• Tuesday 14th May 2019
• The Lake District

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Last night ‘Mary had a little lamb’ bleating the whole night long….well from 11pm till 5am this morning…the lamb cried, the mother answered, the lamb cried the mother answered it went on and on and on, over and over and over…I take it all back from last night it was so NOT a wonderful noise.

Apart from a wailing lamb crying all night though I did star gaze for ages snuggled up in my duvet looking out through the roof of the yurt…the sky was clear, the stars were out….I just love space….every time I closed my eyes I opened them again just one more time to have another last look!

Morning came early and bright as the sun light up our yurt through the roof…it was a nice natural wake up call….and the lamb had just stopped it’s crying!

However it was time to get up and moving as today we were hiking up Hellvelyn, probably the most recognised high mountain walk in the Lake District, via Striding Edge Ridge, a classic approach to the summit.

Helvellyn is the 3rd highest mountain in the Lake District and England.

We started from a small village called Glenridding…it was so small we drove through it in 3 seconds flat.

We headed up from the village steeply to the first summit of the day which was Birkhouse Moor.

You could clearly see the distinctive Corrie’s and sharp ridges of the mountain that had been carved by glaciers during the ice age.

Once up we began our ridge walk along Striding Edge which started off gently before progressing to a knife edge undulating ridge…pretty cool and pretty impressive and I must admit I do enjoy a bit of a scramble to enliven the climb.

We eventually reached the summit of Hellvelyn.

We approached a plaque which told the story of a hillwalker/artist – Charles Gough, who was virtually unknown until he fell to his death in 1805. It told the legend of how his loyal dog Foxie stayed with his deceased owner on the mountain for 3 months, possibly surviving on the dead artists remains!

After having lunch (probably not the best time to eat after reading that) we chose to complete the horseshoe circular by heading down Swirral Edge Ridge.

Check out the top of this mountain, they sure do it posh here in England…they even have seats at the top

This was a tricky decent as the rocks were so obviously polished from the thousands and thousands of people following this route.

From up here we were speechless about how many ‘man-made’ paths were carved out amongst the mountains, it actually looked like spaghetti junction!

However I do believe that erosion is a massive challenge on Helvellyn so if this offers protection to the land then so be it.

After descending the ridge we decided to head a different way than the masses and head up Catstye Cam.

This was actually a pretty nice climb with amazing views which no one seemed to care about as we were the only ones there…perfect for us!

Then it was time to head down where we eventually joined the main path out.

It had been a great day overall on the hills, plenty sunshine, beautiful views and great scrambles over two contrasting ridges….and a ‘Travellers Inn’ right at the end of our journey…what else could you ask for!

Tonight I’m asking/hoping for a bit of ‘Silience of the Lambs’ at the yurt please!!!