| Distance | 14 km |
| Time | 3hrs 40 mins |
| Difficulty | 830m climbing; Exposed at the top |
| Good for | Views over Keswick |
I’m no ‘bagger’ of Wainwright’s 214 peaks, but staying in spitting distance of Skiddaw, the 4th highest of the peaks, was an opportunity too good to miss. I’m really not that fussed about ‘getting to the top’, which as it turned out was the perfect attitude for what ultimately was an incomplete walk. More of that later.
The weather in these parts is notoriously changeable, but even we were caught on the hop today. The plan was to do an anti-clockwise loop from a car park just north of Keswick and the weather forecast suggested we only had a 20% change of rain. It was a bit chilly and a little windy, and this is Sam and I at the beginning of the walk in the car park. All dry and optimistic at this point!
Twenty minutes in and having been rained on 3 times already, we start our climb, crossing a stream which was swollen from the rain from the past few days.
Turning due north (point 2 on the map) we walked along a flattish path above the river. Here it was quite sheltered between the foothills of Skiddaw to the left and Blencathra on the right.
After a few miles and at the turn to start our assent up Skiddaw (point 3) we reached Skiddaw House Hostel – a welcome sight to stop and have a cup of tea and a sit down. Here we had a natter with a German and Austrian who were walking and camping south to north through the Lakes. They had been drenched on most of the walk. It couldn’t happen to us, surely?
The climb up to the shoulder of Skiddaw got more and more exposed. Not particularly difficult, but we were getting the odd gust of wind which was a precursor to what we’d get at the top.
This is a typical view of the landscape on the climb up.
Reaching the shoulder where we turned right to walk the final few hundred yards, we were afforded a lovely view of Keswick and Derwent Water to our left
That’s when the trouble started! The clouds billowed up, and the wind became relentless 40-50mph buffeting. What we had hoped to be wide reaching views over Bassenthwaite Lake ended up being holding on for dear life as we had to walk near horizontally to stay upright. Here’s Sam taking a breather with what’s left of the view being obscured by the low cloud.
Deciding that ‘nearly there’ was good enough, we turned back and headed back down the path directly towards the car park. About 5 minutes later, the heavens opened and we were pelted with hailstones. Here’s Sam half wincing/half laughing during the onslaught.
Mercifully, once the downpour was over, that was the last rain we had and by the time we had reached the car park, the wind had pretty much dried us off and we were able to get some lovely moody views over Keswick with the mottled sun coming through the clouds.
Here’s a clearer view over Keswick.
A moody one…
One looking south east towards Threlkeld…
A religious one…
