Day 3 - To Hell(vellyn) and Back

We left Rosthwaite bright and early because we knew we had a lot of work to do. The weather forecast was for ideal conditions, this was the one day that we hoping for such. We headed up Greenup Gill passing many students doing their Duke of Edinborough outdoor education course. We arrived at Greenup Edge as one of the first groups. One thing about the walk is that Cumbrians do not want to encourage coast to coast walkers and therefore have no sign posts. We were wanting to get the 3 crags to the north of the track; however we zigged rather than zagged and got to a crag after following the track for half an hour. We realized our error and spent the next hour or so bush-bashing down a very steep valley to regain the track.

We arrived at Grasmere (famous home of Wordsworth) at around 2.30pm feeling very low. Fortunately we were met by Bronwyn and Cate with pizza and coke in hand. Our main aim of the day was to get to the top of Helvellyn (3rd highest peak in England) and come down Striding Edge. Our plans were in tatters as Helvellyn is a 2 hour detour from the standard walk.

We set of refreshed but dreading the additional 950 metre ascent that we had in front of us should we decide to still follow the original plan. We sprinted up (at least it felt like that to me) to Grisdale Tarn where the decision was to be made to follow the path down to Patterdale or continue to Helvellyn. We of course chose the later, we did not travel half way around the world to then abandon the one must do.

The ascent went on for ever, we eventually reached the top at around 6.30pm. We were greeted by a couple of young Melbourne women who were dressed as though they were going for a stroll down the street. We were running late and decided to descend via Swirrel Edge; this was initially a very steep descent. Reading the stats later, 5 people have been killed this year on Striding Edge and 2 on Swirrel Edge.

Our crew had given us Kendall Mint Cake, we had some slabs just prior to setting off on the descent, this assisted in remaining focused coming down. We arrived in Patterdale at 8.30pm, 12 and a half hours after starting. I used to do those sorts of hours in the past, but not for the last 20 years.
The good news is that we have sore feet from the pounding, but very little in the way of blisters.
Distance covered 32km