This looks and felt like the gates to Mordor. It is the start of “Striding Edge” put that into google image if you want to see what it looks like on a clear day, it is stunning.
As we dropped down the mist cleared coming down toward Patterdale looked remarkably like home in Edale.
This is another pic for my friend Peter Follansbee to show, contrary to popular opinion, decent oaks are not uncommon in England today. In fact there are probably more and larger oaks in England today that there have been at any time in the last 1500 years.
After a very high carb lunch in Patterdale we set off back. I would have caught the bus but it doesn’t run out of season. I love Cumbrian bridges.
The route back involved a few hundred metres less climb this is near the top, we were headed through the saddle to the left.
Back at Grisedale Tarn the mist had cleared.
Dropping down the other side.
and the destination Grassmere in view to the far left, nearly home.
Nearly back down I had to stop for a photo of this old field barn, simply wonderful vernacular architecture. Click to see this image larger and notice it is the detail that makes this beautiful, things like the diminishing courses in the slate roof.
20 miles in 24 hours with a heavy pack and a lot of steep climbing. It made me realise I am not as fit as I thought. Pretty stiff still today and only turned 4 bowls in the workshop today.
Thanks for the photos! Was up there summer before last and would have loved to spend a night or two in a tent! Alas, my 70+ year old mother would not have been an easy load to shoulder. Abi
Good little shed. Very alarming to a Yorkshire lad to see the absence of a lintel over the door! That grading on the roof slates is great, with its dual purpose of reducing weight at the ridge, and making it easy to carry the slates to the top courses. Round here you can see the same thing in the walls of buildings, but in several lifts. I think it was either the biggest ones in the cart loads were used first or more probably when a new height of scaffolding was added the biggest stones were placed first and the smaller ones used when you were at full stretch before raising the scaffold. They knew how to build in those days- mostly!
Lovely pictures. Thanks for the write-up. Geez, if you only turned 4 bowls the next day because of the "shape" you are in, I suppose I would have been dead…after the first 3 miles of so!
Viewed the photos with much nostalgia… and know what you mean about spending too much time at the computer…Best wishes Shani
souns and looks like a great weekend
Striding edge is fun. I was lucky when I went as it was a clear mid summers day. My mate managed to slip over just where the memorial is to the chap that fell down. That woke us up a bit! Sounds like your fit enough Robin, I'd have been rather tired after that trip.
Lovely pictures, Robin. I very much like the barn. We don't see too many stone farm buildings here in Kentucky and never with with a slate roof.I am curious as to why no trees sprout in those vast open hillsides such as is seen in the second to last picture. Is it because there are no forests nearby, or is the soil too rocky?
@Jeff the answer is sheep. Anywhere you see open space with no trees it is normally the result of grazing animals.