, so I’m fairly gruntled with knee-based progress. I have medical appointments soon and , maybe we can exclude, or otherwise, an attack of gout. (This is what I think it probably was)