The Scenario

That day I was alone, nobody knew where I was or where I was going, as I hadn’t told anyone. The mountains were quite empty too, being November 2007. The day before I may have told my Dad I was heading to the Lake District, but that was about it. My provisions included some chocolate, some biscuits, some bread “sandwiches”, some Kendal Mint Cake and some water. The weather was quite pleasant to start with and I set out reasonably early for once. Having not hiked a proper mountain for a quite a while, I thought it would only take a few hours to climb England’s highest mountain and using the official Scafell Pike Ordnance Survey map, assumed the trek to be fairly straight-forward. How wrong I was!

The Prelude Hows and Whys

So how did all this start? well due to everything going laughably wrong in my work, tennis, love and home life, I decided to go and climb Ben Nevis. Figured a time away from everyone and everything in the Wilderness would be a good change. As everything else was going dismally wrong it was no surprise when the mountain weather forecast (www.mwis.org.uk) turned out to be particularly rubbish for the Ben Nevis region that week, in fact they were forecasting snow up there – making the climb impossible!!! Well, I’d just had enough and decided to head to Scafell Pike instead come what may.

This account is in diary format because it’s from my diary of the time, so pls forgive the grammar…

Monday 5th November 2007 – Heading Off

After much packing of food, pots and pans, clothes, my tent(cos I planned to go camping) etc into my beloved Peugeot 306 and then being delayed some more due to having to pay my road tax at the post office(those were the days), I finally left Wimbledon around 3pm and drove for 7 hours non-stop up to the Lake District. The last 2 hours was heavy driving rain, but it completely cleared up as I reached my destination. I’d booked a spot in the newly advertised Murt Camping Barn (from the Independent Hostels website ) in the village of Nether Wasdale near Penrith. It was described as somewhat of a barebones barn, which was 5 miles away from the Scafell Pike classic mountain trail at Wasdale Head. It was very cheap back then and being November was off-season. This was in the day before Google maps and I had to locate the place in pitch darkness, using just my old fashioned map, some sparse directions given in the Murt booking email and my car headlights. After driving along various country lanes, my headlights luckily spotted a hand-written sign stuck to a tree at a crossroads which pointed to the barn. Just as I got to the sign, rather oddly I got a phone call from a friend inviting me to join him on the “Landmark” course, which I didn’t take up. It was remarkable really because beyond this point there was virtually no mobile signal in the area at all and he’d phoned me just at that minute. Anyways, after a bit more searching the barn was located down a driveway.

The Murt Camping Barn

First memories of this place are being amazed at the stars and the clearness of the sky, definitely the best since I lived in Australia!
The barn was also a lot better than expected – it had two floors – the bottom having a toilet, a coin-operated shower and sink (allegedly with hot water). Upstairs having a wooden picnic table, 5 matresses and an eating area. It even had electricity and lights! I cooked some soup using my gas pocket-rocket stove and went to bed, pitching my sleeping bag upon one of the mattresses.
Brilliantly my sleeping bag turned out to be a summer sleeping bag and it was a very cold night, but I was young enough to have slept moderately well and it was a bright morning to awaken to!

Tuesday 8th November 2007 – A Nice Day To Climb Scafell Pike

Opening the barn door I was stunned by the view, it was nothing like expected! surrounded by countryside and mountains, there were chickens in the back yard, with fresh eggs too (don’t forget I’d arrived at night). Shortly afterwards I set off in the trusty Peugeot 306 down the road toward Wasdale Head, the drive past Wastwater lake is spectacular as well as somewhat daunting with the huge lake contrasted by giant slate mountains surrounding both sides. I honestly didn’t think you had mountains like this in England, but you do. I parked at some random parking area and hoped that was alright. I discovered and let me emphasize – there is nothing at this Wasdale Head place, except a pub(The Wasdale Arms), a small Inn hotel (which looked closed) and a hiking supplies shop. I visited the hiking supplies shop and bought some Kendle Mint Cake, along with the Scafell Pike Ordnance Survey OL6 map, because the lady in the shop said it contained more info than the simple “walkers map”. This was probably my first mistake. So this OS map, it shows all the paths up and around the mountains and how to get to the summit of Scafell Pike(978m high). Let me point out there are quite a few other peaks in this area.

The Trek Begins

So I set off walking. First problem here I noticed was that there were no signs to anything! this was unlike the treks I’d been on in Australia and New Zealand. Anyway, I eventually found one saying “Scafell Massif footpath” so I followed that and crossed the nearby river and decided to turn left cos I couldn’t make out the right hand path very well and the map looked to me to take the left path anyways. Now what happened next was because I didn’t read the map properly or rather I didn’t know how to read the map properly at all! I mistook a waterfall on the map for the river I was next to and ended up walking almost around the base of the mountain for about an hour!

After this hour I’d noticed I wasn’t actually going up any mountain at all, so I tried to work out where I was using my compass, but to no avail! I then decided rather angrily that the map/path was wrong and I was going to climb the mountain face literally The angle of the hill here was about 70degrees and I think here was where I pressured my knee joints too much the first time! Even worse I got to this place with some rocks, to have a rest and a snack, putting my backpack on the aforementioned rocks and the friggin’ thing fell off and rolled down the mountain slope and I had to chase it downwards, luckily it stopped after about 100m’s, but that was still most heinous!

Anyways I carry on trekking up hill as that seemed the sensible thing to do. It was quite tiring, but I like to push myself so I just walked and walked. Eventually I get to some “peak”, which I assume might be Scafell Pike and it’s here that I spot the first 2 people I’ve seen all day long. I must’ve been walking for nearly 3 hours by now. From a distance I holler at them asking where Scafell Pike is and they point towards these 2 distant peaks.

On The Run From The Mist

Most heinously I notice that the mist is starting to come down on the peaks they pointed at, like rolling clouds covering everything, was an amazing sight. Now it was also about 2:30pm, in November and whilst I wanted to out-run this mist, more importantly I was very determined and to me more importantly was to get to the top!

After going cross country some more I finally find some semblance of a path, which is good, as at this point I am getting most annoyed at the lack of paths in this place! again I look at the map and have no idea where I am on the map, but I follow the path and come to some cairns (which are stone markers) which I follow, as these are usually a good and helpful sign of going “somewhere”.

The Mist Catches Up

Now what amazed me was the speed the mist caught me up and soon it covered all my surroundings. Visibilty dropped to about 5 metres, as everything else was engulfed in cloud. I really didn’t care though, as getting to the summit is what mattered and the path was going upwards at least.

I then meet this bloke and his dog heading in the opposite direction and ask him where the Scafell Pike summit is and he indicates to keep following the path and says “yeah you can’t miss the summit”. I also ask how to get back down and he says take the right path. So I keep following the path am on, eventually getting to a kind of highest point area and then the flippin’ path divides in two! Marvellous! It is marked by the biggest cairn ever seen and I assume this MUST be the top, I am most annoyed by this cos again I’ve no clue where I actually am and there’s no markings or anything on it indicating this is the top, but I just have to guess this is the top(it wasn’t the top), which would be just typical of this place which refuses to have any signs anywhere!

Don’t Panic – It’s only freezing with 0 visibility and you’re lost, alone and wearing shorts!

Despite being at the alleged top, here is where a minor panic starts! I take a photo of this alleged “summit” and decide pronto is the time to leave! Despite the calmness of these words, let me describe the scene – the mist has seriously descended even more, visibility is about 10feet, the temperature is probably below ZERO, my fingers are numb and the wind is kicking up at hurricane force. I’m also alone, wearing shorts and gloves that aren’t water or wind proof! More importantly I’ve got about an hour of daylight left to get to ground level from a place where there are no defined paths or routes to anywhere that I can find! The path I’m on is now forked and I’m really not sure which one to take. I have to say, this is the scariest outdoors situation I can remember. I pretty much felt that if I got stuck out here in the dark I would be in BIG trouble. At this time I was also most concerned about reports of Panther’s and other wild animals out on the moors! Beforehand I was very cynical about how you can possibly get lost on a mountain, all those stories about folks getting lost for days or having to be helicopter rescued etc. sounded quite stupid to me, but now I know how it can happen! So I decide to follow what the dude on the path said and take the right turn. So I hop down this path as fast I as I can, becoming very conscious of the dimming light.

One Fluke Moment As The Mist Clears

Eventually I find a wooden hut amongst the rocks, open the door and it’s some kind of an “Emergency Shelter” and…NOW THIS IS THE BEST, I look on the map and the ducking thing isn’t on there!!(well I couldn’t find it) Frantically consulting my compass, I look over to where the path goes(South) and in the distance across the mountain I see what looks like a road, “oh good” I say to myself, that must be the correct way home, HOWEVER, just before setting off again I notice at the side of the shelter and in the total opposite(Northly) direction is a sheer cliff which has mist and gale force winds rocketing up from it. Intrigued by natural wonders like this I randomly decide to peer over the windy and cloud swept precipice and just as I do, the mist clears for about 20 seconds! I glimpse the edge of a lake! Hang on I think, there’s only one lake round here. Quickly looking again at the map, I confirm there IS indeed only one lake around here and that’s Wastwater and hang on, what is that shiny silver object? that looks like a couple of cars parked next to it! Again luckily I had my big binoculars so I check it out, it IS cars, it IS Wastwater!! I decide I’m taking those binoculars on every mountain trip ever from now on! Once again the clouds engulf the area and the view of the lake and the cars disappears, but peeking directly downwards(in the direction of the lake) I see a path at the bottom of this sheer cliff!

Only One Option – Jumping Off A Cliff

Now I realise that due to this somewhat desperate predicament there’s only one option – I have to descend this 80 degree ducking cliff and get to that path! With an intake of breath, I kind of ease myself down and jump off it, literally into the breach of rocks! adrenaline takes over as huge winds blast against me as I fall/descend! it was here that I tragically lost my beloved 2002 US Open Heineken Day Cap, blown off by the wind and despite an attempted search it was never seen again I end up spending a good 20minutes on my hands and knees slowly sliding or surfing on scree(loose rocks/stones)!!! it was totally Nuts and upon reflection somewhat mad and staggeringly dangerous, but I HAD to get to that path or get stuck/lost on the mountains all night long.
At one point I see the path below is bordered by a flat wall and lined with a wire railing, I had visions of being stuck on the wrong side unable to get across, but somehow I jump down over that and land on to the path. Relief ensues, as this is clearly a path winding downwards to the safety of ground level. After this cliff descending “event” my hands/knees/legs are not in the best condition and I then have the pleasure of walking another 3-4miles as night fall begins. The path eventually leads back to the bridge I crossed originally and I get to see the waterfall what I thought was a river on the map. By now it is very dark and I realise where I’d gone wrong on the map!! it dawns on me how easy the hike should be if you go the right way and find this path, oh well I ponder, maybe I’ll do it tomorrow

Staggering Into The Pub

I roll into the Wasdale Arms pub, totally shattered, ordering a nice pint of ale and a beer & beef pie plus mash. Man, was I grateful for that pie! reckon I must’ve walked 15+ miles that day including several miles on a serious uphill slope. Consulting the OS map, it turns out I was possibly about 1metre from the summit in height and probably 3m’s away from the stone monument that marks it !!
I later discover that if I had followed that path by the Emergency shelter South, I would have ended up on the other side of the mountain. The ‘road’ I saw was actually another river! And there’s NOTHING out there for about 20miles! It would have been a true test of my survival skills. To be fair I did have a thermal vest and trousers and food in my backpack and I’ve always considered the SAS survival skills I learnt as a kid would save me in such a situation, but I think cos of my general low confidence and stressed-outness I didn’t fancy this at the time. Anyways, let me state back then it took an awful lot to really physically tire me out, I’ve planted sugar cane all day, played tennis for hours on end, run to Kingston etc and not been too bad afterwards. The only comparison I can make to this “Scafell adventure” is possibly when I did the insane Grand Canyon “walk” with Nathan back in August 1999 where I only survived because I’d bought a t-shirt and in the end was totally exhausted!

End of a Wonderful Day – More Fun Back At The Barn

After all this I went back to the barn, discovered the frigging heater on the shower didn’t work, honestly only wanted one thing that day, a hot shower, BUT NO NO NO, couldn’t have that, so went to bed.

After Thoughts – ALWAYS BE PREPARED

So Why was I so badly prepared? Well simple answer is I was oblivious to how the weather can change out there combined with having no idea how to read an OS map properly. That’s just how I rolled back then so to speak too, despite my Dad telling me endlessly the scout’s motto “Always be prepared”. In my defence I’d done a “bit” of hiking in Australia and New Zealand, where the weather was way better. I hiked the Overland 110km trek in Tasmania on my lonesome over 8 days wearing regular trainers, no need for any of bonefide trekking boots for me like what everyone else I met on the trek had. Apparently if it had rained it would’ve been big trouble, but it didn’t rain As an illustration of my lack of preparedness suppose should admit on the Overland I became known not as the guy in trainers, but as the guy who didn’t have a gas stove and had to hike an extra 20km to the start and back on the second day to buy one. Well, sure I’d read somewhere they had free gas stoves on the way, ah well.

Since 2007 the other thing have always wondered is how/if I would have survived the night out there on the mountains. Despite my obliviousness to other things, my actual survival knowledge/skills surprisingly shouldn’t have been at a bad level. Oddly inspite of only having been in the Cubs 3 weeks and having never been a scout or doing any adventure training whatsoever I was brought up camping, learning to make fires etc. As kids, my younger brother had the original SAS Surival book by John “Lofty” Wiseman and we both read and learnt every page in that book from trap making to which fungi kills you. Before he owned it, we often used to borrow it from the library, put it that way. I also had an Osbourne Survival skills book and still remember a lot from those books and those days, this was way before TV shows like Ray Mears or Bear Grylls, so we were kind of ahead of our time on this one. If I had taken the wrong path it would have been like being chucked in at the deep-end after practicing in a paddling pool, a real interesting test.

DISCLAIMER – Important

I suppose I’d better not recommend doing this to anyone else, so if you’re visiting the mountains anywhere, take with you all equipment needed and learn to read a map BEFORE you go + tell someone where you are going, in case you do get lost. zzz

Gallery

The Knoydart Penisula is on the North-East coast of Scotland, not far from the Isle of Skye and is considered the last wilderness in Britain – nowhere else in the UK can you hike for 2 or 3 days and not see anyone else nor be disturbed by any roads or cars. There’s no mobile signal either, no phone boxes, nothing

Access to the Knoydart is from a small village called Inverie, which you can only get to by hiking 27 miles cross-country or by taking a 45min ferry from the port of Mallaig. So why go to this place? Well, the original reason was the same as most visitors there – to see what is claimed to be Britain’s most remote pub “The Old Forge“. Having visited “The Nutshell“, the smallest pub in Britain, in Bury-St-Edmonds and various other unusual pubs, Bronwyn thought I’d like to see this one too.

Getting to the Knoydart Penisula and Inverie Village

The most popular way to get to Inverie is to hike the aforementioned 27 mile track – which runs from Glenfinnan railway station to Inverie – taking 2 or 3 days to do it. Glenfinnan is accessed via the Fort William <-> Mallaig railway line and most people park in Fort William and take the train to Glenfinnan to start the hike…BUT we decided to do it the other way round, because…I had just run the Loch Ness Marathon the day before! Yes, well time was short and whilst many “normal” people might want to take it easy after running a marathon, that’s just not my style, pal. I worked out that in-theory by doing the hike “in reverse”, I could give my legs a day’s rest! Therefore, the proposed plan was to park at Mallaig, take the ferry from Mallaig to Inverie, have dinner at the pub, camp the night at the camp site, hike 6miles the first day to Sourlies Bothy, hike approx 9miles next day to In’Cha Bothy in the forest(or camp somewhere nearby) and get up bright n’early to cover 13miles the final day to Glenfinnan Railway Station, catching the 4:57pm train – back to Mallaig and the car.

So we drove from Loch Ness to Mallaig, parked in the Long Stay car park there and took the 2pm ferry. My legs were a bit tired after the marathon, but feeling better by the minute to be honest. It was a pleasant boat trip with a lot of very enthusiastic people – who even pointed out seeing a Gannet dive into the water to catch fish! most of these people were staying in the Wee Hooses(see below), although one guy had his bike and was camping.

Shortly after landing, we discovered Inverie is indeed a very small village – pretty much consisting of :

• A restaurant called The Look Out(which also has some lodging rooms collectively called “The Gathering”)
• A cafe that makes a good cup of tea
• The famous Old Forge pub
• “The Table”, which is located opposite the pub and was set up as an alternative somewhat bus-shelter-like-“pub” by locals who really dislike The Old Forge’s owner
• A bunkhouse(which was annoyingly closed)
• A few rather expensive “Wee Hooses”(small houses) to stay in.
• and a Post Office where we purchased some food/supplies. Must mention, despite no mobile signal the locals kindly offer free wifi in a room next to the Post Office, so you can book your return ferry trip if needed

We lugged our backpacks the full mile to the camping site from the ferry port, stopping at the Old Forge to take a selfie and bought some supplies at the Post Office. We then set up camp in our new 3 man Naturehike Cloud-Up 3 tent.

After cooking some lunch at the campsite wooden hut and reading the advert in the hut offering accommodation in a Wee Hoose for only £150 for a night if you change your mind about camping, around 4pm we met two girls who had hiked from Glenfinnan over 3 days – they said they’d had Sourlies Bothy to themselves and only seen 2 people on the whole trek – to be honest they both looked shattered and their waterproof trousers were ripped to bits from river crossings apparently. They told us it was one tough trek, but they “kind of enjoyed” the last day, in that it was a relief compared to the rest. We told them our plans and they were quite shocked when I told them I’d just done the marathon

The Disasters Had Already Begun

Now, to be honest, we had been hit 2 disasters already :

Disaster #1 was Bronwyn phoning the pub a few days before and being told the pub was closed – yep, the main original reason for going to this place was closed, hoorah! so this first evening instead we went to The Look Out restaurant instead, which does remarkably good food – best scallops and haggis ever had anyway. On another table we saw the girls we’d met earlier and later one of the waitresses enquired “oh are you the guy who ran the marathon?!”, news travels quick round this area.

Disaster #2 was the weather forecast – nice days on Tues and Wed for hiking, but heavy rain from Wed evening and all day Thursday. This majorly altered our plans! Neither of us felt like trekking 13miles with full backpacks in heavy rain – simple as that – the weight of the tent and 3 days of food also seemed quite excessive to me(note to self: must learn to pack lighter).

So…the new plan became that we’d leave our tent where it was(along with anything we didn’t need) hike to Sourlies Bothy, stay the night and hike back, simples!

Next morning, despite it being bright from 7am, we got up around 8:30am and sat with a tea & coffee admiring the spectacular morning view – the sun rising, the estuary, numerous birds wading in the water, the mountains as a back drop, the quietness, just wonderful.

Disaster #3 – We left at 1pm

We re-packed our backpacks with sleeping bags, sleeping mats, torches, food for 3 meals each, cooking equipment, warm clothes for the night, water etc. This seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for some unknown reason(probably due to faffing). Should say we were quite well prepared for this hike – I had a printed map of the route I’d grabbed off Google Maps, the offical Knoydart O.S. Map, notes copied from The Scottish Bothy Bible and we even had walking poles – on the board-walk out of the campsite I managed to delay us by 20minutes by losing the rubber end-cap of one of my poles, so that didn’t help. Anyways, Thus our adventure begun – at 1pm!

I still thought 1pm would be fine as various blogs I’d read AND The Scottish Bothy Bible claimed it was only a 10km or 6mile hike – that would take 4-5 hours – I guessed this would be more like 6 or 7 hours with backpacks, so we’d arrive just after dark around 7:30pm – no need to worry Bronwyn that they said it was a “technical route” either, as in my experience that usually just means you have to walk up a mountain path and clamber over a few rocks.

So we set off and all was well and good! We were a bit confused where the trail actually started so asked a local lady the way and she told us “follow that path, go past the barn, up the hill, take the right path and just keep going and…just keep going!”(she gave a foreboding and hearty laugh after this, I now realise she was probably amused we were attempting this after 1pm).

We followed the road and found the barn, which led to a steep, thickly wooded area bordered by some kind of waterfall. The steps up hill were quite hazardous due to being mossy and wet, but no problem really, as long as you took your time. After this we found the way to be generally a paved or marked/obvious path. Now, apart from losing the trail half a mile beyond the wood, by taking a wrong turn and ending up on a building site – where we were told by a friendly workman that his boss might yell at us to “get lost”, things were good. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re building a road up and over the Inverie Hill – probably as a shortcut for traffic, which could well be a huge shame.

A Private Bothy and a Dead Deer

Continuing on, we made good progress and got to a “private bothy”. It was all locked up and there were lots of signs saying “Private” adorning it. The big Kilchoan estate borders the trail and I assume they use this bothy for various guests/visitors. Suddenly a guy driving a quad bike drove past carrying a huge dead stag on the back. He hailed me with “Alright man!”, which was nice. A few minutes further down the path we passed two very well dressed gentlemen(whom one suspects had shot the aforementioned stag). These three were the only people we saw the rest of the day.

We carried on and the trail began to veer upwards and onto a mountain path. The path was rocky, very damp and often streams of water would be dripping towards us from up-mountain. It wasn’t particularly difficult hiking, just quite slow going and our walking poles proved a most helpful addition it has to be said on such terrain.

The Concern Begins

I’d noticed on the map we were meant to ascend to around 500metres and seemed to be going up remarkably slowly. What seemed like miles and hours later, in fact it was around 4pm I believe, we checked the map to see what progress we’d made and where we were. Bronwyn worked out where we were(as I can barely read an OS map) and have to say I was somewhat dismayed to find we were less than half way along the route! I kept that dismay to myself and we trudged on. The path got steeper and steeper.

I casually asked if Bronwyn had seen the ruins mentioned in the Bothy Bible, but there’d been no sign of them.

Towards the summit(Mam Meadall on the map), we came across several river crossings. Lumbering a full backpack made crossing them more “challenging” than usual, but you just needed to take your time balancing on necessary rocks. Then we met one that was far too wide to jump, very fast flowing and without any helpful boulders. Also it was so close to the sheer cliff edge, any mistake or mis-step and you would highly likely find yourself plummeting off-mountain, ultimately to be dashed on rocks 50 metres below. I don’t say this lightly and ended up having to remove my backpack, stand in the river, lean against the tide and help both backpacks + Bronwyn across. There was also a fine rotten wooden bridge that was also somewhat concerning, but fine once you crossed it. The path continued ascending.

We’d Better Hurry Up Before It Gets Dark!

Around 5:30pm I announced we must push on and up the pace somewhat, the reason being was to urgently get to the summit by sunset at 6:30pm! once there it would be a case of descending steeply downwards, crossing the wetlands for half a mile and then we’d be at the bothy, probably just as it got fully dark.

We got to the summit at 6:30pm exactly! just in time to see the sun go down. It was quite beautiful. We had a break for 10mins and then set off down the alleged “zig zag path”. We could see a valley area below us, with a loch in the distance(where the beach is according to the Bothy Bible) and a large river snaking its way North-East. The zig zags didn’t start for quite a while, but the darkness did. By 7pm we had to dig out the head-torch just to see the path – Bronwyn in front of me wearing it and I following as best I could without tripping over. As dusk grew darker, the path became furrowed and full of rocks, that made it really fun to navigate in 2nd-hand torch-light. Still, at least we were moving quicker than going up-mountain, but the thing was this track took ages! It went on for miles! it didn’t go straight down, like a regular mountain path, it took us left and right and around the mountain! As time ticked by and we moved along the path, you could see the meanders of the river below us disappearing into the darkness and I became quite concerned we wouldn’t have any actual reference points to where we were. At one point we wondered if we were on the right path and considered turning back, but that wasn’t really an option, as at least it was descending, albeit incredibly slowly.

The Ruins At Last

Eventually, we got to ground level in near-pitch-darkness, it was then we saw the ruins at last! You really don’t know the sheer relief of seeing these ruins, meaning we were on the right path! According to the fabled Bothy Bible book text and O.S. map, a bit further on we would find a bridge crossing the river, then “a half mile of wetlands and then a short walk to the bothy”. My elation at seeing the ruins abruptly stopped when abruptly the path ceased to exist or rather became over-run by overly long torso-height grass! Our only choice became to head roughly East, skirting the ruins as best we could. This all sounds very trivial, but visibility was net zero other than what Bronwyn’s head torch lit up.

The Bridge “At Last”

We then heard running water in the near distance and proceeded further ahead, discovering the bridge or “The bridge, at last!” as I cried – the Bothy book had described this as a wire bridge and I’d been asking Bronwyn where this was since the top of the mountain path. It’s clearly been upgraded since then and is quite a sturdy regular metal and wooden bridge, thank goodness, as crossing a precarious wire bridge in the dark would not have been fun. After crossing, once again the path disappeared into what looked like a line of trees, bushes and plants that would be very difficult to traverse safely in the dark. Consulting the map, we decided instead to venture along the path by the river. In theory, this would be a longer walk, but we just needed to follow it as far as the beach by the loch edge, follow that for a mile or so East and hey presto we’d be at the bothy. Essentially this route was taking the two sides of the triangle, rather than the hypotenuse of it.

We walked along the river for what seemed like miles! for ages we trekked along the path as the river meandered randomly, the path then disappeared once again and the river veered West which it certainly shouldn’t do according to the map. At this point I started to complain and be most concerned that this was way too far to have walked and we were clearly lost. Continuing on, even more strangely the terrain became more and more swamp-like. We had to cross deep pits of earth and reeds, which you often couldn’t help but fall into due to the lack of light. We’re talking pits up to a metre deep here and this was where my socks finally got properly socked! even my brilliant brand new waterproof Colombia hiking shoes could not take being fully submerged like this. Should be said I was somewhat afraid of falling into one of these pits and injuring myself, I wondered how I’d be carried out of there or would it be like Joe Simpson in “Touching the Void” where he had to haul himself miles back to base camp. It also struck me that this area may well be some kind of in-between-the-tide-land and as my fear exasperated that the tide may return, trapping us, so did my desire increase to leave as soon as possible. Couple that with the utter confusion as to where we were, I would say my concern that we were staying the night out here in the elements reached its peak at this point. There was also concern that Bronwyn would(perhaps sensibly) never go hiking with me ever again and her parents/relative would probably tell me off too, oh well.

Looks like we’ll be staying the night Al Fresco

So with that pinnacle of anxiety, I think it was at this point that I had to make a call and prepare Bronwyn for the distinct possibility that we would have to spend the night out in this desolate wilderness…not in a bothy…but in our sleeping bags on the cold, soaking ground. I wanted to formally address this issue now as insurance against mentioning it in 3 hours time when true tiredness and abject panic had set in. Other women would have been rather upset at this announcement, I don’t doubt their screaming at me would’ve echoed around the surrounding mounting, possibly alerting the rescue services and ironically saving us, but I think Bronwyn appreciated my honesty and accepted the situation better than most

The wonder of the GPS tracker

We stumbled onwards, managing to find the most grassy area we could and desperately consulted the map once again. We re-read what the Bothy book said and even checked my GPS tracker which displayed the zig-zag random route we had so far walked. Please note: my GPS tracker only showed the route we had walked, there was no downloaded map with placenames or even the shape of the area on it or anything sensible like that, no, none of that stuff normal hikers may have!

Bronwyn briefly mentioned turning back, which I knew was not an option, we had walked far too far in random directions to know where else to go, let alone to get back to the ruins.

We tried to compare the GPS track with the OS map, but to not much avail. Even better, walking a few minutes further North we came across a huge white rock face in front of us – when all logic and the map pointed to there only being open water! We routed East once again and found a shallow river in front of us. We had no choice but to cross it and luckily it wasn’t too deep, but we were all the more confused by this. The terrain now was mostly just flat mossy bogland. Bronwyn consulted the maps and GPS tracker yet again and came to the conclusion that we must have backtracked on ourselves when following the river and gone far enough East to hit the small rivers shown on the map.

It was here we decided that the best thing to do was simply to head East and eventually no matter where we were, according to the map, we’d reach the mountains. Credit to Bronwyn here as her map reading skills are way better than mine. At least on some higher ground it may be a bit drier, instead of the soaking bogland that this was and we could stay the night there, until daylight around 5am. I used my iPhone compass to head directly East, sticking to that direction as best possible, although several times I had to correct us, as we drifted off due to the mossy ground, bushes, grass and pools of water – some that were just too thick or deep water to traverse in a straight line.

To improve the level of fun, the head torch now began to fade. Fortunately, I’d started sparingly using our other hand-held torch and had prepared a USB charger pack in case of emergency. So, we were only without light from the head-torch for a few minutes.

I see people! Oh noooo!

Next we happened upon some long knee-high grass. Suddenly, Bronwyn said in an excited voice “Is that people?! I can see eyes reflecting!“, “Hello!” she hopefully cried, shining the head-torch into the far distance. “Hello! Can you help us?! We’re lost!“. I joined in “Hello there! are we far from the bothy?“. Silence. Sadly there was nobody out there, just some deer. This was very disappointing, a cruel glimmer of hope given, only to be snatched away.

By now I’d gotten to thinking “You know what, it wouldn’t be so bad. We would be alright as we had sleeping mats and most importantly of all it wasn’t too cold nor raining”. The only problem would be finding dry ground. I once vocally again informed the world of all this, but neither the deer nor Bronwyn seemed to mind.

Out of nowhere a miraculous path appeared

We proceed through the long grass and randomly happened upon a miraculous sight – out of nowhere, a path, a real well-trodden path appeared! like what we hadn’t seen for the last 2 hours!! Bronwyn checked the map once again. I got very excited by this and checking the compass I noticed it was leading roughly South-East, so this must be the path we’d been looking for originally! The very fact it was heading at least South seemed extremely good news to me. Understandably, Bronwyn was skeptical at first, something about it not being anywhere near any mountains, probably due to the number of wrong turns we’d previously made, but I persisted following this wonderful path. After about 5minutes, glancing left, it could be seen that we were indeed near enough to see the outlines of a large mountain lightly highlighted by the sky – our eyes must have adjusted well to the darkness. Then we came across a small path, which forked out left and lead up into the mountain. Bronwyn announced this must be the “side path that takes you on the scenic route to the bothy” as mentioned by the Bothy book. After passing it and deliberating a couple of times back and forth along it, we ended up climbing up the first few rocks and then, as seems to be the fashion in this area, noticed the path once again disappeared beyond some rocks! it was immediately decided that after being lost for 2 hours in the darkness, it would be insane to go off-path and try to navigate this alleged “scenic route” across a mountain in utter darkness. Going by what we had experienced from the Bothy book previously, it could doubtless turn into a 5mile cross-country trip for all we knew. We also concluded the Bothy book was wrong about absolutely everything!

The Beach

So another 20 or so minutes passed by as we felt our way along the main path. Bronwyn suddenly declared “This is the beach!”. The ground had indeed become quite beach-like with a crude mix of stones and sand. We spent another 10mins or so trying to work out where to go along this here beach, as it peculiarly wound in-land and then out-land. After hokey-cokeying a cove or two, we had had enough and instead tried simply following the cliffs that our torches dimly lit as best possible. I moaned a few more times about where was the Bothy?! but we had a feeling we couldn’t be too far now. One of my favourite bits of the journey was when I saw a white roof, amongst a plateau of rocks about 20ft above us! “That’s the bothy roof! it makes sense because bothies are usually up in the woods!” I exclaimed. We just needed to get up on the higher path and we’d be there! I got nearer and enthusiastically climbed upwards and shone the torch. The white roof revealed itself as nothing more than a white cliff-face, cruelly and I reckon purposely designed in a roof shape this was another most disappointing moment. So on we plodded.

2 Tents and a Bothy

Only 5 minutes after this event, with me(to be honest) looking ever more despondent at the floor, Bronwyn yelped “Look! is that a house? I saw lights!”. This time it was indeed a house! We’d made it! we near-galloped the final yards and entered through the door, after fumbling with its puzzling locking mechanism! I had noticed two tents pitched on the ground outside, but dismissed from my mind the possibility of the place being full up. It turned out to be a fair size bothy – there was ONE free single wooden platform bed, one single platform bed littered with camping stuff and a large platform bed area with someone sleeping on it. The bothy also had endless gas canisters, pots, pans and other camping implements sitting in disarray on a large table in one of the corners.

Chivalrously I donated the free bed to Bronwyn, as she was, for some reason, adamant about going to sleep ASAP. She asked me where I was going to sleep, I replied I’d sleep on the floor if it came to it, I had not trekked all this way and gotten my beloved hiking shoes/socks soaked to bits to sleep outside no matter what! Anyway, it turned out there was only one guy in the room and he’d spread his stuff all over the other spare bed – just as I would’ve done in his situation. Unfortunately, we had to wake him up and ask him if we could move his stuff. It turned out he was a rather nice chap called Alberto from Spain, which I wrongly guessed as France from his accent and which he wasn’t too happy with, but I really didn’t care at this particular moment. He was very kind and gave me a desperately needed cup of water for which I was most grateful. Bronwyn promptly un-rolled her sleeping bag & mat, went straight to bed and fell asleep.

I checked my phone and the time on the clock was 10:55pm!! Now in extreme situations like this, most people sensibly just want to rest or go to bed and sleep, but oddly I tend to “wake up”. Last time was either when I’d queued up from 6am for Wimbledon tennis or after running the Stockholm Marathon. Both times, everyone else wanted to go to bed, but I wanted a few beers and the same was true now!

A Beer with the Deer

I unzipped my backpack, grabbed the tin of Tennant’s beer I suddenly remembered I’d been carrying all this way, went outside and happily drank it for the next half an hour or so under the stars. Must admit realising I’d lugged a heavy can of beer so far was a major incentive to drink it. Shining my head torch around the area I saw several deer standing about 30 yards ahead of the tents. I assumed there must be a large forest in front of us and the deer were just hanging out eating some grass. I’d have liked to investigate further, but really didn’t fancy wandering over there and being attacked by a stag or two. I could also hear waterfalls behind the bothy, but no idea where or how to get to them,. There was no water tap by this bothy, so the waterfalls were where you’d get some fresh water, but the couple of times I tried to get to them I found dead-ends and didn’t fancy climbing over or under anything in these conditions.

Checking the GPS route app I discovered we’d covered about 10.5miles! so nearly 11 hours since we’d left and 10.5miles walked, with full-backpacks! I wondered that perhaps I really should’ve joined the army when I was younger as I always said. I went back in, had the last drop of water from my cup and went to bed.

The Next Morning

I slept remarkably well on that wooden slat bed in that bothy, I’d have taken it home if that were possible. After waking up, I got up and decided to go hunting for some water from the waterfalls. Upon stepping outside, I was greeted with a most beautiful view! There wasn’t a forest, but a large loch of water! the deer seen last night had just been standing on water’s edge, possibly having a drink. It was a wonderful tranquil peaceful scene. If not for the predicted heavy rain this evening, we would’ve loved to have stayed another night in the bothy.

One of the tents contained a couple whom I had brief chat with on the way back from the waterfall, as they were already packing up. I’d actually followed the husband up to the waterfall, but he clearly wasn’t a morning person and wanted to keep himself-to-himself, don’t blame really. His wife though welcomed a chance to say what they’d done. They’d hiked all the way from Glenfinnan the previous day, hiking from 7am – 7pm, which hugely impressed me. They were similarly impressed with my tale of the previous day, judging by the looks on their faces, I was indeed a monumental idiot Back at the bothy, Alberto was also nearly all-packed up, after consuming his cous-cous breakfast. We had very pleasant chat, he was doing an amazing month-long walk, starting at Fort William and now would be heading North veering off on a side-path, instead of West of back to Inverie.

Leaving At A More Sensible Time

Sad to leave such a picturesque scene, Bronwyn ensured we left at 11am. So what happened on the way back? Well, to cut a long story short – it took us nearly 3 hours to climb back up the steep zig-zag mountain path and 9 hours in total to get back! yep, we saved a whole hour by not getting lost, which still doesn’t make much sense, although we did spend an hour or so cooking lunch on the mountain which was cool and felt very explorer like, so maybe that’s where the time went. I lost a bet that we’d be back by nightfall, as we trudged the last 3 miles in rain.

Interestingly we spotted the couple from the tent up on the zig-zag path, a good hour ahead of us, but never caught them up or saw them again. Also about half-way up we ran into an old guy who’d apparently been in the other tent by the bothy, he was a seasoned hiker whose wife had kindly let him go off for a few days and he’d just been up to bag a far col. He helpfully answered another question we’d had by telling us the reason nobody was staying in the bothies was because of fear of getting COVID. So with this guy, the other tent couple and Alberto – meant we only saw 4 people the entire way back to Inverie!

Moo Surprise

Now, one of the biggest highlights and surprises of this entire trip was crossing the last bit of farmland before the Inverie border. Shortly after closing a large gate behind us, a gigantic hairy bull with gigantic horns in torch light front of us! This animal was seriously the biggest bovine I’ve ever seen! it was bigger than a water buffalo and just what you need to come across in the dark after hiking for 8 hours wearing a full backpack, meaning running away would be severely hampered if he decided to charge! He starred at us for a minute or so and luckily chose to ran off into the forest. That was quite a relief I can tell you, hiking all that way and being impaled by a cow 1.5miles frmo the end would really make this a disaster hike. From then onwards, we proceeded as gingerly and as quietly as possible along the road, trying not to disturb any more local wildlife. Despite this, we encountered yet another family of these giant beasts, only this time I spoke loudly at them and they too ran off, thank goodness. After that we found another gate and made it back safely past the hazardous waterfall area and back to the camp site.

So where did we actually go?

Back at home, having tracked the whole “journey” on GPS meant the area in the wetlands where we got lost could be traced quite easily. It turns out we didn’t actually go that far off the correct track. Simply put, we went a bit too far past where the river meandered, then circled back upon ourselves, miraculously crossing the swamp North-East-wards in the pitch dark back to the correct path. The large confusing rock in front of the loch that blocked our way turned out to be a very large and unusually placed boulder, something we couldn’t have possibly known or guessed would be there beforehand nor is it mentioned anywhere. Perhaps the most confusing and frustrating thing of all was that the total distance from the Inverie camp ground to Sourlies Bothy IS well over the 7 miles as proclaimed by the guide books, it’s way more like 10miles and those guides either find this funny OR don’t bother updating that information as everyone hikes from Sourlies to Inverie and it wouldn’t matter so much doing that.

Lessons learnt from the hike:

Leave earlier than 1pm
Pack lighter if possible.
Download the GPS map on the GPS tracker next time.
Always take an OS map if doing this kind of thing.
Be prepared to stay out the night.
Get to your destination no later than 30mins after sunset.

Important Notes:

The Bothy Bible book says it’s a 7.5mile 4-5 hour hike from Inverie to Sourlies – this is clearly incorrect. I measured it using GPS twice and it is 10miles in length.

It also took us 9 hours to return, stopping an hour for lunch.

Equipment Used on the hike

Have to say am well impressed and well pleased with the equipment we bought and used for the hike.

Here is a list of some of the best of it.

TheFitLife Walking Poles – proved to be excellent walking poles, one of the reviews says they were used by a guy on a Himalayan trek, so they have a good record.

Azarxis Hiking Gaiters – great gaiters, kept my socks dry as best possible, stopped the rain and prevented my legs getting cut/grazed by thorns too.

NatureHike Cloud-Up 3 Man Tent – an Excellent lightweight tent – perfect for TWO people + backpacks. Being “4 Season”, can confirm it withstood near-galeforce winds and pelting rain on our final night at the Inverie camping site. Quite how you’d fit 3 people in it, really do not know, but that’s the running joke with tents isn’t it. Kind of wish had paid the extra £45 for the 20D 4000mm more-waterproof lighter version, but no other regrets. Ours was 210T is 3000mm waterproof version (tent water-proofing is explained very well by this blog entry).

Other Links

David Preston’s Blog about hiking from Glenfinnan to Inverie

Gallery

Tues 14th Feb 2017

The plan for the morning: up at 8am, breakfast, pack car, 9am head to Wimbledon, go for 10km run, back by 10:30am, pick up Paul and head to Lancaster! I was signed up for the Hampton Court half-marathon on Sunday, hence the need for a run. Unsurprisingly, getting ready took longer than hoped and I got to Wimbledon around 10:30am! Picked up Paul at 11am and drove 5 hours to Lancaster University, stopping off at a service station for a spot of Costa and a Greggs baguette. A very helpful and informative bear of a man checked us into the uni and we headed to our room, which was most clean and pleasant. I then worked out this was probably the only day I could do a much-needed run, so that was the next priority. The booking.com reviews said there was a gym and sauna in this place, so we headed for the sports centre. Being gymophobic, Paul did not want to go to the gym and after being informed it would actually cost £12 + VAT + council tax, neither did I. Paul was kind enough to go back to the room and wait, so I went for an exploratory 7 mile jog instead – headed towards Lancaster Town Centre, then back and around the University grounds. Other than finally making it to Lancaster city limits(a goal of mine for many years), the definite highlight was the curious mirage towards the end, of hundreds of athletic young student women yelling and jumping around for netball practice, which you don’t often see round where I live…

Our next plan to walk the 3 miles into Lancaster, was altered, thank goodness, to getting the bus instead. On the bus Paul noticed our tickets said “Return to Bowerman hotel” and despite Paul being quite keen to get off, we passed/ignored that place and stayed sat until the town centre.
We walked up to the castle, which had some nice night views and an interesting plaque about how it used to be a prison. Paul also got to see the railway station! After a bit of wandering, we ended up at the Brown Cow pub – which was a great place, with fine Guinness, except this was Valentine’s night – so there was Paul, myself and about 2 other people. Still, we saw the Champions League shock defeat of Barcelona 4-0 to Paris St-Germain(the four of us cheered each goal) and the barman even said we could get a takeaway and bring it back! I was quite happy to do this, but we ended up going to Wetherspoons and grabbing some ‘real’ food(aka buritos) instead, which you prob should do after a 7 mile run. We caught the bus back and set the alarm for 6:30am!

Wed 15th Feb 2017

So, up bright and early around 7:30am (Paul did get up earlier) – we dined on a fine breakfast at the uni guest refectory place – Paul got confused about this being actually free, but other than wanting to pay for it and being sternly told ‘no’ by the dinner lady, he enjoyed a plate of bacon, egg, sausage and some toast! I had cereal, fruit, yogurt, bacon, egg, sausages, hash brown, toast, beans, black pudding, melon, fruit juice, tea + water, pain au chocolates and anything else I could find/put-in-my-pockets. Until packing up, I’d assumed we were actually staying in student digs, but turned out we had actually stayed the conference centre accommodation.

After navigating the way out, we headed North. Google Maps told us “Scafell Pike” was allegedly only an hour or so away via Kendal so we headed there. Paul was well prepared for climbing Scafell Pike – possessing only a thick hoody and no gloves nor hat nor much else. I’d hiked up a hill in freezing Snowdonia the week before and despite telling him this and recommending to really buy at least a coat, hat and gloves, he casually said he would buy them today. We parked in Kendal town centre car park and after a quick coffee buy, headed to Trespass to buy some gloves – the girl in her 20’s delightfully informed us that it was highly dangerous to even consider going up Scafell today! as it was at least 3 arduous miles up there, that it ‘gets dark by 3pm’ and how she’d been up another peak on Sunday and it was covered in thick snow and ice and the mist is so thick up there you can barely see your hand in front of your face! also if you take the wrong path, it could lead to the alternative 9 miles long route and take 10hours! By the end I was waiting for her to mention wolves and the beast of Bodmin, such was the level of utter madness she explained it would be to attempt such a thing today…I kind of disagreed with her, but just muttered to Paul every now and again. Anyways, Paul declined her offering of £55 ski gloves to help the situation, but he did purchase a most fetching wooly hat! Annoyingly there wasn’t enough signal to send a stupid Facebook message to my church friend and Kendal-native Kelda, but driving out the town centre woke me up enough to realise we’d been going in totally the wrong direction! we should’ve been heading for Wasdale Head, not just “Scafell Pike”!! On Google Maps “Scafell Pike” is the ‘other’ side of the mountain, the wrong side of where we wanted – that’s the 9mile walk side! As in all the best situations, Google Maps went AWOL, but eventually came back, saying we were now a good 1.5hours away from Wasdale! Hoorah! Eventually we followed a random B-road route cross country via Coniston Water. The countryside had changed quite remarkably from Lancaster, the hills were alive. We drove miles through countless ever-narrowing country lanes, endless blind bends and hill tops, down 14% gradients and up super-steep inclines – many, with beautiful views, causing us to stop several times and take photos.

The Climb Begins

We finally got to Wasdale Head only 2 hours later than hoped, around 1:15pm! The lady in the Wasdale Head shop was more stoic with a “oh you’ll be alright, by the time you come down it’ll be dark but that’s not til 5pm, see how far you can get”. I agreed with this lady more than the one in Trespass There was also a cool, very simple, summit map on the wall outside – a lot easier to read than my Ordinance Survey map! After buying some essential Kendal Mint Cake, hurriedly packing my pack with necessaries and finally convincing Paul to borrow my spare ski jacket and ski gloves, we were ready. The bonus after observing the terrain and mist covered hills surrounding us, was that it was starting to dawn on Paul, that this hike, perhaps, did require more clothing than just a hoody! We finally started walking around 1:50pm. Despite my warnings, advice and encouragement, then followed approx 30mins of overly quick walking, followed by complaining, sweating and moaning about “why do people do this?” and exasperations of “do they actually do this for fun?” from Paul. I think we had walked half a mile max at this point. We turned a bend on the path, which led to a glorious view of the path winding upwards, it went up and up, into some ominous low-level mist clouds! I found this quite amusing, as Paul could now see and appreciate the gigantic size of this place! I fear he had assumed, like anybody that hasn’t done this kind of thing before, that climbing this mountain was going to be a quick wander up some hill and that the map legend saying it was a 2.5hour hike was a joke – I mean, the path is only 3 miles long and and you can easily walk that in less than an hour, Right!

The Rain and Mr.Sensible

It started to rain as we entered the mist cloud level. Another 15mins or so and we met our first person coming down the path – a guy in his late 20’s, in just a light coat and no pack. He gave us some positive encouragement, “yeah the rain goes on, but higher up it stops and you’ll be fine once you’re past it”. We then met this older guy who was less up-beat. He’d injured his ankle walking an alternative path, before deciding to hobble back down for the past 45mins. He only told us he was injured after telling us how difficult and treacherous it was “up there”.

It has to be said the rocky path down looked very wet and very slippery, far more than when I walked down the path 10 years ago in December 2007. This did concern me somewhat, but I kept quiet.

Due to the constant rain, we both looked quite bedraggled, but oddly it wasn’t cold at all. This made it perfect timing for Mr.Sensible and his girlfriend to turn up! they were in their 20’s and he was a very nice guy, but very grown up! they’d evidentally gone up at a sensible time and were now descending at a sensible time, as that was sensible! He asked, nay demanded, “you’re not going up to the summit, are you?!” (almost implying – I’m not going to let you go up there), he frowned, sighed and added, “…you really need the right equipment to go up there!”. Paul’s first words were “yeah I know, I thought wearing jeans would be a laugh!”. This was highly funny, but Mr.Sensible did not smile, he was more shocked at the waterlogged look of the two of us and seemed very concerned we weren’t immediately turning right around and joining him on the way back down. He then told us there was “lots of snow, lots and lots of snow up there”, his girlfriend re-iterated “yeah lots and lots of snow, lots of it”. He added that it was zero visibility conditions up there too! His last effort, after looking stunned at my orange/grey trainers, was “You must have very wet, freezing feet!!”. At this point I did sympathise, as he must’ve reckoned we were totally clueless idiots(not a bad assessment really), so I tried to reassure him that my shoes were actually waterproof fell running shoes + I had bonefide ski gloves on me! he kind of gave up at this point and they headed off, shaking their heads, convinced we’d undoubtedly be needing helicopter rescue within a few hours. I didn’t mind, he was just trying to be sensible, which is fair enough, but sometimes you can’t help two clueless idiots like us lol. I was actually quite concerned my fell running shoes wouldn’t grip the slippery stones on the way down, but he who dares wins and all that. I should say, despite being unprepared clothing-wise, Paul had some very good Timberland walking boots, much better than my shoes to be honest.

The next and last people we saw on the path were a mother, father and their two 4 and 6 year old sons gingerly coming down the path. This inspired Paul to say “if a 2 year old can get up there, so can I!”.

Just after this, I suggested we rest a bit and eat something, for energy. At this point I managed to weigh Paul’s backpack, only to find it weighed a ton! no wonder he was sweating so much! he’d brought his tablet and 2kg phone charger with him, along with numerous other heavy objects! I transferred some of this stuff to my pack and we continued.

The Snow

We proceeded on and Paul moaned less, as he got used to the constant exercise and terrain. We came to the bit where you have to navigate the path via cairns(piles of stones) and we only got past this bit because I remembered it from last time. It was moderately challenging. Mr.Sensible was kind of correct about the visibility, the thick mist made it difficult to see the next cairn. We hit the snow line – where I noticed the snow on the rocks above us increased in prevalence. I started to fear Mr.Sensible might turn out to be even more correct, but tried to ignore this.

We went up and up until the path leveled out. We plodded on and on, until bizarrely the path started to go down hill, which didn’t seem right. Phone GPS’s were consulted and I tried to look at my OS map, but neither worked! after a few more yards we realised we had no idea where we were, so we posed for some photos and headed back. We then happened across the blinkin’ correct path up to the summit!! it was SO obvious, we’d walked right past it and had wasted 15mins with that wrong way! I asked if we could walk a bit of the way up and have a look, which we did, but it was after 4pm by now and had gotten very cold + visibility was very low. So, we took some photos and decided we’d turn back after all. This was a mutual decision – I could tell by his words, concern about not being able to get back before dark was on Paul’s mind and I too was more concerned than usual. Not so much for myself, as last time I’d had to hike down in the dark on my own, but more that I knew the slippery rock path part would be difficult to navigate, especially if you were new to this kind of thing and in the dark, serious injure was possible! I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen, if only to stop Mr.Sensible proclaiming how right he was all along. Having to turn back was a shame but not a big deal, I was most impressed that Paul seemed perfectly fine now and we’d had great fun thus far! Our clothes were even dry due to the altitude and atmosphere!

My fave highlight on the long way back was coming to the snow river crossing – quite high up, a narrow river splits the path at one point. You have to cross the river via some rocks, but due to the altitude and cold, the river was largely hidden under thin ice and thick snow! At this point, a perfect timing of tiredness and dimming light clogged Paul’s mind! the light meant the grey rocks of the path faded into the mountainside and the snow filled river now suddenly looked the most “path-like” thing around to follow and he mistook it for the path and started lunging up the river! It was very funny as he plunged through the snow, up hill, to a point where I had to shout “oi! where are you going? the path’s over there!”.

We made it past the cairns area, several times having to wait for the mist to clear enough to see the next one. Have to say making it past this area in the dark, with a torch, would’ve been crazy.

The Path Back

We then got to the horrid slippery, wet path bit. Paul sensibly stuck to the rock/stone/gravel path, his Timberlands were made for this, but my Columbia’s weren’t and I considered it highly dangerous to even try! Luckily, I remembered my tendency to be able to cover ground quickest by striding/running/balancing down the grassy sides of mountain paths rather than on the paths themselves, where the stones get in the way. It allows me to move quickly, but stop often to admire and enjoy the view, which was improving all the time as the sun was setting! This balancing technique does tax the knees, but in the shoes I was wearing, it was far safer than the wet rocks.

We spied 2 people ahead join from an alternative path, they were really speeding down the mountain, clearly a lot more keen to get back and were soon lost from sight.

About half-way down, it dawned on me that Paul was now somewhat worried about the darkness kicking in, as he was speeding up significantly.
I tried to tell him to take it easy, I said slow down, we have time, but he was unconvinced. Suddenly there was a loud crack and an yelp of “argh!”. This was the sound of Paul being welcomed into the real world of hill hiking, as he slipped and fell on the rocks! He landed on his backside and bruised his hand, but he was alright, thank goodness! found out later his Lynx deodorant was severely dented, having taken the brunt of the fall and probably saved his coccyx. He fell a few more times on the way down after this! It turned out things weren’t helped by him not wearing his glasses! he’d put them in the side of my backpack on the way up(they kept steaming up) and one of the arms had broken off, so he had no choice but to soldier on, squinting to see the way in the ever fading light.

Lost in the Pitch Darkness

I kept claiming that I’d walked down in darker conditions back in 2007, but must admit this was now worse! it was becoming properly dark and Paul was convinced we were still miles from civilisation and the lights we could see in the fields below were miles away. We had a small argument about which one of the 2 lights on the horizon was the pub and which was a hotel(he was right, I was wrong).

We made it to the one sign post on the trail, which meant we were nearing the end, but Paul had kept count of the number of gates and was once again unconvinced, he reckoned we had 4 more to go and he was right(again)! We descended to ground level and got to the final gate. From here I vaguely remembered you could walk straight out onto the road, near where the car was parked, but the only path I could see ran by the river, so assumed that must be the way. Mistake #1! Thanks to this we ended up walking at least another mile through random fields in what became total and utter pitch darkness! We realised we’d gone the wrong way, so we cut through some trees and headed towards one of the few lights around – it turned out to be a farm house and I could see my car just beyond it. The major problem was getting to the road involved scaling a wall, a stack of crates or a large field gate, which was too much effort at this point. To be honest I was worried Paul was in no condition even to attempt this and was none too keen myself. So, we tried to find a short-cut. After walking back and around the farm house, we found a latch gate, but it was tied shut with rope and I couldn’t figure out how to un-tie it. Paul has been in the USA the past 2 decades and thought the farmer might shoot us too, as we were trespassing, so we tried to find another legal way out to the road. Another 10mins of wandering in the dark and being blocked by stone walls, then walking over broken stone walls and into another field bordered by stone walls, I decided enough was enough and insisted we head for the farmhouse again. We got to the latch gate and this time I managed to untie it, in total silence, saying I’d take any responsibility if we got a “Hey! We don’t like your type round here!” shotgun style reception. Luckily we did not…and the car was just a short walk away.

The Pub and Pie

We drove to the pub. I remember 10 years earlier staggering into this pub, after having gotten lost in the mountains for the entire day that time and having a Guinness and pie, probably the most grateful for and best pie I’ve ever eaten. This time was similar, except I was only mildly tired, whereas Paul was the completely shattered one! haha! Also the pie this time had much less steak, as in I had 1 smidgen of steak in mine and that was the sum total of steak in both pies! It was still a darn nice pie though.
We drove back the 20mins in total darkness and checked in to our hotel – the most excellent “Strands Inn & Brewery” where we then had a few more pints of local made beer before retiring to bed!

Thu 16th Feb 2017

The final day of our trip. We both awoke feeling fine, Paul said despite the previous day’s exertion, his legs were ‘alright’. Had a wonderful breakfast in the pub and began the drive home. First stop was down the road at the Murt Camping Barn where I’d stayed 10 years previous, it didn’t look like it had changed that much. We then took a random detour, we kind of gave up bothering to look at any maps or judging which direction we were going in, but somehow ended up at this cafe/restaurant called The Byre – in Bootle, no, not in Merseyside, but in an area called Copeland. I spotted a local newspaper with Theresa May on it and apparently she had indeed just visited, in the run up to some election! Next up was Lake Windermere, as Paul had kept mentioning visiting this place when he was younger. He was very happy to see this place once again, but I became obsessed with finding “The Bobbin Mill” as it was on every sign we seemed to pass. It was a staggering sight once there, but was closed – oh Bobbins! Next stop was Low Sizergh Barn, a farm shop place where you could have a tea, eat some cake and watch cows being milked, live. I bought some sausages, had tea/cake and watched the cows being milked. Following these events we proceeded south, eventually stopping for food and a tour of Wolverhampton. The Royal London pub was a great place and a fine dinner was consumed. Final coffee stop was around 10pm at the same service station we stopped off on the way(I think), then home around 1am and that was that!

Google Map of where we went on Scafell Pike

[See image gallery at jamesreed.org]