Lake District Day 2 Wasdale Head to Elterwater

We awoke pretty well rested but a little stiff around the edges but nothing a hearty breakfast wouldn’t solve and to our delight the breakfast definitely hit the mark. Continental plus a full English breakfast, including black pudding. When we looked outside we were delighted to see that it wasn’t raining and the sky was relatively clear albeit a little grey.

Today’s hike was the longest of the four and we knew probably the toughest if we stuck to our planned route. We started off walking underneath the back of the Great Gables which we could see perfectly and then slowly started our way up that side of the valley and over the top. Once up on top we checked our watches and realised we had to get a little wriggle on as it had taken a little longer then we planned. Due to this we decided to not take the high line over Esk Pike but cut around the lower side. This proved to not be the best choice as we ended up in a boggy rocky section where the path seemed to disappear for large sections which caused us to have to scale across a combination of wet rock or bogs. We eventually managed to scramble our way through but had again lost a little more time than we expected.

Our main peak of the day was going to be Bowfell Pike which was probably the easiest section of trail we had so far completed and we managed to get lovely views to Scarfell Pike which is the tallest mountain in England. But we didn’t hang around for long and were soon on our way to Crinkly Crags which was as the name states a series of crinkly crags which we had to traverse and down the other side.

The path didn’t seem to be very well defined at all but there were cairns positioned at intervals that were used as waypoints along the way. Little did we know there is also one on the peak of every crag but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to go up every time. This added an extra element of confusion to the mix and after going all the way up on several only to realise on our online map app we were off the path meant we were soon well and truly over the Crinckly Crags (not literally unfortunately) as they were tricky to traverse and we were again spending more time than we thought we would.

We had one more crag to go and our app was showing us the way and even though we saw that the route said “bad step” we didn’t really think too much off it until the path got very steep with a scary drop on one side. We did a little bit of rock scrambling until we came to “bad step” which was effectively a 3 metre sheer drop. With us both already clinging to the rock face we decided that it was not just a bad step but a bad idea.

So we had to climb back up and take another path down. Which we did and it was fine. It must be said that we were a little silly as yesterday we were using the ordinance survey maps in conjunction with our online app but we didn’t have any deviations so today we were just using the online app. When we checked the ordnance survey map it clearly had us going the safer path and it also had us taking the high line in the previous section near Esk Pike. Lesson learned for us.

But we kept our head and didn’t do anything stupid so were soon on our way again. Albeit again behind schedule. We were supposed to be ascending another smaller peak but by the time we got to the cross roads to go around or over I was knackered so made the call to go around. From there we descended into the valley but still had another 8km walk along the bottom to get to our accomodation. The valley was beautiful but by the time we got to our accomodation at about 6pm after a solid 8hours of hiking we were very much ready to stop and take a well earned rest. All in all we travelled 26kms.

Our accomodation was the Britannia Inn which was a 500 year old farm house that was converted into a pub about 200 years ago. After a shower, a little rest and a nice cup of tea we went for a gorgeous dinner and soon were in bed ready to do it all again the next day. S