June 24th, 2010
Any time after midnight this coming Saturday you’re likely to see a motley bunch of enthusiasts outside Keswick’s Moot Hall ‘straining upon the start’. The reason? We’re just past the shortest night of the year – the optimum time for fell runners to test themselves on the rigours of the Bob Graham Round (BGR).
To join the select group of successful BGR completers, you have to cover on foot a journey of 66 miles involving 26,000 feet of ascent and of descent whilst climbing 42 Lakeland peaks in under 24 hours. It’s a tough test of endurance.
Yesterday I was out on the Langdale fells with our friend Raj and Ahmed, one of his support runners, fine tuning the route for Raj’s attempt on the BGR this coming weekend. Raj is raising money for the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, a charity supporting sufferers from this rare and debilitating disease. If you wish to support the charity you can donate by clicking here on the Just Giving site.
Apart from being super fit for the BGR, runners need to have the terrain and bearings hard wired into their brains. Smart route finding – cutting four or five minutes off each peak covered – can bring you three hours saved on your overall time.
We had a great scramble up via Gimmer Crag to Pike of Stickle (see photo above of Raj with the Pike on the right) and discovered a new line to Rossett Pike, saving 15 minutes on Raj’s last visit. This augurs well for the weekend and the 18 hours’ target time for the Round.
The pictures below catch the flavour of the day. On the left two possible routes are proposed and on the right the intrepid couple head off through the cloud with Ruby to climb Bow Fell.
POSTSCRIPT
Raj had an excellent day, but had to finish at Wasdale, about two-thirds of the full Bob Graham Round. By then he had covered 41 miles and climbed just under 18,000 feet. He’s learnt a lot from the experience and plans to make a second attempt on 4th June 2011.
Tags: "Lake District walks", Lake District cottage, Lake District walks Latrigg, Skiddaw, Thornthwaite
Posted in Local news, Walking | No Comments »
March 23rd, 2010
It didn’t register much with me at first as I was making for the top of Blaeberry Fell. A cold wind soon brought thick whirling snowflakes. By my return an hour later in the dusk the fallen snow was revealing the pile of stones, which I had hurried past, to be the ruins of a substantial rectangular construction about 30 x 20 feet in size with two dressed sandstone upright door posts. (See photo opposite).
Could this really be a sheepfold – almost invariably circular – as the OS map indicates? Intrigued by its location (Grid Ref: NY 279209) I found an old 1865 OS map, which showed a similar building and description, running on a NW-SE axis.
A visit to the site this last week without snow convinced me I was right – slate tiles with punched holes, part of a broken sink, a glazed roof ridge section and remains of a well rendered NW wall showed this was certainly a bolt hole for humans not sheep!
“Oh yes it was a shepherd’s cottage alright,” said Frank Richardson owner of the Junk and Bric-a-Bac shop on Keswick’s Central Park Road (Open after Easter 10.30 am – 2.00 pm), when I saw him at the weekend. “I used to go laiking about up there when I was a lad 60 years ago. There was more of it standing then.”
And what a position it has! The photo below looking north-east is a spectacular view of Clough Head and the Helvellyn range still covered with snow. Other magnificent views from here of Skiddaw, Eel Crags and Robinson can be found in our Rooftops of the World Photo Gallery.
Built over 150 years ago, Brockle Beck cottage provides fascinating insights into farming life in the 19th century and helps show what living conditions were like for earlier generations in mountain areas.
It would be a great project to determine its layout through excavation and at least partially restore the building as an attraction for visitors. It could also open the way to creating an interesting high level green route for walkers from Keswick to Watendlath, avoiding the Borrowdale traffic.
Tags: "Green policies", "Lake District walks", Skiddaw
Posted in Environment, Local news, Walking | No Comments »
October 4th, 2009
Comments about people’s stay here are already included in our Guestbook, but we’re always keen for more contributions from guests and from visitors to the website.
We’ve also had this last summer holiday period interesting comments on the blog section and some eye-catching drawings and a photo. The small line drawing (top picture) shows The Larches from the south with the fellside and trees behind and was sent by the Reavley and Atkinson families visiting in August.
The second sketch by Nina Birnbaum is a small section of a larger colour acrylic painting showing Skiddaw mountain from the Breakfast Terrace. To see the full picture with a flower pot in the foreground see the Home section.
The third contribution from John Brookman is a photo (below) of the half-frozen rim of Bassenthwaite just beyond St Bega’s Church. This will form part of the photo gallery for this low level walk in the Walks section.
Many thanks to our contributors who’ve shown how User generated content (UGC) can enhance the lakelandbelvedere.com site! Please keep the contributions flowing as well as ideas of what else we should include on the website – just send an email to ian@lakelandbelvedere.com.
Tags: "Lake District walks", Lake District cottage, Skiddaw, Thornthwaite
Posted in The Larches, Walking | No Comments »
Any time after midnight this coming Saturday you’re likely to see a motley bunch of enthusiasts outside Keswick’s Moot Hall ‘straining upon the start’. The reason? We’re just past the shortest night of the year – the optimum time for fell runners to test themselves on the rigours of the Bob Graham Round (BGR).
