Hills: Stone Arthur
Classification: Wainwright (128)
When: Thursday 18 July
Who: Me and the mountaineering minion
Distance: About 3 1/2 miles
Time: 2 ½ hours, including breaks
Weather: Cloudy, but above summits. The odd shower
Post walk drink: Crafty Pale Ale
Post walk watering hole: The Crafty Baa, Windermere
Uses of the arse crampon: MIA again
Mishaps: Drink related (though not alcohol related this time); packing
Time of journey to time of walk ratio: About 3:1
Since the end of our holiday in Keswick, there has been no walking of any substance done – and being honest very little exercise. A very busy period of work hasn’t helped on either front, but at least we had a planned break to look forward to attending the Hawkshead Beer Festival – Stuart was originally meant to be away working that week and travelling to the Lakes separately, so I’d decided to travel up early and try and fit in some walking. Inevitably once we had booked things it turned out Stuart wasn’t going to be away after all but I decided I would still travel up – this time we were staying at Windermere as I wanted to see whether it made a decent base for walking as well as for other stuff to do.
Earlier in the week, the weather for the whole few days looked to be pretty good. However, as time moved on the forecast gradually got worse with Friday now in particular looking dubious. Thursday looked decent, but I had an early morning meeting that morning which couldn’t be rearranged, so travelling up the previous night (or very early on the Thursday) wasn’t an option. A plan was hatched… it was going to be one of those walks where the journey to the hill took far longer than the actual walk. I would leave work as soon as I could once my meeting was over, work on the train, drop my bags at my B&B in Windermere and take advantage of the long days to cram in a walk in the late afternoon/ early evening. Given I have done a lot of the smaller hills or shorter walks in the South of the district already, and would be reliant on buses, this didn’t leave me too many options – but one obvious one was Stone Arthur near Grasmere. Continue reading
Mountains and Malbec 