A difficult trip to the Lakes

Back in July (18th-21st) I completed my Gold DofE expedition with school in the Lake District. It was a full four days walking and despite the awful weather it was a great trip. We started from the base of Skiddaw and ascended through heavy rain and solid cloud along Longside Edge but had to come back down at Carl Side as one of the group was ill. The rest of the day passed uneventfully through fields past Keswick.
The second day was also spent inside clouds up Grisedale Pike, Hopegill Head and then down to Buttermere via Wandope - although we missed out on the excellent ice creams. We camped on Low Ling Crag out on Crummock Water - a stunning spot.
Our third day was the hardest, taking us up Red Pike and along to High Crag before going up Haystacks and (accidentally) Great Gable. Seathwaite lived up to its name as the wettest place in the UK!
Our last day was in far better weather and we enjoyed the view along High Spy to Cat Bells before a final stretch through fields to our finish point in Braithwaite. Great fun - can't wait to return to the Lakes!

Our wild camp by Crummock Water.


Just to give an idea of the sort of visibility we had!

nice one explorer, good pics and report, think i may have passed you at some point as i saw lots of doe groups up there,  oh and welcome to OM.

Reminds me of a D of E practice I did in the Lakes a long time ago, in a previous millennium. It was wild, wet and windy, and one night we camped somewhere up the dale from Brotherilkeld. We were fine in the tent, even though it was lashing with rain, but we could see some poor guy trudging slowly down through the dale, absolutely drenched. As he got close to our tents, he tripped and fell headlong into a muddy patch, face down. We had a bit of a giggle, then after a few seconds we were a bit concerned as he hadn't moved a muscle. However, it WAS raining very heavily, and I guess that's the reason we debated whether it was worth getting wet just to check that the guy was alive and conscious. Anyway, he got up, covered in mud, and trudged even more slowly onwards.

Sounds like you had fun

I went to Seathwaite Fell last year for a spot of wildcamping. Was my wife's first time wildcamping, took the dog as well. The weather was amazing, truly. Didn't know it was the wettest place in the UK, no sign of it in these pictures!

Dog swimming in Sprinkling Tarn



Campsite





Woke up to a nice view below us

Thanks for all the comments - it was good fun and it was interesting to see the photos of when the weather is better!