North Lakes Wainwright bagging

Leave Keswick on Spooney Hill Lane heading up Latrigg. Make a wrong turn and then climb up through a plantation onto the grassy moor via what feels like a racing line. The top of Latrigg is broad and open and feels like a lovely place to spend a sunny day, which this is not. I slip on some mud and splatter my knees.Down to the car park (full) and then start climbing the tourist track up towards Skiddaw, but then cut right for the narrower path by the fenceline up toward Lonscale Fell. I climb into the clouds and Keswick disappears behind me.I meet a group of lads coming down from Lonscale in full waterproofs. I’d taken off my fleece on Latrigg in a fit of sweat, but in the stiff southerly on top of the fell I am starting to regret it.Follow the posts to Jenkin Hill; cross the tourist path and climb to Skiddaw Little Man. Impossible to tell in the fog which is the cairn that marks the summit, so I wind up clicking the “Lap” button on my watch 3 or 4 times as I pass more and more austere cairns. Two men with ice axes shelter behind one of them. As they move off I take their place and pull my fleece back on. Clouds race in wisps over the soggy gravel path.Onwards and upwards to the southern shoulder of Skiddaw where the wind is at its worst, ballooning my hood as I turn to descend to Carl Side. The path is full of shattered slate and slippy halfmelted snow but I’m glad to be out of the wind in the lee of Carl Side’s big, low dome.I make my way out along Long Side to Ullock Pike, where I meet a family of four coming up the other way. I bet this is a gorgeous ridge walk in clear weather but today there’s not much to see, so I u-turn and skedaddle back up to Carl Side without ado: no further Wainwrights lower on the ridge.From Carl Side I take the traverse up, up, and up the west side of Skiddaw. The wind seems to have let off, or maybe it’s just at my back. I meet some lads — the same ones from Lonscale, I think — coming down from the summit, and pause to let them pass along the thin strip of muddy slate between bands of windblown snow. I’m at the summit before long.I continue down the back of Skiddaw, scoping out the top of the Bob Graham descent line, but electing to continue along the fence to Bakestall. The clouds open up back here and the views over the Calvas and the headwaters of the Caldew spread out. There’s an older guy on the little shoulder of Bakestall but otherwise not a soul in evidence. As I descend via Birkett Edge to the Cumbria Way, even the footprints dry up.I’m speaking metaphorically, of course: it is very wet back here.I follow the Cumbria Way for a little while up to the foot of Great Calva, and rejoin the Bob Graham line that I left at the top of Skiddaw coming down from Blake Hill and Hare Crag. It crosses the track at a narrow burn, swollen today. Not much drama here, though the path is nearly totally underwater. I regret wearing my trail shoes here; though they’d fare much better on wellbeaten paths at drier times of year, I should have worn fell shoes for today’s expedition. I slip on a rock near the top of Great Calva and just about catch myself to avoid truly Eating It.The path off Great Calva is hard to find at first — I expect I’m going to have to rely on more experienced feet to guide me in future. The descent features lots of those little mudfilled divots in the heather where your foot slips way forward and throws you off balance and I wind up treading on the heather in the verges just to keep purchase.Soon I’m down to Wiley Gill and the sludgy bog at its confluence with the Caldew, which is very full at this time of year. I pick a likely-looking spot and ford the river to start the long slog up Mungrisdale Common. I can’t fathom why Wainwright included this in his books, other than to have a big dumb boggy hump to dunk on. The climb is not too bad but the top is a morass of sphagnum and very cold water, and to add insult the wind is blowing hard across the common. The moss eventually yields to water-soaked scree which crumbles underfoot. The clouds descend again as I climb up past Foule Crag on the traverse direct to the summit of Blencathra. There is no one on the summit.I start the descent via Hall’s Fell but it’s slow going over the greasy rocks just below the summit. I spend most of it sliding down on my bum, my hands groping shakily for purchase. If it were dry I’d fly down this kind of thing. A quartet of lads in regular trainers up ahead seem to be in the same predicament. I call Sam and chat with her as I descend, for company & morale. Across the valley, Clough Head looms. Man I love the look of that hill.It gets a lot more straightforward lower down — and then I’m crossing fields towards Threlkeld and out to the railway path back towards Keswick. This is simple running; I switch off and cover the last 5km no bother.More Wainwrights on BG leg 1, Strava