Five Days in the Lake District, part 4

Day 4: Great Langdale to Keswick
This is the only day of the trip that we stuck to the Cumbria Way the whole time (though it's actually day 3 of the Cumbria way).

The day started out looking cloudy but dry, with even a hint that maybe the sun would come out later. In the time it took me to put on sunscreen outside the front door, it starting raining. blah. But not a heavy rain, just the light drizzle we had come to expect, and we were hopeful it would be short-lived. We struck out from the Old Dungeon Ghyll, deeper and deeper into the Langdale valley towards Mickledon, the basin where the Langdale peaks come together. At this point you have to make a decision: turn around or head up and over. Luckily, the Way goes up and over the lower part of the ridge, but still high enough to afford a great view of the valley, with it's broad river bed and rocky terrain. Just image what it would have looked like if we could have seen the peaks! Surprisingly, this valley actually reminded me of some river beds in Denali National Park of all places. Smaller mountains, though.

After the climb out of Mickledon we descended into another beautiful valley with a good Scottish name: Langstrath. It was in this valley that we saw what I can only describe as "The great sheep migration of July 2010". What we saw was a line of dozens of sheep walking out of another valley that branches off Langstrath, following the path and walking in a nearly single-file line. And they were being pretty noisy about it! The sheep just kept on coming...soon it looked like a hundred or more sheep all walking alongside the river with great purpose (on the opposite bank from us, sadly). We could only assume that they were being herded by someone deep in the valley, but we couldn't see it. After about a half hour of this we encountered a short line of sheep walking towards us on our side of the river, and they were followed by a real-life shepherd carrying a crook, and his real-life sheepdog, who was having the time of his/her life running up and down hills herding sheep (who really are amazingly easy to herd). It was pretty awesome.

After a few hours the trail brought us to the hamlets of Stonethwaite and Rosthwaite, in the valley of Borrowdale, which seem to exist only to accommodate walkers and vacationers like us. I should mention that by this point it had been fairly dry for a while, but our boots, which had started the day a bit damp from the day before, were completely soaked through, and I was grumpy about it. The bits of chocolate in our gorp weren't enough to get me through my afternoon grumpiness, so we had to stop for a pint at the Scafell hotel.

Fueled by beer, the next few miles passed without too much trouble: rolling hills and farmland, crossings of the River Derwent, clearing skies, lots of adorable sheep, craggy fells all around us. By the time we reached Grange-in-Borrowdale it was downright sunny for the first time in the trip (see photo of me wearing sunglasses for proof)! The only problem was that when we got to Grange we still had 5 miles left, and our feet were really starting to ache from all the walking in wet, dirty socks. The lesson here is CHANGE YOUR SOCKS! Which we did not. And our feet just got more tired and our moods more glum the closer we got to our destination.

Which is really a shame, because it should have been a very nice ramble. The sun was shining, and most of the rest of the walk was flat and through a pretty forest along the edge of Derwentwater, another tempting lake. Derwentwater has a system of shuttle boats that we could have taken to Keswick, but it really seemed more appropriate to walk, even if at that point it was more of a hobble to the tune of constant whining.

Knocking on the door of the Bridgedale Guesthouse was a huge relief, as was a shower and a pair of dry socks. I'll save descriptions of Keswick for our last post, but I'll put in a huge plug for the pub we went to that night, called the Dog and Gun. It's 100% dog friendly, and even has a dog menu. Also fantastic local ales (Keswick Brewing Company = awesome) and big plates of tasty food (butternut squash lasagna!) for the cheapest prices we saw in the Lakes. Check it out! you know, when you happen to be passing through Keswick...

15 miles walked.
Towns: Stonethwaite, Rosthwaite, Grange-in-Borrowdale (seen from afar!), Portinscale (just outside Keswick), Keswick
Peaks: none