Day 2 for us in the Lakes and a decision to be made, walk from the house or scoot around to the Gale Road car park and head up to Skiddaw Little Man. The former won the vote due to a late start and therefore no need to worry about parking anywhere, we were heading out the back of Skiddaw with a plan to ascend Great Calva and Bakestall. The weather was dry to start as we headed across fields to Peter House farm, however heading under Dead Crags the rain started falling, we decided to head for Great Calva first, but it wasn’t looking good already for Bakestall. By the time we turned off the main track, to follow the black dark soggy path up to Great Calva we had binned the idea of Bakestall and concentrated on keeping dry, something that I failed at as I’d left the front of my jacket open a bit at the top, with the strong wind blowing around 50 mph at the top my t-shirt was soaked as was my baselayer, on the descent I was getting very cold, so stripped my t-shirt off knowing that my baselayer would dry very quickly and then warm me. Apart from that though, the walk itself was pretty good, its an easy fell to get to considering its a bit of a walk in and even in the boggy conditions the ascent up a river of rain on black oozy mud. Then we arrived back at Dash Falls, and the whole of Binsey and beyond was bathed in sunshine, like a sunny oasis in a desert of horrid rain. The walk back down was glorious, we dried off, warmed up a bit and enjoyed every step. Up to that point we had been tested with the weather, but the end was just joyous.

Start – Bassenthwaite village

Route – Peter House Farm – Dead Crags – Dash Falls – Great Calva – Dash Falls – Dead Crags – Melbecks – Chapel Beck Bridge – Bassenthwaite

Distance – 10 miles    Start time – 11am   Time taken – 5hrs 30mins Highest Point – Great Calva 690metres

Weather – Low clouds, heavy rain and strong winds on the summit, then glorious sunset to finish.