Can I be Bothered?
Another slow morning, the sort that drifts rather than begins, after quite a late night. Late because I’d been up at the pub watching the England vs. Argentina game the previous night. The heat didn’t help. The weather was still surprisingly warm, rather than the usual Lake District drizzle‑with‑attitude. No, a genuine, lingering heat that felt totally out of place.
It was warm enough to make me question whether going outside was sensible, but Ami had mentioned she’d walked Souther Fell the previous week. That was enough of a nudge. If she could do it, I could at least attempt it without evaporating. And anyway, I couldn’t let her keep getting ahead of me on the Wainwrights front.
Uphill
I parked exactly where she said: next to the pub at Scales. I snagged one of the last spaces. The climb began with a short stretch along the road before swinging uphill through Mousethwaite Comb. It’s a gradual gravel ascent, narrow enough that you’re always aware of your footing but never truly threatened by it. It’s the sort of path that feels like it was designed by someone who wanted walkers to succeed but also to sweat a little. It was fairly steep in places.
Eventually it reaches a col, the classic Lake District crossroads. Blencathra looms in one direction, Souther Fell stretches away in the other. Souther Fell itself is a long grassy ridge, undulating gently with several high points that all pretend to be the summit until the next one appears. The true top sits about 1.3 km from the junction, more of a wander than a climb. Still, I made it up in an hour and a quarter, which felt respectable given the heat and my general state of holiday‑induced sluggishness.
At the summit I stopped for a bit of a rest. It was just a drink, because I hadn’t carried any food. I wasn’t expecting the walk to be long, and I’d already had breakfast, so a drink was enough. But it was needed, because even though it was only a moderate climb, the heat had taken it out of me a bit. I just sat at the top and let the landscape do the talking. Blencathra and Bannerdale Crags sat behind me like a pair of stern but approving spectators, and Clough Head lay off in the distance, hazy in the heat. A simple moment, but a good one.
Hydration Break
The descent took about forty‑five minutes, and on reaching the car I toyed with the idea of popping into the pub at Scales. But the gravitational pull of home won. After a change of shirt and shoes and a brief collapse, I wandered into Packhorse Court for a couple of beers in the sunshine.
I ended up chatting for ages with a young couple from Carlisle who’d come down on the bus for the day. They were enjoying the sunshine and the cheap bus fares. In fact, they’d paid less to get to Keswick than I was paying to leave my car overnight. Eventually they left to catch the 6pm bus, and I was left with that familiar early‑evening holiday question: what now?
Is it a Keswick Tradition?
The answer, as it often is, was food. I went home for a shower (heat management was becoming a theme) and then headed to the famous Old Keswickian for chips. I ate in rather than queue for a takeaway. The chips were excellent – crisp, golden, and hitting the spot nicely. The pie, less so. Let’s just say it existed, and leave it at that. No, I make that sound too bad. It wasn’t bad per se. I’ve just had better.
Wainwrights Completed on This Day
Friday: The Day Angletarn Pikes Didn’t Happen
Friday arrived with vague plans. So why have I added Friday on the Thursday post? Well, read on, and you will see. Mainly though, I did very little and didn’t take any photos, so I don’t have enough material for a whole post.
When I arrived, there were plans for walking Angletarn Pikes and Brock Crags, plans I’d been procrastinating about all week. They looked like the biggest challenge of the holiday, and I wasn’t entirely convinced I’d make it in my current state of unfitness and in that heat. But they had to be on the list, because they are the only two remaining Wainwrights that Ami has climbed and I haven’t. After a morning of dithering, I gave in to my inner sloth and decided there is absolutely nothing wrong with sitting on your backside for a day. So I fetched breakfast from Costa Coffee round the corner and then settled in for a day of nothing. It was the first proper rest day of the entire two‑week holiday, and frankly, I’d earned it.
By early evening I’d summoned enough energy to fill the biggest of my bags and take it to the car. A small but meaningful act of productivity. That took enough energy that I needed another snooze for an hour before going out for a curry at The Sultan. Central Keswick, of course. The food was good, although I was pretty much the only person in there. I do like a good curry.
