Lake District: Red Screes - Take 2 (9.9 miles)

 Saturday, 10th October 2020

After the last failed attempt at Red Screes due to horrendous weather, I decided to give it another go in the autumn to hopefully see some colourful plumage on the trees in the Scandale valley.

Primarily because of the Covid "rule of 6" relating to groups of people meeting, rather than post it as a meet again, I just invited the 3 guys who braved the awful weather with me last time.  I'd donned my emotional armour-plating in readiness for a lot of "errr, well, umm, there's a global pandemic you know" refusals and was chuffed to bits when all 3 replied saying yes!

After looking at the weather forecast for the weekend and seeing that it was allegedly going to be cloudy/sunny and brightening up in the afternoon, plus, the latest plague related lockdowns happening "after the weekend", we plumped for this weekend.

I had a half-hearted search for some accommodation that wasn't stupidly expensive and found The Sun Inn at Troutbeck Bridge had a room available for the weekend.  A little more than I would normally like to pay at £160 for 2 nights for a single room but it was en-suite, clean, breakfast included, had free parking and wifi. And, to be honest, the room was lovely.  It wasn't the usual box room stuck in the rafters as an afterthought, it was quite spacious, had loads of sockets, including those posh ones with USB ports, and it had a mahooooosive radiator (which came in useful!).  The food was superb too.

After a frantic packing of overnight stuff, rucksack and snacks I left work a little earlier and set off for the long drive up, arriving at about 7.30pm - just a little too late to have a meal but I expected this and had contingency plans.  I got settled into my room and decided this was going to be my "annual holiday"(!) and had a nice relaxing night and toyed with the idea of heading a slightly different way up the Scandale Valley as I hoped I'd get more tree colour time (plus it avoided that err, delightful walk up "The Struggle" - the very steep beginning of the Kirkstone Pass Road).  I can imagine a few clutches have burned out on there in the past!

So the day dawned.  I had a modest breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and copious amounts of tea before setting off on the 15 minute drive to meet up with the guys.  Fifteen minutes - oh how I wish I was within a 15 minute drive of the hills where I live!  Paul and Karl were already there as I arrived and we chatted a while as we waited for Colin, who appeared a few minutes later.  I told them about my new plan of attack and off we set.  Along the looooooong Nook Lane to cross Scandale Beck via Low Sweden Bridge just after the farm:

I maintained a suitable social distance!:

The views starting to appear:

Looking back towards Windermere:

The plan was to walk this side of the beck up to High Sweden Bridge, then cross over to join our original outward track.  I think we all "noticed" the stile off to our right which we should have climbed over to get to the bridge and we all walked straight past it.  To be fair, the path we were on curved round sharp right and "looked" like it was going to the bridge.  It wasn't!  We had a quick conflab about retracing our steps and a quick look at the map showed a "path" continuing on the left side of the beck and seemingly rejoining the path we needed to be on at a sheepfold about 2 miles away (ish, mebby).  We decided to carry on as we were and see where we ended up:

Eventually that lovely track in the pic above petered out into a squelchy nightmare.  A fell runner passed us and I asked him what the path was like ahead - "very wet and boggy - I turned back - but the more intrepid might not be bothered" was his reply.  This filled us with confidence.  We carried on, picking our way through the squish and the newly planted trees, still in their plastic protective tubes.  Colin said they were hawthorn and beech.  The beech should give a fantastic display of colour once they get established.  We hoped there were gaps in the walls (there was).  

I was really quite taken with this side of the valley.  Even if the weather had been great the last time, I don't think we'd have got quite the same perspective:

It reminded me of a Scottish glen with the river flanked by bracken covered hills and mountains.  Yes, I think this "off-piste" adventure was a good choice, despite the squishiness underfoot.

We came across an absolutely gorgeous little waterfall:

It is marked on the map but, had we been on the other side of the beck on the double walled track, we wouldn't have even known it was here, or have been able to get to it.

I managed to get a sneaky pic of the guys who were admiring the waterfall too and they obediently turned to face me when I shouted "coooo-eeeeeeee" to them.  "Snap" the pic was taken - "gotcha!":

We started a steady climb out of the valley and I took one last pic looking back down from whence we came:

Ohhhh, how wonderfully wild and remote.  A soothing balm for my soul.

We eventually reached the sheepfold - on the other side of the beck - and we had to decide how to cross.  The guys were able to cross to the mini-island and get to the other side but me? No, I was a wimp and didn't dare so I investigated a gate with the idea of crab-walking along it.  Bad idea. REALLY bad idea!  After testing the top bar and finding it solid, stupid here didn't bother to look at the fact the gate was actually chained on to this bar.  So basically it was a swing.  And yes, when you stand on a swing and hold on to something solid, the swing moves.  My centre of gravity skewed somewhat by the weight of my rucksack only added to this impromptu gymnastic display.  Karl was trying to grab hold of me but if I'd have let go of the bar I'd have fallen in.  In the end I decided wet feet and legs was a better option than attempting to move my hands along the bar as my rucksack was adding too much "body weight".  I had a proper death grip on that bar and I wasn't letting go!  So into the water I stepped.  It wasn't as cold as I expected to be honest and luckily, it only came up to my mid calves.  Oh, in the meantime, Colin and Paul came rushing up.  I assumed, to help, but no, they were after a "You've Been Framed" moment!

Anyway, the beck was eventually crossed successfully and we continued on our way, stopping at the Scandale Pass as it was Banana-o'clock.  This was also a bad idea as I looked up the steep hillside and thought "we're going up there".  I quickly looked away.  This was about the only part of the walk where I wished the clag was down!

The next seven hundred hours were spent getting above the steep craggy bits and, once we had, oh those views.  Just look at those views:

And just to enhance the views, a nice rainbow:

All of a sudden I spotted the trig:  

The guys very kindly let me be the first to touch the trig.  I was closely followed by Colin who, I learned, had not "bagged" Red Screes yet either - he has now.  

Some pics from the top:

We had quite a lengthy break just beyond the summit.  The wind was quite chilly really and it was about now that Karl decided he'd lugged all his wild-camping gear along for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

After we were all suitably freezing we started our descent.

Looking down Kilnshaw Chimney to the Kirkstone Inn:

Another lovely rainbow beaming down on the Scandale Valley:

Rain shower in the valley:

An almost full length view of Windermere:

It was somewhere around this point where I decided to do a bit of floor-surfing.  A nice, grassy path so I was striding out and, whoosh, my left leg shot out in front of me on the slippery mud underneath and I ended up on my backside. No injuries, apart from my pride.  I was covered in mud.  Splendid!

The final bit of the walk was down the Kirkstone Pass Road.  We had to give way to these chap-esses:

A little pano-vid from the top of Red Screes:

Absolutely smashing day.  Cheers guys for agreeing to "Take 2".  It was just what the doctor ordered.

I wish I could do this every weekend.