Rolling Northern Fells

In contrast to the jagged central fells and a trip to Mungrisdale to meet up with a friend and bag up Carrock Fell and High Pike.

And it was a learning day.  I have mentioned a few times over the past few blogs having been rescued or at least consult, someone whom had a GPS to check I was on the right track.  Then I upgraded to an iPhone and tried out a map App on that and became hooked.  So with my impending Coast to Coast walk I bought a Garmin GPS.

The problem was using it.  I am pretty technology savvy.  I went into the IT industry almost at ‘The Start’ but I was totally flummoxed.  The quick start manual is pretty useless and I had to resort to YouTube to work out how to switch the thing on.

The Mell Fells

The most I managed to glean from the ‘Quick Start’ was that I needed to stand outside so that it could pick up the satellite signals.  Not fun in torrential rain.  At this point I gave up.  Secure in the knowledge that my friend had a GPS, which I hoped was a Garmin, I would just ask.

With out my GPS – I would have thought this was the top of Carrock – well there is a cairn!

Oh the joy of human communication.  Like everything else, once you know how it is all so easy.  So I have managed to record my first route and even download it to Getamap.

As you can see it looks pretty, well black.  I think it is recording far too many points.  and if you look closely I must have told it to record something from home as  there is a line drifting homeward from the start of the walk.  Never mind, practice makes perfect and with a bit the next map will be better.

Seat with a view

I can now input a co-ordinate, record and download a route.  So the next stage is to upload one and follow it.  I will keep you posted on that one.

Carrock Fell

The weather was as changeable as ever.  One minute rain the next brilliant blue sky.  So there were some pretty wonderful skys capes and vistas over Mosedale.  Then there was the ‘swallow phenomena’.  Crossing the spoil from the mines on the way down there were hundreds of swallows.  I think they were swallows.

You might just see them if you click on the picture.  They kept landing then swirling high.  But never going far away.  It was quite a sensation to have them swooping around, almost at head height at times.

My handheld photos with wide angle lens are less than perfect but I hope you’ll get the gist of things.  Does anyone know what they may have been doing?

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