The Lake District, England

Kelly’s superior performance in her high altitude medicine elective last year earned her a scholarship to attend a wilderness medicine course in England. She was supposed to go last fall but her botched ankle postponed it to this spring.

She flew from Galway to Manchester early on Sunday morning and spent the day exploring all of the English transportation systems to reach her final destination of Keswick (Kez-ick) in the evening. She spent the week up and down the mountains doing various doctor-in-the-wild-type-stuff. Clearly I lack the vocabulary and the insight to give her experience justice. I’m sure she’ll write about it.

Because I thought she might get lonely over in the UK without her lifemate, I had made arrangements to fly over and join her on the Thursday after her course finished. This would give us four days to hike, camp and explore more of the Lake District. I got in on Thursday morning, rented a car, and started north. I found Kelly at their hostel and could immediately tell that she had had a fantastic week. She had a huge grin on her face, a coffee in her hand, and she was talking a mile a minute faster than usual about her week. Once I was up to speed, we headed into town for groceries so we could hit the trails before it got dark.

After a quick check of the map we made our way to the trailhead about 30min south of Keswick down some beautiful rural roads. Tiny stone communities line the narrow, windy roads around the Lake District so driving (and navigation) is interesting. We loaded our bags and headed off into the drizzling rain and a growing darkness. We walked a few kilometers and quickly realized that finding flat, unsaturated ground for our tent would be near impossible so backtracked to the only semi-flat, semi-clear spot we could find for our tent.

In the morning after a night spend in gale force winds rain, we had some breakfast, packed up, and headed up the valley toward Scafell Peak. The valley was beautiful with a wide river snaking though the green fields, enclosed by rocky ridges on either side.


After clearly walking further than our map showed (and Kelly talking to every sheep we passed) in a valley that was clearly longer than we needed a timeout to consult the Oracle about our location.

Oh-oh...

Okay, okay, I’ll bet even Magellan was wrong about his location once in his life. I’ll bet he never had to hear about from his wife for the rest of eternity. The difference between Magellan and I; my wife has a longer memory. Turns out we had parked at the wrong trailhead and were a valley over from where we wanted to be; a common expert navigational error.

With the weather growing sour we decided against a snowy high col to reach our “other” valley (and abandoning a rental car miles away) and made our way back out toward the car to trade valleys. This worked out okay as we found a level, dry campsite in a farmers field where we could spend the night.

See? Not such a bad valley to explore.

Early the next morning we started out up the valley toward the center of the Lake District, Scafell Peak. While a little windy at times (and a few short-lasting hail squalls) the weather was mostly beautiful and sunny. The trail network was so good that it was easy to modify plans to incorporate additional lakes and peaks as we wanted. We found a nice grassy spot for lunch under Scafell that overlooked the lakes and valleys below. We got great views of Scafell, Isle of Man, and even to Scotland from Great Gable across the way.

Looking down our uptrack.

Green Gable behind Kelly.

Scafell Pass

Summit of Green Gable

Across to Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England.

Walking to our car through the farm/trailhead.

Kelly likes lamb.

Our last night was clear and cold (-8 C) and had an unexpected interruption (driving a freezing teenage girl to the nearest hostel where her teachers were staying). The day we were leaving (as always) was sunny, clear and very warm.

Derwent Water

Keswick, enjoying the sunshine.