The weekend of 16 - 17 January 2010 we had our next get together as a group; the plan was that we were going to camp at Wastwater and then try to summit Scafell Pike. As it turned out, due to the high winds and heavy snow we had experienced over the last few weeks, we were advised to keep to low level walks.
So on Saturday afternoon, with tent, food and sleeping bag in the car, I set off with a fellow climber to Langdale. After an interesting journey courtesy of the Sat Nav, we found the campsite. It was now dark, so we set about putting up my tent in the glow of my car headlights, aided with our head torches and windup torch.
Initially we thought we were hammering into rock when putting the tent pegs in, but we soon realised it was ice and that the ground was frozen solid. Break out the bigger tent pegs and the bigger hammer and we managed to get the tent up.
We then wandered down the road to the rest of the group who were in the local pub discussing the route for the next day over a pint.
The plan was to get up early and head off by 9.30 to walk the Langdale Pike route again, which is about 8.5 miles and would be reasonably challenging due to the frozen paths and wet conditions.
Langdale Pike walk description taken from the Fell & Rock Climbing Club Of The English Lake District Limited. (www.frcc.co.uk/)
After a nice meal we headed back to our campsite.
The Camping:
To say I was cold in the tent is putting it mildly; it dropped to about -3C overnight, but this is still nowhere near as cold as it will be on Kilimanjaro. Even with a self inflating roll mat, thermals, hat, fleece and socks I was still not warm enough and did consider getting to my car to warm up. I discounted this as the shame would be too much, also I won’t have my car on the mountain.
Eventually I got to sleep and had about 3 hours rest before the light and the smell of bacon cooking woke me up again. Those of you who know me will be aware that my wife had a baby about 11 weeks ago, so I am now quite good at surviving on small amounts of sleep. The conclusion on the morning was that the sleeping bag was just not good enough and I am now on the hunt for a thicker sleeping bag.
The View from the Tent in the Morning.
After a bacon sandwich and cup of coffee I was starting to feel a bit more awake and after we put the tent away we headed off on the walk. As mentioned in the previous post we have been given sports nutrition packs to try as part of our training, which include energy gels, protein bars and isotonic/energy drinks. I tried these out on the walk with some success; the energy gel with caffeine was very nice, a bit like an espresso. I decided I just need to be a bit more disciplined with them as on the mountain they will be very helpful in combating the tiredness.
It was a reasonably challenging walk, mainly due to the amount of snow and ice on the route. We saw some beautiful scenery including this reflection of the mountain in the frozen lake.
Blea Tarn Frozen.
After an eventful walk we got back to the campsite at about 3.30pm, packed up the car and headed home, ignoring the Sat Nav this time.
