Day Two – Ennerdale Bridge to Rosthwaite.

Today was a big day – proper mountains!!

We started with a simple enough road walk to the edge of Ennerdale water. 

Again excellent weather! The path alongside the lake was very pretty and relatively easy, although there was a little scrambling in parts. 

But it’s a long lake !!

We sat on Robin Hood’s chair. 

And eventually came to the end of the lake. 

We then had to skillfully avoid two nasty guard dogs (in an outside bound centre that prominently asks visitors to keep their dogs in a lead!), before making for the forest track to continue up towards black sail. 

If the lake path felt long, this went on and on and on. 

But opened up views like this!

Here I had designed a clever alternative route, which mostly worked well. We found the place to head uphill at this cairn. 

And the views were wonderful. 

We had lunch looking at the panorama above. We could see back to Ennerdale Water and onwards towards Haystacks. 

As we climbed we could also see the famous YHA black sail hut below and the fantastic views of Pillar, Great Gable etc. 

However the path disappeared on the ground and we ended up scrambling around heather and rocks for a while. It’s still a great route as it climbs more steadily than the alternative, but we just had to accept a loss of 20-30m to regain the main path at Scarth Gap. 

From there new views of Buttermere opened up. 

And the final ascent of Haystacks could begin. Some fun scrambling near the top!

And here we are at the summit. 

The last photo was taken by some friends we met in the bed-and-breakfast the previous night and happened upon at the summit of haystacks. They are acupuncturists from Brisbane! In fact we have met a lot of people from Australia and America during the walk – must be the time of year I guess. 

We then ‘tabbed on’ to Innominate Tarn, a place where Dad and I had visited years ago, so this was the second time the ring has got there. Of course this tarn is famous as it is the last resting place of Alfred Wainwright. 

The long descent started. New views…

Our Aussie friends again. 

We then happened upon a mountain bothy. So we duly signed the book. 

And there were some fun posters on the walls. 

It’s an old quarry building and has water, beds, a fire and even a Hoover, although we were puzzled how that was plugged in!

We then climbed up and around the old Dubs slate quarry on an old tramway before reaching the now demolished drum house to the main incline. 

The descent down the incline was slow, rocky and difficult but the views were great. 

On the other side of the valley we could see the remains of another incline and slate caverns.

Before reaching Honister mine just after it has closed. But no matter I charmed the owner to sell me a slate ‘coast to coast’ coaster! 

Various exhibits were around and will be of interest to some of my friends. 

Now Borrowdale was in sight, but there was a long slow descent on mainly rocky paths (not really shown in the photos below, sorry). 

One final bit of fun was a short piece with chains to hang on whilst you passed a narrow bit of river. 

And finally made it to the hotel.

Here are the stats for the day. 37,954 steps in 13.9 miles. Max height 1900ft and total ascent of 2792ft.