Faith in the Weatherman for a day on Great Gable

There comes a time once a year, where I organise a trip for a couple of grown males to get together in order to escape the confines of matrimony and motherhood by scarpering off to one of the mountainous regions and 'bagging' a peak or more.  This year was no exception, except there was only one taker as a couple bailed out at the last minute, and the other usual suspect happens to be loved up to the hilt, and currently incommunicable living the dream in China.

Hardknott Pass, spot the car.   Not my pic

There was much time spent eyeing every mountain weather forecast of the British Isles, as it mostly referenced rain, rain, and even heavier rain.  Without having a place booked to erect our tent; a long journey to meet my friend Branden in Cleethorpes; a random meeting of one Mr. Brown, amongst others; resulting in a serious amount of beer and sambuca, coupled with about 5 hours sleep and the knowledge I may have upset Branden's wife by not seeing her or the family all weekend... I was ready to let him sit in the drivers seat, and play the role of the suffering nightmare passenger giving directions to the Lake District whilst popping Co-dydramol to ease away the pain.

The friendly welcome leading onto the Hardknott Pass

The highlight of the drive was the sight of Branden's face trying to keep control of his car over the Hardknott Pass.  This road links the Dudden and Eskdale Valley's together, and is regarded as one of the steepest roads in the country.  It twists, it turns, it scares you when a car is coming at you, it makes you wish your handbrake was tighter and pray the clutch does its job.  It is closed for winter, it is approximately 30 degrees in gradient, it is an ambition of some silly cyclists, who arrive to conquer, and look worse pushing a bike up a very steep hill.  In essence, he wasn't happy with my choice of route when he just got a brand new company car a matter of weeks ago.

I chose to head to Wast Water, and hope we find a campsite along there with a view of tackling some of the larger peaks in the Lake District that I hadn't been up before.  It was 4th time lucky on the campsite front, and it happened to be right next to a cracking pub, where I decided to put my alcoholic daemons to rest with a gammon steak and a couple of beers.  I nearly passed out though when I saw the steak.  I didn't read the part where it was 16oz!  A whole pound of pig to eat was simply too much, but it was consumed, we can't let the little squealer die in vain.  I was gutted to not have my camera with me to prove this.

Branden and Great Gable at the start

The forecast of rain persisted throughout, but our little window of opportunity was for the next day where it said 'rain will lift above 750m in the Southern and Western fells in the afternoon, raising to cloud free summits later'.  For this reason, we were in no hurry to get started, but were soon on the paths of Wasdale Head heading towards the cloud that enveloped Great Gable for what turned out to be a perfect walk given the conditions.

It was a steady walk up, in a very fine drizzle.  The cloud stayed put, but occasionally, there was always a slight glimpse of something somewhere that looked high up.  People we passed all gave their view of the top, "it's horrible up there, nothing but rain".  Still, we were steadfast, and stood by the weather man with the faith that they are never wrong (no comment required). We were also sure every now and then, even in the thick of it, we could occasionally see below into the valley, and see a lake or another fell nearby.  We knew the clouds were lifting.

Once we got to Beck Head tarn, it was a simple task of taking a bearing with whatever features became intermittently visible, and then scramble the final 200m to the top.  It was cold, it wasn't wet, the views could be voguely described as 'fifty shades of grey'.  People came, said "hi" then left as quick.  There was a man there itching to get a photo, but gave up despite our protests that the cloud had been rising with us throughout.  We ate some food, waited, waited some more, then decided to take our pictures on the top:

Muggy as I stood 899m up on Great Gable

There's some water over there

Cloud free summit, and just a few chosen fell left

Wasdale from Great Gable, the Scafell's left, Western Fells right.  Wast Water centre

The only people we met before heading down.  Crazy fools

We were on our own, and changed all plans for an easy route back down.  We like to push ourselves at times, and the sight of two guys carrying their bikes to the top with a fun packed trip back in mind made us decided to go down the hard way.  In fact, if I could see where I was, we would have gone up this way, as we both like a good hands on scramble.  We took a very steep descent heading towards Napes Needle, but coming out the wrong side of it in between the two large buttresses on a huge amount of scree which to say was loose would sound too easy.  It was steep, and only once we got to grips with stopping ourselves slipping onto our bums all the time, we were relieved.

Before the scramble began

Beginning the descent

Branden finding his way down

This was very good fun, and kept us alert

The view from the climb, a long way down

Once we were out of the worst of it, it was a case of scrambling back to the main path we came up, get to the Wasdale Head Inn, and share some stories with some other walkers.  It turned out, all those that persisted with the weather were glad they did so for the reward of the views that surrounded them.

Looking back at the route down

Great Gable

Wast Water

It was well worth the effort of a lot of hours travelling this weekend, and camping in the rain.  If only to give someone another education when it comes to playing me at Backgammon over beer... I never lose.