One is the loneliest number

The first weekend I was here, Kevin and I set out to hike the first of the 214 Wainwright fells, Coniston Old Man. Just hiking one in three weeks would not set me off on the right path to hike all 214, so I convinced Kevin to drive 1 hour to Keswick to hike Skiddaw, which is the 4th highest peak in England. To give you an idea of how flat England is in comparison to the US, Skiddaw is only 3503'. We cheated a bit and parked in a car park that was up a hill a ways. While I would have been just as fine starting from town. Kevin didn't want to add the extra 2 miles round trip just walking through a town.

The hike started out through a sheep pasture, so you have to be careful to dodge piles of sheep crap. Since I fell last hike, I was very cautious about where I put my feet as I would have probably puked if I fell in sheep poop. Less than 100 yards from the car park was a monument commemorating a family of sheep herders that worked the land for hundreds of years. I didn't get a sense of what happened to them, but my guess would be they slipped in sheep poop and fell down the hill.

The hike is not very challanging. It is 3 miles staight up hill with no real flat parts. However, in Victorian times, the women were unable to hike up here due to their ridiculous clothing, so they had a flat gravel road put in and they took pony carts up to the summit. At one part, there is a divergance from the path where you can veer off and bag another Wainwright, the Skiddaw Little Man, and then continue on towards the summit of Skiddaw. While true Wainwright walkers think that this is cheating and you must climb each fell from ground level, I had no such reservations so Kevin and I set off towards Skiddaw Little Man.

We reached a cairn that we thought was the little man with a cairn up in the distance that we thought was Skiddaw. However, once we continued the hike to the second cairn, we realized the first one was just the Lesser Man (not a Wainwright fell) and the one we were currently at was the little man. Further in the distance was Skiddaw. Once we got up to the cairn, we once again realized we weren't there yet. Since the weather gets so terrible at the top of Skiddaw, the cairn we thought was the summit marker was acutally a cairn in a series of cairns that marked the path to the summit in case visibility was bad.

What? There's two more peaks to climb??? Lesser Man Summit

We still aren't there??? Skiddaw Little Man Summit

We did finally reach the true summit. The view of Derwentwater lake and the surrounding fells was beautiful. In addition, clouds were rolling over the top of the peak and right past us, which I was fascinated by.

If you look closely, you will notice that I used my traditional Amanda face for this picture
Derwentwater Lake. One of those peaks to the left behind the lake is Coniston Old Man

clouds rolling through

The way down was much easier as we just took the direct route down. In addition, we actually remembered snacks so I wasn't quite as dead as I was for Coniston Old Man.

The town of Keswick itself is well known for outdoor gear. If you ever need ANYTHING for camping, hiking, backpacking, climbing, kayaking, etc. you will find it here.

211. 211 fells left. Ahh Ahh Ahh

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