On Friday night I did the now annual early August trip to Rosthwaite. With the team I was helping to provide safety cover for the Borrowdale Fell Race, manning the Scafell Pike summit checkpoint. After saying hello to the early arrivers in Rosthwaite I drove down to Seathwaite and after trying a multitude of different packing options managed to get just about everything into my Osprey Mutant Pack. Thankfully it was a nice evening as I walked up the valley towards Styhead Tarn, and the Stretcher Box.
The party of Three Peakers who had started at a similar time to me were now far behind, but there were plenty of people pitching up at the tarn.
I followed the corridor route towards Scafell pike, but after Skew Gill struck up to the left, away from the path, up a grassy rake, flanked by a rock wall to the right. A stiff but fairly quick climb brought me out to the promontory and tarn of Lambfoot Dub, where I found Rob Gilder and his bivy.
It was a lovely spot, thought I was slightly disappointed to see that someone else had camped here recently, but not bothered to replace the stones that were arranged in a ring around the flattest piece of ground. As well as a wonderful view of Great Gable and Wasdale, the spot came with a handy kitchen area that Rob had already made use of.
As it got dark we had dinner and then spent the next few hours chatting and looking at the stars as they came out. All very tranquil!
The camp also gave me the chance to try out a new piece of kit. The Klymit Inertia X Frame camping mat is a new ‘world’s lightest’ bit of kit, and works in a similar manner to other inflatable sleeping mats (e.g. Therm-a-rest Neo Air) except it has cut outs in the mat to decrease the weight.
In theory your sleeping bag is allowed to loft into these voids, rather than being entirely squashed under your body weight,and so it shouldn’t be as cold as you might think.
In practice I did find I got cold over night, but that is perhaps due to the very light synthetic sleeping bag (Mountain Hardwear Lamina 45) that I was using. Also I had not taken with me the mini pump that is supplied with the mat, which might have allowed me to put a bit more pressure into the mat, possibly improving my comfort. Next time I will also take the manufacturers advice and put the mat inside the sleeping bag.
After a slightly chilly night we awoke to a reasonable day and within an hour were making our way up into the corrie formed by Greta Gill, and up a scree slope to the col between Ill Crag and Broad Crag. We nipped up to Broad Crag’s summit so Rob could tick the Wainwright. It also gave us a chance to admire the view and get a ‘hero’ shot of Rob!
Jason had walked up that morning and we met him at the summit of Scarfell Pike. We got comfortable and after about an hour the runners started turning up and we spent the next few hours taking down their numbers and then checking they had all gone through. The weather stayed mostly ok with the odd shower, but was much nice than last year.
By mid afternoon we had made sure all the runners had got down ok, and so we headed back down the Corridor Route to Seathwaite. The night was finished off with a barbeque, drinks, music and dancing in the Scarfell Hotel.
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