Thursday, August 11th, 2011: Loughrigg Fell and Ambleside
Bob: The packets of walks we had purchased in Hawkshead included a set of five walks around Ambleside, and Monika found that the route of Walk # 5, "Skelwith Bridge" went through Skelwith Fold, which was just down the road from our B&B. She had the bright idea of walking over to Skelwith fold and then following the loop of Walk # 5 all the way around to its finish point in Clappersgate, after which we could detour over to see Ambleside, have lunch, and then finish the loop back to our B&B. It was A PLAN! In fact, it was a GREAT plan because anything that didn't involve me spending part of our day jousting with the local drivers on the wrong side of the spaghetti-like roads of the Lake District region sounded just dandy to me! Thus, after a hearty breakfast at Holmeshead we donned our rain gear and wandered off down the driveway, turning right on the lane leading over to Skelwith Fold. Picking up a walk loop in the middle like that is not always as easy as it sounds, but Skelwith Fold is a crossroads hamlet, so picking the correct route out of town was relatively easy. I became more confident that we were going the right way as we encountered each of the features listed in our 1-page guide for the walk. The River Brathay was clearly flooding over its banks when we crossed Skelwith Bridge, no doubt due to the heavy rains of the previous day. Passing by the hotel where we had stopped to ask for directions on our drive up from Manchester airport, we started climbing the hill behind the town. |
Monika: When we came down to breakfast it was not raining, although cloudy. So we decided to do our first walk. One of the walks from the Ambleside packet came close by our farm. Picking it up at this point would allow us to have a day without driving. So we left right after breakfast walking down our little farm lane to the one lane road which led to the hamlet of Skelwith Fold about a quarter of a mile from the farm. There we turned onto the one lane road that took us down to Skelwith Bridge. Walking across the bridge, we were surprised how high the river Brathay was. It appeared that the rain from yesterday was still draining down from the mountains farther west. |
Bob: The ascent into the fells left us breathless, but we were rewarded by some truly magnificent views of the fells, the valleys, and even the northern end of Lake Windemere far down below. The paths in the hills were clear in most places but actual signposts were few and far between, so we had to really rely heavily on our written directions to give us the landmarks used to mark necessary turns. |
Monika: Now we were in unknown territory and had to follow rather good written instructions. A schematic map that was not to scale helped some, but at critical points it was still not enough. One thing that might have helped would have been a pedometer, since a lot of instructions were of the kind "after 300 feet" etc. But the path was fairly clear and the different landscapes we saw were just wonderful. It seemed, that where ever you looked was a postcard-worthy view. Our route led us up the foothill of Loughrigg Fell to a first ridge. From there we had our first view of Lake Windemere and it was beautiful indeed. We had actually walked past the tree line and were up on the grassy slopes with sheep grazing around us. |
Bob: The footing would not have been a problem at all if the weather had been dry, but the trail suffered from the after effects of the torrential rains that had fallen the previous day. Parts of the trail, in fact, especially the uphill and downhill sections, frequently turned into little streambeds complete with babbling brooks of water on top. That made the footing wet at best and occassionally very treacherous at worst. We even saw water simply spurting out of some of the "dry" stone walls, so clearly a decent head of water pressure had built up behind the wall. Similarly, some of the level, grassy sections of the trail had turned into a temporary swamp or moorland, and picking our way through or around those sections slowed us up a bit more. We also had more trouble picking out the sometimes rather faint intersecting paths; indeed the only time we missed a turnoff was in one of those areas where we were too busy trying to avoid the puddles to see our turnoff, I guess! |
Monika: But from now on it was downhill. As every hiker knows, uphill tires you but downhill can hurt you. The path was narrow and rather stony and Bob helped steady me on some of the more treacherous parts. But all along were beautiful views of the lake. We finally came to a direction of " locate and follow the grassy path...". Unfortunately there were several of them and we had a somewhat difficult time locating the correct one . So while looking for the next clue, a square gap in the stone wall with view of Lake Windemere, we ended up tramping through a bog with the result of rather wet feet on my part. |
Bob: After some misteps where we both got our feet soaked, we did find the correct path back downhill, but we stopped at "Joe's" bench so that Monika could take off and wring out her socks. The zigzagging path down the hill to Clappersgate was quite steep and slippery in spots, but someone had also installed handrails in the worst areas and that helped a lot. |
Monika: Luckily, when we located the gap there was a bench and I could sit down and wring out my socks. From here the path was pretty straight down --- and I mean STRAIGHT DOWN. Again Bob had to help me a lot and we took it slow. Luckily it was not raining, but the larger bolders that had been scraped smooth by the glaciers were rather slippery since they were still wet and Bob did slip, but did not hurt himself. |
Bob: Once in Clappersgate, we detoured back over to Ambleside, the main port of the North side of Lake Windemere, because we were curious to see what it was like and, perhaps more importantly, we were really hungry and wanted to find some lunch! At first the town didn't look very large, but as it turned out the town wound back into the valley quite a distance so there was really quite a bit more "there", there, so to speak. There was also a tremendous backup of cars trying to get into, or out of, town, and I thanked my lucky stars that I was walking rather than joining that throng of frustrated motorists. We spotted a few pubs that looked decent, but then I spotted "Bizzy Lizzy's", a small but cheerful cafe on one side of the downtown area, and that's where we stopped for lunch. We each had toasted baguette sandwiches, mine with beef and red pepper chutney and Monika's with brie and mango chutney. Quite good, and the proprietors directed us down the street to the town's Post Office after lunch. |
Monika: When we reached to road at Clappersgate, we decided to walk the mile into Ambleside to have lunch and take a look at the town. It took a while, but we did find a nice little coffee shop where we had hot baguettes with salad and I had pressed elderberry juice as a drink. Quite refreshing. |
Bob: We purchased stamps for our first set of postcards and mailed them off before we continued rambling around the downtown area. Monika bought some beer and "Rosinen Schnecken", a coiled sweet roll with raisins embedded in it, for our afternoon tea back at the B&B. By then we were both getting tired and so we set off on the last leg of our journey back. Off course, I set off in exactly the wrong direction thinking it was a "shortcut" back to Clappersgate, but after I turned on the GPS and saw I was clearly headed North instead of South, I reluctantly turned back and headed back (the correct way) out of Ambleside. We re-crossed the Brathay River at Clappersgate and then had to decide to hike along "Bog Lane" to return to Skelwith Fold or try the paths directly across the hills, forests, and fields that was shown on our map. The problem was the Lakeland Leisure Walks people recommended the Bog Lane route and didn't give any directions for that alternate path, but I really disliked walking on those narrow roads and hoping all the oncoming traffic would politely move over and make room for you rather than just slam into you head-on. The British, Scots, and Irish seem OK with trusting drivers like that, but knowing how haphazard the American system of "driver education" often is, it made me deuced uneasy. Monika preferred the well-marked and known quality of the Bog Lane route, but I prevailed and we hiked off along a path on the field side of the road leading southward. The road at that point was between two high stone walls, so I was extremely glad to be on the other side of the traffic! Fortunately, the path continued along for almost a mile when we reached the entrance to a Caravan Park (American: Trailer camping area). There our trail ended and we perforce had to walk on the side of the road for maybe 1/4 of a mile until we finally found a signpost showing us the entrance to the path to Skelwith Fold. |
Monika: At this point Bob decided to use the GPS to get us back home. It did get us out of Ambleside and back to Clappersgate. From there we had a choice. Our directions showed an original route that seemed to get us close to our home, but the instructions said that a bridge was out and we should just take our favorite one lane road back. Well our landlady had told us the bridge had been repaired, and we found that the original route was actually a small path away from the road, whereas on the one lane road we would have to walk right on the road. Besides, the original road was more of a challenge, since we only had the rather poor schematic map and no instructions...but we did have a GPS. So off we went along a pasture with sheep and two deer cavorting in the meadow. The male stopped long enough for me to get a rather good picture. But then the two were off again. We followed the path through a wooded area - with standing water were my almost dry socks got wet again when I stepped into a puddle hidden underneath a layer of leaves. |
Bob: Once past the entrance, however, we were on our own in trying to find out where the path was. I saw a faint trail worn in the grass up the hill and, seeing nothing better, we followed that. Fortunately we had chosen well and came upon some unlocked gates in the field and turnstiles that were clearly meant for human passage. Following our noses, we successfully bumbled our way back across the fields and forests over to Skelwith Fold, where we turned left to get back to our B&B. Right about then the rain, which had held off for the entire day, finally let loose on us so that we were pretty wet and bedraggled by the time we once again crossed the threshold of Holmeshead Farms. Once back inside we shed our muddy shoes at the door and then shed more of our wet clothing to hang in the shower to dry when we reached our room. But after that we could just sit back and relax and put our feet up for the rest of the day! I had cocoa while Monika had Coca-Cola for our afternoon snack, and then we did computer chores up to dinner, after which we read a bit before turning in for the night. |
Monika: Much to my surprise, we did find the right turnoff and a almost invisible path up a rise to some gates, just like the map showed. It led into a field that was inhabited by rather large cows. I am a city girl and somewhat reluctant to encroach up some animal who is that much bigger than I am. So I was glad when I saw the next gate. But rather close to it was another one of those black and white critters munching away. I quickly scurried through the gate, Bob was holding open for me and carefully closed behind me. Only now did I feel safe to take a picture of the thing. A few minutes later we reached the road at Skelwith Fold and it started to rain in earnest. Bob tried out his new rainproof hat [It worked! Yay!] and the rain really was rather refreshing. When we got back to the farm, we left our shoes downstairs and I tried to wash out my socks and the bottom of my pants that were coated with mud. But that was about all I was up for. I did download our pictures and was happy that so many had turned out well. I do love digital photography, where you don't have to wait until you come home to see the results of your labor. |
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