June 14

Walk to Grasmere. This was the first day that the weather affect our activities. It was raining lightly when we exited our B&B so Dec to stay in the valley rather than hike up a fell. The walk to Grasmere was made more interesting by the rise in water levels in the local streams. Although it rained modestly overnight, the streams we carrying well over twice as much water. We thought that this was due to the shallow soil on the fells and their lack of trees. On the way to Grasmere we stopped to look at some caves; the second one was large and deep.

June 13

Red Skrees. We made our walking plan for today over breakfast. The path to Red Skrees seemed to entail going up a chimney which was consistent with the contour lines. So we made our way out of town and found the appropriate footpath to Kirkstone Pass. The latter part required walking along a road with an interesting name,  The Struggles. The sharp incline to Red Skrees looked impossible from our first views. Nevertheless it was well pathed and not dangerous. It was windy and cool so we put on our jackets as soon as we got over the steepest part. The walk back into Ambleside was pleasant and quite easy.

June 12

Fairfield Horseshoe. This walk was highly rated by the local experts. The instructions were very helpful because they started from the centre of town. The path took us up Sweden Creek to the High Sweden bridge, which we crossed to the north side and proceeded up the ridge. This took us over High Pike and Hart Crag to Fairfield at 2863 feet. The return walk was as good as it gets. The path was largely on smooth grass with a slope toward Ambleside; think golf fairways. It's easy to appreciate how golf was invented by shepherds in this area. The weather conditions continued to be great; warm and dry. From Fairfield we could see Helvellyn which we hiked from Keswick. We also saw the Coast to Coast route from Gras to Patterdale. What great views.

June 11

Move to Ambleside. We left our Air BnB as clean as possible and packed everything into our backpacks. By the time we got that done we had missed the 8:30 am bus so we sauntered to the bus station and caught the 9:30 am bus to Ambleside. It turned out to be cheaper to buy a full day pass than a one-way ticket to Ambleside so we got the pass. After arriving in Ambleside and checking in at our B&B we decided to do a hike over the hills from Grasmere to Am. We used our bus pass to get to Grasmere. The hike was pretty easy but interesting and educational.  Educational because many of the paths we used weren't marked on our map or only showed as light grey dotted lines. This should help us find useful paths for the rest of the week. The most prominent  flowers were foxglove, which grew in great abundance among the ferns.

June 10

Blencathra. Susie saw Blencathra as soon as we arrived and said that she wanted to hike that fell. The first hike was up Skidaw 931 m and the second was up Helvellyn 950 m, and today's hike was up Blencathra which at 868m was lower than the other two. Nevertheless it's crest was the best of the lot. After we gained the ridge we had at least a half hour of walking over the bumps up top. Although it was sunny we couldn't make out all fells because of the haze. After we gained the ridge we saw many other hikers as there are several ways of getting to the top. We ended up walking down with  Margaret and Martin from Manchester. After talking to a few people in Keswick we thought it might be difficult to find our way to the trail head but it was actually quite easy. On the way back we took a different route which gave us lots of foxglove to look at.

June 9

Helvellyn. After breakfast we walked to the bus station and caught the 555 southward. We were a bit surprised at the  £14 that we were charged for the 7 mile trip. We got off at the Helvellyn trailhead at Wythburn at 8:52 am and hiked up the steeper route to the peak arriving there in 1h40m which was faster than we had anticipated. But then I recognized my third goof up of the day. The first was forgetting my camera, the second was leaving my hiking stick on the bus and the third was losing my glasses near the top of Helvellyn. I had taken off my hat because I was overheated and my glasses came off with the hat. Fortunately we were able to find them by walking back and asking other hikers. As we had lots of time, we walked back to Keswick on roads and walking paths.

By having the apartment, we've been able to do some normal things such as laundry and cook. Yesterday we picked up Scottish strawberries at the market; they were as good as you can get- flawless and tasty. 

Today started out sunny and warm; in the afternoon we received a bit of rain. This was only the third day that we have had any precipitation since arriving. 

June 8

Skadaw. Although these mountains are modest in height,  they are still interesting to hike and beautiful. After looking at the local maps and getting some help at the i centre, we picked Skadaw for today hike. There were a number of ways to do it and we picked a steep route up and gentle route down. That turned out to be a good decision because the steep route had lots of loose rocks which would have made for slow going downward. We felt pretty good about making it to the top in 3 hours until 3 runners joined us there in about 5 minutes. The day was glorious with sun and warm weather making for excellent views. We saw what might have been Carlisle and Bowness on Hadrian's Wall path. After getting into town we looked into the feasibility of hiking Helvelyn tomorrow. We missed it on the Coast to Coast path. It and Skidaw are 2 of the 3 highest fells in the area.