Ness' bit of everything

In August after the craziness of lockdown and a season of no holidays. I decided to go on last minute hiking trip in the Lake District. This was a Gutsy Girls weekend so I knew I’d be in for meeting a lovely bunch of women, some laughs and a challenge. And it was that to a tee.

I packed my 55ltr rucksack with all my kit and drove up to the Lakes. I picked up a fellow Gutsy Girl from Penrith train station on the way and we headed to Gillside Farm in Glenridding where we met the others. We also were introduced to our lovely host Claire and our mountain leader/guide Joe part of JT Expeditions

After Joe gave us a tent each to put up and we made our beds we headed to the pub for tea. We chattered away, getting to know one another and discussing the plan for the weekend until the sun went down.

We rose early the next morning with breakfast, coffee and packing up. Joe went through how best to pack our kit into our rucksacks. He discussed weight distribution and what items are best to keep accessible during the day. This was really useful to me as I’ve never done a multi-day hike before, so I needed all the advice on how best to carry my bulky and heavy items.

We marched out of the camp site winding our way up to Sticks Pass and onto Helvellyn. The first section was extremely steep and I underestimated the difficulty of this. With the heavy pack, the hot sun and not moving for the past 2 months of lockdown, I found this tough. With all the girls spurring each other on and with plenty snack/photo breaks its amazing how far you can go! The views the whole day were just staggering.

We then headed down to Grisedale Tarn and Joe explained where we could set up our wild camp for the night.

Walking – roughly 16km and 1000m ascent

But that tarn. Wow. Take your cossie if you are going on this trip or just passing on your hikes. It was perfect way to cool off, ease the pressure off my feet and of course the only shower of the weekend.

We cooked on gas camping stoves to cook our expedition food. This was surprisingly good. Or this may have been the result of me being absolutely STARVING! Either way, all food was demolished. We purified our water for the next day as we chatted into the night.

I won’t lie, I woke a little blurry eyed after my first wild camping experience. It’s amazing how much the brain can play tricks on you when all you hear is silence.

Sunday was another early start. We packed up our kit and hiked out of Grisedale Tarn, up Fairfield Peak and then onto Hart Crag, High Peak and Low Peak. To end our day and also the weekend, we had a steep decent down into Ambleside for a well deserved coffee, lunch and (obviously) cake.

Walking – roughly 14km and 800m ascent

We got a taxi from Ambleside back to the campsite we had stayed at on the first night to retrieve our cars. The weekend, was tough. But it was an fantastic experience to do a multi day hike with a group of like minded women. Having a mountain leader there for advice and tips was amazing. And not to mention the weather that weekend was unbelievably kind to us. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the Lakes and it not rained!

I met some amazing women, just like I knew I would. I took a away some new friends, great memories and not to mention some cracking blisters.

Cheers all you Gusty women.

Ness x