We had a hassle-free drive up the A5 and the M6 to Junction 39, there were none of the usual roadworks to hold us up, so we made good time to Shap. Then it was time to crank up the satnav and head off for the pre-programmed lat/long for Mardale Head. After a few miles we ended up at the end of the road into Swindale, with CoPilot telling us to "take the local road" directly to the head of Haweswater. Well, the only "local road" that goes the right way is the "Old Corpse Road", and that's hardly fit for MTBs, let alone cars, so we ditched the satnav and rerouted using the OS map. The nav error wasn't a complete waste of time, though, as Swindale is a nice place (we'll come back for a proper visit another time) and we saw some wildlife on the way out, including one of the biggest hares I've ever seen. Sadly, it was off before I could get the camera out, so I've no pics of the beast.
Anyway, we were soon belting down the road to Mardale Head but after a mile or so we were halted by a resurfacing crew who told us that we couldn't go further as they had the road blocked between the Haweswater Hotel and the road-end car-park. "Typical", I thought, "we've picked the only week for years when the head of the valley is off-limits", but a friendly chat with their gaffer revealed that they had just run out of tar and so would be going home soon. About 20 minutes later all their plant came back, followed by a string of cars full of disgruntled families.
We soon hauled up in the car-park and, after changing into our walking gear, donned our packs and made for Blea Water, which was our second-choice of pitch for the first night.
Blea Water panorama, Mardale Ill Bell (l) and High Street (r)
It was an easy walk up and we made it to the dam much sooner than we had anticipated, so after a snack-break we decided to head off up the easy grass slope on the right to our first-choice site, Caspel Gate Tarn on the ridge of Long Stile. This turned out to be an excellent place to overnight, there being plenty of level pitches and exhilarating views down each side of the ridge into the adjoining valleys. We would have had plenty of time to get up onto High Street to the third-choice site before dark, but that would have involved carrying up 5 litres of water for a night on the dry top, and neither of us was enthralled at that idea. Besides, I wanted to be at Caspel Gate at dawn to get some photos of the crags in the morning light. High Street could wait until the next day, we were in no rush.
High Street and Long Stile from the Caspel Gate pitch
As we pitched, the broken clouds, which had been just grazing the tops, lifted and thickened a little, which ensured that we would have a mild night. We had the place to ourselves, having seen nobody else at all since leaving the car-park. There was no running water, so we filtered from the tarn, brewed up, had some food then settled in for the night after taking a few photos.
Rough Crag from the Caspel Gate pitch
To be continued...
