In the spirit of the previous forum meet…
I didn’t invite the three previous hardy, brave souls to join me on a second attempt at Red Screes which meant they didn’t accept.
So, we didn’t meet on Saturday and we never decided to go a slightly different way than before – along Nook Lane rather than The Struggle. This meant we didn’t cross Scandale Beck just after the farm or follow the beck along its left flank.
Scandale Beck:
Seeing as this walk didn’t happen, the views didn’t start to appear:
Had we been doing this walk, we would have reached High Sweden Bridge and crossed the beck to rejoin our previous outward path on the walled track but, because we wasn’t doing this walk, we ignored the stile that would take us to the bridge and carried on up the Scandale Valley:
I guess I will just never know how taken I would be with this lovely valley which, I’m sure would have reminded me of a Scottish glen, had I seen it:
Obviously, we never saw this gorgeous little waterfall either:
I would have got a sneaky group photo too, but instead, all I got was this pic of the views we were robbed of last time with the guys photoshopped onto it:
We can only imagine how squishy and boggy the path (I use the term path loosely) would have got as we didn’t meander up the valley, on the lookout for the sheepfold where the path (I use the term path loosely) crosses the beck and rejoins the walled track.
Luckily, as this meet didn’t happen, there’s no need to mention The Water-Gate Incident..
As we didn’t start our ascent out of the valley I never got to see this lovely view back down from whence we came:
…and I wouldn’t have mentioned, for the sixteenth time, how taken I was with this valley.
Had we met up to tackle an Autumnal Ascent of Red Screes we would have stopped at Banana-o’clock at the Scandale Pass to fortify ourselves for the start of the steep ascent.
I’m sure we would have seen views like this:
And this:
And this rainbow:
It would have been lovely to finally see the trig marking Red Screes’ summit
…and discover the seemingly pointlessness of the shelter.
A couple of pics I would have taken from the summit:
Okay, that was three pics.
I’m sure we would have had quite a lengthy snack stop just over the other side of the summit on some conveniently placed rocks and discovered how chilly the breeze was once you stopped moving.
If we’d looked down the Kilnshaw Chimney side to the Kirkstone Inn:
… we might have had a chat about how Red Screes got its name..
We didn’t walk down the “nose” of Red Screes so never saw another lovely rainbow:
Or views of Windermere through the squally rain showers:
Or the sun catching the rain shower blasting the Scandale Valley and highlighting the fells beyond:
Nor did we see an almost full length view of Windermere:
And The Floor-Surfing Episode definitely did not happen somewhere around here:
Had we reached the Kirkstone Road we would have had to give way to these ladies:
We would have eventually emerged opposite the big car park and said our goodbyes.
Thanks for an absolutely smashing day out in the hills guys. It was just what the doctor ordered, for me, anyway