AT Training Hikes - Lake District National Park - Langdale
Days 1 - 6, Monday 20th to Sunday 26th January 2014
The AT is renowned for being a physically challenging trail. Rather than skirting around mountains, the Appalachian Trail ascends and descends every mountain top it passes through. It is equivalent to climbing Mount Everest 16 times apparently. So, with less than four weeks until we start our thru hike and to make life slightly easier for us initially, we thought that we had better get some hill training hikes in and build up our hill legs!
Off north to the Lake District for a couple of weeks in our campervan we head then.
We stopped on route in The Howgills arriving Monday evening at Great Langdale National Trust Campsite for 6 nights. A great spot where we can do numerous day hikes straight from the van.
The weather has been 'wet' from the start, we've had everything mist, rain, sleet, hail, snow and ice. Our wet weather gear has been worn every day since reaching Langdale. Luckily the campsite has a great drying room and our campervan has been a great comfort to return to at the end of the day, luxuries we won't have on the AT - we'll just have to grin and bear it when we get there! The aim of this trip though was to increase our hill fitness levels by doing continuous uphill day hikes, testing our backpacks with ever increasing pack loads.
To summarise: Our first 6 days of walking we walked 75 miles over 2 Howgills and 9 Wainwrights. We averaged 12.5 miles per day, average speed 2.36 mph. Our total ascent, 5216m (17,112ft).
We're very pleased with these stats considering the wet, wintery weather and terrain we encountered.
Details of each individual day walked are below:
Day One: The Howgills
On our drive up to The Lakes we stopped off at Sedbergh in the heart of The Howgill Fells for a hike up and over the fells via The Calf (645m)
and back down past Cawtley Spout (waterfall).
A grey day, luckily the rain held off.... we've not been so lucky the rest of the week!
Stats: 12.9 miles in 4 hours 15 minutes (including brief stops - we don't tend to stop for long breaks whilst hiking, especially in cold weather, we prefer to keep moving so just take quick 5 -10 minute breaks for a quick snack/refuel or we'll snack whilst we're walking). Average speed 3mph. Total ascent/descent 804m. We were only carrying lighter day packs today.
Day Two: Crinkle Crags
Today we headed for Crinkle Crags (860m), the snow capped crinkly peaks in the distance.
A steady climb up Oxendale Beck initially but then it became tougher and steeper at Hell Gill (aptly named) where Nigel decided we'd take a short cut scrambling up over the crags to the summit which we reached not long after we hit the snowline.
From Crinkle Crags we headed to the three rocky summits of Cold Pike (701m). Another grey day weather wise with wintery conditions on the top. We stayed dry until Cold Pike when the rain and wind picked up and we had to don the wet weather gear. From here we headed down off the hill via Red Tarn eventually rejoining Oxendale Beck.
Stats: 10.9 miles in 5 hours 30 minutes (including breaks). Average speed 2 mph. Total ascent/descent 1040m. Slightly heavier packs today, we are going to gradually increase our pack weight each day to get used to the heavier loads.
Day 3: Grasmere
Today was forecast for rain and drizzle all day so we decided on a lower level walk to Grasmere and back. We left the campsite passing some Herdwick sheep in the road, the sheep here are really cute and fluffy, they need to be to keep warm! We initially hiked a short way along the Cumbria Way parallel to Great Langdale Beck where the rain had turned paths into streams.
We then headed up Thrang Crag (300m) on an interesting path through old slate quarry sites below Silver Howe before reaching Grasmere village where we stopped for a lovely lunch in a very quiet cafe, we were the only ones in there! It has been the same on the hills, we had them to ourselves - The joys of wet mid weeks in January in the Lakes.
After lunch, it was still raining, we stopped off to buy some delicious handmade Grasmere Gingerbread from a quaint old fashioned little shop before heading up over Loughrigg Fell (335m), not much to see from the top, but then the weather started to brighten slightly as we headed down to Loughrigg Tarn.
From here it was through the lovely little hamlet of Elterwater joining the Cumbria Way again through Chapel Stile (we resisted the Wainwrights pub) and back alongside Great Langdale Beck, retracing our steps from this morning for the last mile or so back to the campsite.
Stats: 12.7 miles in 5 hours 30 minutes (plus 1 hour for lunch). Average speed 2.5mph. total ascent/descent 555m.
Day 4: Langdale Pikes
Today was forecast for heavy rain but with sunny spells so we decided to brave it and go high again today up to Harrison Stickle (736m), the highest of a group of peaks known collectively as The Langdale Pikes. We took the direct route to the summit from Stickle Ghyll car park via Pike How. A steady but steep climb it wasn't too long before we hit the snow line causing the footing underneath to be a bit slippery. The weather started off slightly misty but then with constant strong winds it switched dramatically throughout the rest of the day between hail, snow and very brief sunny spells. Great natural lighting throughout the day, especially when the sun popped out for a couple of minutes every now and again, gave us some fantastic, albeit brief, photo opportunities.
From Harrison Stickle we headed to two more peaks, Thunacar Knot (723m) and Sergeant Man (734m) before descending steeply (Nigel going off piste again) down a slippery snowy grassy slope to Stickle Tarn where we stopped for a very quick snack, it was too cold to stop for long.
From the tarn we headed down Stickle Ghyll on a slippery steep snow covered path before eventually hitting solid ground again back where we started.
Stats: 11.7 miles in 4 hours 30 minutes. Average speed 2.5mph. Total ascent/descent 896m.
Day 5: Bowfell
Another big climb to day up to Bowfell (903m). We started up the valley from the campsite onto The Band which was a long steady climb up to Three Tarns and then onto Bowfell. The snow on the hill tops was the deepest so far today with large areas iced over. It was a very cold wet misty day, providing no views at all - the selfie of us on the summit shows just a grey mist background!
From Bowfell we headed to Esk Pike (885m) and then to Esk Hause. Navigation was not easy today, but Nigel was in his element, he loves his maps and compass! Thank goodness for the cairns also, they were useful today to help find the invisible path down.
From Esk Hause crossing we headed down off the misty hill via Angle Tarn, then Rossett Ghyll finally joining a part of the Cumbria Way again to come out at Old Dungeon Ghyll inn. The cold wet mist eventually turned to drizzle on the way down. A quality winter mountain day, Nigel wanted a pint in the pub but we decided to get back to the campervan, get changed and dry, then drive to Ambleside before it got too late. The trade off was Fish and Chips instead, plus a bit of necessary food shopping.
Stats: 13.5 miles in 6 hours. Average speed 2.3mph. Total ascent/descent 1081m.
Day 6: Lingmoor Fell and Tilberthwaite
We hadn't checked the weather forecast today as we would go out hiking whatever the weather. When we woke up though the wind was really strong, too strong to go up high so we headed off on another low level walk. It stayed dry for about half an hour and then rained and hailed on us for the rest of the day. We got a couple of half hour respites in-between showers.
From the campsite we headed south over Lingmoor Fell where we had lovely views back to Crinkle Crags and Bowfell (in the mist) where we'd been a few days earlier - a milder day today, the snow that we encountered on the high tops earlier in the week had just about disappeared. The gusts of wind on the fell were strong enough to knock us sideways. We didn't have the hills to ourselves today, there were a few more people out and about braving the weather it being a Saturday. At one point we came across some interesting rocks on the path and had to remove our packs to squeeze through the rock slabs.
We headed down off the fell out of the strong winds to Blea Tarn and onto Castle Howe where we passed some smug looking sheep in their dry penthouse barn looking down on us - soaking in the rain! lol
It had been raining on us all morning and from here we had the option of taking a 1 hour short cut back to the campsite along a road or continuing for another 3 hours on our intended route. We opted to carry on as intended for another 3 hours, hoping that the rain would stop or at lease cease a little eventually. Not 5 minutes after continuing the weather decided to really test us and pelt us with hail and sleet! We carried on regardless passing some off road motorcyclists squatting behind a stone wall sheltering from the hail. The weather did improve slightly, we got a couple of dry half hours allowing us to dry off slightly before another rain or hail shower hit.
The next few miles were through old slate quarries areas to Tilberthwaite where there were some gorgeous National Trust owned farm houses.
The hail showers continued as we headed back through more old and current slate quarries, Hodge Close Quarry and Parrock Quarry to Little Langdale.
From Little Langdale it was back to Chapel Stile hamlet, were again we resisted the pub. We couldn't stand the thought of getting warm and comfy then having to put all our wet waterproofs back on for the final hour hike back along the Cumbria Way to the campsite - we had great views of The Langdale Pikes on the way back.
Stats: 13.6 miles in 6 hours. Average 2.2mph. Total ascent/descent 851m
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