What a scorcher! Yes, a Lakeland ride in the dry!
Stevie B, Chris D, Tim, Pete and occasional guest Ian B out to accompany Terry on this, our first time attempt at Skiddaw north of Keswick. Ian once again storing up his MidAirMiles with Her Indoors to allow him to join us on his new mount - an '06 Specialized Enduro Expert, blinged up (of course!) with leftover bits from his previous bikes and a fine specimen. Just before we turned off-road 15 minutes out on the ride, Tim was to point out the distinct similarity between its suspension system and that of Terry's Hitman - virtually identical in all but travel, the Spesh having almost twice as much as the little DDG.
We'd planned to leave the Toon at or near 0800 but somehow lost a good half hour or more as the bikes didn't seem to be stacking properly inside the GollyMobile. We ended up taking half out and putting them on the bike rack instead. There were four of us in the van and two in Steve's Beemer (soon to be transformed into a Merc Vito Sport!) and we lost very little time in hopping across to Keswick making up quite a bit of time by ignoring traffic and danger.
It was a four mile tarmac hike to start with according to Chris' new handlebar-mounted Adventurer 2800 GPS, a lovely thing with full colour high res OS maps. I'll try and get his recorded track up here soon. After Chris did a couple of positional checks on his gadget it got us to the end of the tarmac after gaining 400 vertical feet for our first bridleway at Peter House Farm which seemed to be pointing straight up Bakestall, the rounded north western side of the Skiddaw clump, so only 2440 VF to go!
While that initial height gain took four miles, the next 400 feet took a quarter of that, on gravel landrover track. Fortunately the trail bent left to start to take us around the back of the big one towards the YHA's Skiddaw House on the far side instead of straight up it. Only Chris knew what was coming. Ian had walked the hill as many have but not from this side, and never on a bike. The next mile looked more like a traverse of the north east rim but still gave us another similar rise over the same distance before we faced the fairly heavy climb up to Whitewater Dash Waterfall. This is definitely one for the under-59.5's and they were both happy to walk while the youngsters cleared off up the thing. We passed a couple coming down towards us pushing a pram! And the girl was pregnant!
We took a rest at the gate just before the waterfall for lunch around 1230, maybe later, and were sure glad of that. Nowhere near as many walkers as we'd expected to get in our way and the few we passed were happy enough to leave us room. We all rode the last of the incline to the falls then happily the track turned downward for a while. Not quite so happy for Terry though, as on the first take-off and landing, his still-full bottle of High5 Drug Liquid leapt off the Hitman and exploded on the gravel, emptying all but the powdery residue in the bottom. He rejoined the others at the foot of the hill to tell his tale and be offered topups from all directions, but today he was carrying plenty of reserves anyway.
The next section was the drag up to Skiddaw House itself, nowhere near as bad as expected, and we parked ourselves outside the House to enjoy this fabulous afternoon in the sun, with unrestricted views in all directions through an almost totally clear sky. When Chris was happy with his planning for the next phase we moved off to enjoy a good old rip down the remainder of the wide, rock-strewn trail to the next gate along the Cumbria Way at the foot of Burnt Horse. Another short rest and Terry took advantage of the lull to lead onto the brilliant, fast, skinny and at times scary rock garden known as Lonscale Crags. Out of breath after hammering this almost to its end, a mistake allowed Chris into the lead just before the only disaster of the day occurred.
No, not an accident, but an act of God, as white goo began to puddle under Chris' rear tyre. What, a tubeless event? Well, he'd managed to collect a nice little slit right on the crown of the tread at the edge of a side knob, and would it hell seal? Nope. We tried everything, well almost everything, but Terry's madcap plan to insert a small section of rubber tube was dismissed after he'd also failed miserably to glue a tyre path onto the inside of the carcass, which floated off when the spare bottle of Stan's Fluid touched it! Dare I say it, Chris had to pop his spare tube in! Sacrilege! And Sacre Bleu!
This presented us with probably the longest rest of the day as we lay around baking and anticipating the climb to the summit, which came as something of a surprise to Ian who had at least walked it before. When we arrived at the foot of the path snaking straight up Little Man, a very steep 1500 feet up from where we stood (or now sat!) at Hawell Memorial on the base of the stone cross. Staring up at the wiggly path ahead, Ian and Terry decided they'd be happy to wait here for the return of the others, while Chris declared it a mutiny! A few moments later, after he'd taken a good look and listened to a very valid, reasoned argument about just how long it would take us to first get up Little Man and then trek across to the summit of Skiddaw itself, he relented when Ian forwarded a suggestion. That was to track south east a little way around to Latrigg Viewpoint and from there descend into the trees lower down the slopes towards Keswick town where he recalled some bits of trail from days of yore. Pete managed to cajole someone into taking our photos up there with Keswick nestling peacefully below and the view for miles around just stunning.
I'd love to keep this part quiet but honestly, Officer, the way we entered the next bit of trail gave us no clues about it being a footpath until we reached the far end, or we just missed it. The outcome was a mile and a half of dipping, rising, twisting, rolling, berm-ridden bliss that took us all by surprise while it provided the absolute perfect end to the ride. We finished on the north side of the River Greta then crossed back into the top of thre town looking for the chippy for saline replenishment. Steve called the play wrong and turned out towards the A591 - no chip shops along there! Anyway, we then decided to head back to the cars, get stacked up and seek sustenance ion the way out.
We parked up discretely and lounged about just off the high street devouring chip butties and mushy peas whilst being baked by the super, day-long sunshine. We must have left around 1630 and were back at the Cave near 1800 before dispersing after a good day's workout and another new set of trails logged to follow next time.