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| Heading into Ennerdale |
I was awoken a few times during the night by the noise of rain on the tent and began wondering if the romantic notion of camping along the Coast to Coast walk was such a wise one. Many people doing the walk use the sherpa service to carry the bulk of their luggage, having only to contend with carrying a small backpack containing waterproofs and food for the day. At the end of each section, they arrive at the B&B they are booked into to find their luggage waiting and enjoy all of the comforts of home before repairing to the nearest hostelry for a meal and a few drinks. This has become big business along the Coast to Coast walk, as well as other popular routes, and early on in the walk I made the rather disparaging distinction between these walkers and ourselves by referring to them as 'slackpackers' while we were the morally superior 'backpackers'.
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| Ennerdale Water & Gt. Borne |
While I was fine in my tent during the night, I knew that we would be faced with packing up in the wet the following morning and pitching a wet tent at the end of the day, not a very appealing prospect. As we emerged from our tents, we were surprised to find that it was dry although judging by the heavy cloud, rain was not far away. Brian had already packed up and left, as had a pair of young girls who had started from St.Bees at the same time as us. Alan and I prepared a breakfast of porridge in the kitchen with another group of four young girls who had arrived in camp late while we were in the pub. They were students who were heading for the remote Black Sail Hut youth hostel, which was ten miles of fairly level walking down the Ennerdale Valley, so they were not in a rush. We were heading for Rosthwaite, nearly six miles further, including a very steep climb up Loft Beck, so we would be unlikely to see them again after today. This is one of the oddities of walking long distance trails, often you find yourself walking with people for a period of time only for them to disappear, sometimes for a few days, before they reappear again further down the line. This is mostly to do with setting off at different times or staying in different places but once you have put a few miles distance between yourselves and other walkers, you are unlikely to see them again.
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| Ennerdale Water & Pillar |
After breakfast, we returned to our tents just in time for the heavens to open and took shelter under a nearby tree, waiting for a break to enable us to pack up our gear. This took an age as the shower seemed reluctant to pass over but eventually it stopped, enabling us to rush out from cover to pack our rucksacks. Soon, we were on our way but by now it was 09.40am, which was later than we had anticipated starting and we headed back down into the village of Ennerdale Bridge and onto Ennerdale Water and the wild valley beyond.
There are two paths around the lake, the north being a wide forest track but we took the trickier, more scenic south path, which is a narrow, stony trail that seems much longer than it's 2.5 miles. The scenery hereabouts is superb with lofty fells on the north shore and the giants of Pillar and the High Stile Ridge at the far end of the lake forming a formidable barrier that we had to cross later in the walk. With the heavy packs, we had to watch every step along the stony path, making it more difficult than it would have been had we been carrying lighter loads but we arrived at the far end of the lake without incident and took the forest road from here alongside the beautiful River Liza, with the impressive summit of Pillar towering high above.
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| Pillar from the forest road |
Despite the scenery, the 4.5 mile trudge along the forest road became tedious after a while and it was with relief that we emerged from the forest into the head of the valley by the Black Sail Hut youth hostel. The mountain scenery here is quite superb and in the gloomy weather with the clouds just brushing the summits of the higher peaks of Great Gable and Kirk Fell, it felt a little forbidding.
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| The head of Ennerdale and Black Sail Hut |
We decided to stop by the youth hostel - which is an old shepherds hut and one of the most remote hostels in the country - for a break to eat what little food we had. This consisted of either Mars Bars or Snickers and cereal bars, and in my case an apple as well. The odd thing about Ennerdale Bridge, is that despite it being the first staging post on the walk, it doesn't provide much in the way of facilities for walkers. There is no shop or campsite and the pub we had been in the previous evening didn't really seem to be in the business of catering for walkers. True, they were friendly enough and they served food but the menu was very expensive and the type of food on offer was what you would expect to find in a restaurant, rather than the hearty food and large portions preferred by hungry walkers. Even the blackboard giving detailed weather forecasts for walkers that had been there in 1998 was no longer to be seen. They were offering a packed lunch service though, which we could have collected in the morning on the way through the village but somehow, we didn't want to avail ourselves of it. We experienced this slight feeling of being 'ripped off' quite a lot in pubs across the Lake District, a lot of which, to my mind, seemed to tolerate walkers rather then welcome them. The decision not to purchase a packed lunch was probably a mistake as by the time we reached Rosthwaite, we were 'running on empty'. We never made this mistake again and for the rest of the walk ate as though we were never going to see food again.
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| Buttermere from the top of Loft Beck |
After leaving the youth hostel, we made for Loft Beck, the first 'real' climb of the walk. This is a mountain stream tumbling down a near vertical 1,000ft climb out of a vast bowl of mountains at the head of the valley and is probably the easiest way out but it didn't feel like it as we climbed. High above, we could see Phil and Charlie, who had ascended the wrong side of the beck and were looking for a way across the fast flowing stream. Stopping regularly to catch our breath, we had plenty of chances to take in the superb views of the surrounding fells and looking back down the valley to the far end of Ennerdale Water, were amazed to see the distance we had walked so far. Eventually we reached the top of the climb and were rewarded with a stunning view into the Buttermere Valley with the giants of the High Stile Ridge, part of the formidable barrier that we had just crossed, framing the scene to our left.
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| The old tramway to Honister |
From here, we made our way to the steep track leading down to the Honister slate mine, the track being the route of an old tramway that once transported slate down the side of the mountain. Though downhill, the going was quite difficult owing to the steepness of the track and by the time we reached the mine, we were very tired. We took the opportunity to use the picnic tables of the sadly closed cafe at the mine, which is now a tourist attraction, before continuing downhill on a mixture of tarmac and green lanes into the tiny hamlet of Seatoller. From here it was a short stroll to the campsite between the villages of Rosthwaite and Stonethwaite and we pitched our tents and enjoyed a shower before heading into Rosthwaite for dinner in the Riverside Bar of the Scafell Hotel.
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| Borrowdale |
Later, as we strolled back to the campsite, the sun was setting and the quiet beauty of the Borrowdale valley was enhanced by the mountains silhouetted against the reddening skies as we tried to pick out the peaks we had climbed over earlier. Back at the campsite, Phil and Charlie, who were camped alongside us, informed us that packed lunches were available from the farmhouse and we both ordered one for the following morning. We weren't about to repeat the mistake of not having enough to eat tomorrow.
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