The most direct route up Scafell Pike starts from Wasdale. However, we opted for the much longer route up from Langdale because getting to Wasdale would have involved a significant detour off our route south on our bikes.
It was a lovely walk – much more varied and interesting than the ascent of Ben Nevis. The first few kilometres follows the Cumbria Way through the valley before making a steep ascent up to the first coll. There was then a nice bit of up and down, passing a beautiful wee lochan, before starting to climb over the scree fields towards the summit. The final “summit push” involved a bit of steep scrambling – great fun.
There were lots more people on the summit than we had seen on the way up – I guess most of them had sensibly come up the direct route. It was pretty windy and very cold on the top so we had a quick bite to eat post compulsory summit photo, and headed back down. We had great fun hopping between the rocks on the way down.
The whole thing took us just over 5 hours – longer than Ben Nevis even though it was a significantly smaller ascent.
Once back in Langdale, we joined the others for a very welcome bowl of soup in the New Dugeon Ghyll before doing a quick change (in the rain!) into our lycra for the next bit of the day.
The first 20 miles of the afternoon were brilliant and entirely charming once we’d turned off the A592 onto the A5074 towards Lancaster. Its amazing the difference between A-roads which appear the same on the map. The A5074 was very small and windy, with very little traffic on it while the A6 which we turned onto was far busier and nowhere near as pleasant to cycle on.
The last 25 miles of the day were cycled on the A6 and again, seemed to drag on indefinitely, with long stretches of uphill and a very strong side/head wind which wasn’t even relieved by slip-streaming as it was cutting across us.
Passing through Lancaster was interesting. I hadn’t really appreciated what a beautiful old town it was – probably biased until now due to the historic York-Lancaster rivalry which continues between the universities (I went to York) and links back to the War of the Roses.
We finally came into the town of Galgate, where we turned left at the traffic lights as directed by the very friendly woman at the campsite. Another 4 miles and we were there.
Daydreams of a beautifully pitched tent and cup of tea awaiting us were not quite realised as the car had got stuck in the mud in the campsite and things hadn’t quite gone to plan! As you can guess from that, it was a VERY waterlogged field and we resolved to lying additional tarpaulin under the sleeping compartments in an attempt to and keep us dry in the night.
Considering that this campsite was literally a field at the back of a farm, I was very impressed by the showers which provided a much needed warm up.
We spent the evening wondering if the tents would withstand the very strong wind, wrapped in all our clothes and clutching cups of tea before finally collapsing into bed. By this stage, Ruthie and I were both feeling pretty shattered but interestingly it wasn’t our legs but our backs which were feeling the pain.
Thankfully our tent proved to be strong and we survived the night without retreating to the car.
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