Hartsop Horseshoe
There is always another way up and over a hill.
Always another route. Within the relatively small area ( 885 m2 / 2292 km2 ) ,
as National Parks of the world go,
there seems to be an endless limit to the number of ways to reach any of the tops.
So though I had already reached the heights of Hartsop Dodd, Stony Cove Pike and Gray Crag I hadn’t hiked the ‘horseshoe’ route
Looking to Patterdale
Going up Hartsop Dodd was a lot more gentle on the knees than when I did it from the other direction. A linear walk from Cauldale Head down to Patterdale.
Hartsop and Brotherswater
Stony Cove Pike was on the reversed route.
As was the sculptured pile of stone on Thornthwaite Crag appeared that day . Then on the Kentmere Horseshoe and again on a hike over from Haweswater.
Hayeswater
All in differing weather, different conditions throwing different pictures across the hills.
Clear blue set the hills in sharp relief today. At least at the beginning of the walk. Clarity pasting the hills across the sky like cardboard cutouts. It was not to last though.
Threshwaite
By the time we reached Stony Cove Pike cloud insisted we check our direction with a compass and map.
In an indecisive frame of mind the mist floated around us. One minute there. The next over Helvellyn, and then hiding our route over Gray Crag, which I’d last walked on a winter’s day from Pasture Beck.
Gray mist on Gray Crag
Within moments the mist drifted off leaving us to enjoy the westward view over Hayeswater and High Street.
No two days are ever the same.
