Wainwright Walks 47: Nab-ing 4 for 99 not out!

Hills: Rest Dodd, The Nab, Brock Crags, Angletarn Pikes
Classification: Wainwrights – no.96 to 99
When: Sunday 27 May
Weather: Windy to start off with – then scorchio!
Time: 7 hours, including breaks
Conditions underfoot: Generally pretty good – the bog was dry!
Who: me and the mountaineering minion
Post walk drink: Lakes Distillery gin, and a much needed pint of coke
Post walk watering hole: Beckside Bar, the Glenridding Hotel
Mishaps: Transport (assuming the journey North counts)

In advance of a week in the Lake District, I had a cunning plan. Stuart and I were spending a few nights in Glenridding in a hotel, then moving on to Keswick where we were sponsoring a barrel at Keswick Beer Festival. The forecast for the week was great… what could possibly go wrong?

Those of you that read my blog will know that if something does not go wrong with the weather something else will go wrong instead and this trip was no exception. The first thing that was not ideal in preparing for the trip was that I had a manic week at work trying to get various things done. To add to this I went down with a cold and was too busy to take any time off sick. There was nothing for it but to drag myself in anyway and get on with things. By Friday I was feeling a lot better but still not anywhere near 100% and was still coughing up phlegm (lovely). My knees and back were also grumpy, not helped by me having tripped over a paving stone when getting my shopping in to the house and bashing my left knee quite badly a week beforehand, though it was clearly on the mend.

A windy Pentlands wander

Hills: Scald Law (via Turnhouse Hill and Carnethy Hill).
Marilyns: Scald Law
When: 1 March 2017
Who: Me and the mountaineering minion
Weather: clear but windy on the tops. Snow threatened but in the end didn’t arrive.
Bog factor: overall pretty low
Navigational embarrassment factor: 1 (not mine)
Pre walk drink: Edinburgh Gin (the previous evening)
Post walk drink: various single malts

Those of you that read my blog will know that usually something goes wrong whenever I decide to do a walk. This can often be weather related – for instance the recent deluge in the Lake District not helped by realising that my waterproofs were not fit for purpose (replacements are on order as I type!). If the weather does not go wrong then something else generally will – for instance a transport debacle of some sort which has over the years included missed flights, missed trains, broken down trains, car breakdowns, driving into a ditch in Snowdonia (thankfully managing to get out) and most recently having an utterly hellish journey thanks to Storm Doris meaning my walk for the day was a quick 2 hour blast up Dodd rather than anything more ambitious (due to utter knackeredness). However simply by the law of averages there had to be a walk where nothing went wrong and this one seems to be it!

Stuart and I were staying in Edinburgh for a week in an apartment. The week was mostly about visiting friends and family and chilling out (as well as – in Stuart’s case – going to the rugby) however on a previous jaunt (in less than clement weather) the Pentlands had looked to have some good walking so I hatched a plan to grab a few hours walking and take in the highest point. The forecast for 1st March was pretty good, although windy. Having had a few glasses of wine the previous night (not to mention a couple of gins due to a rather good visit to the Edinburgh Gin Distillery- recommended) an early start was not really an option but the forecast looked decent all day.