My final day of this trip which has been good and bad.  The bad being due to my injured hip which prevents me from doing other than only gentle hill walks.  Yet there have been some good days.

So today I did  2 gentle hillwalk before the hip discomfort drove me back inside.   21 tops in total on the trip which is about what I hoped for considering the weather forecast. The mix of hills wasn't what I wanted as due to the storms last week and the injury this week, I have missed some of the harder stuff and been forced to stick with what was easy and near at hand.

Last night the fells were plastered in snow. The clouds had gone before dawn so this morning was idyllic - apart from me struggling to walk.  The picture below shows the River Duddon and a shapely fell called Caw.

I spent yesterday resting and icing my injured hip. Today the sun shone and with snow having fallen overnight on the hills there was no possibility that I was staying in.

But I had to be careful. No rough ground and no steep hills. I could only cope with short walks so after much thought I decided on two low hills in the area around the pretty small town of Broughton in Furness.

My speed was awful. About 1 mile and hour.  I shambled rather than walked but I made it. Two more tops ascended and on the way I saw a herd of 6 deer and watched a buzzard quartering the field I was crossing.

The picture is of Black Combe and is taken from the eastern side of the Duddon Estuary.

Snow fell over night on Sunday, but by 8.30 it had turned to rain.  Underfoot was slush as Graham and I left Seathwaite for Wallbarrow Crag.

The path was flooded and where snow and slush lay, the rocks were slippery.. We made our way along the spectacular gorge. The river was in spate.  The heavy drizzle created misty conditions meaning photos were out of the question which was a pity as we had to make a couple of interesting river crossings  through minor torrents.

Wallbarrow Crag is the home of Rock climbers but not today. Indeed, as usual, we saw nobody. It was quiet enough for us to find very recent otter tracks in the snow who sadly we had probably disturbed.

Annoyingly I hurt my hip badly just before the summit which made for a very uncomfortable descent. Thankfully Graham was a major help in getting me down.

I write this sitting in front of a wood burner in a nice warm lounge, with an ice block on my hip, hoping for a miracle recovery.

Sunday February 22nd 2020

Graham drove down from Edinburgh which meant I could spend more time on the hills as I was driven to and from the start of the route instead of having to walk an extra 5 or 6 miles just getting there.

We walked the hills on the south western part of the Lake District, with Dunnerdale to the east and the Irish Sea to the west. High winds again made walking hard and apart from one fierce hailstorm, it was a dry day.  In the distance snow lay thickly on the high mountains at the head of Wasdale.

We romped over 8 tops in total, including Whitfell which is a Marilyn and at 572 meters, was the highest point of the day.

The picture below is taken approaching or final top of the day Woodend Heights, which overlooks Devoke Water. The Wasdale hills are just visible in the far distance.

The rain stayed away today unlike yesterday's bike ride across the Birker Fell Road. Well, almost stayed away as the strong winds did whip in very heavy hail storms which thankfully were short lived.

The problem today was the gale.  The weather forecasters said the winds reached storm force. They did making walking a major struggle especially along the ridges. Despite this I managed 3 new hills including the ones on the left and right in the picture above, taken in a brief interlude when the sun was out.

Yet again the weather was poor with strong winds and heavy rain.

I did a pre dawn raid on a small hill near to the inn and was out and back before the rai, before daylight and in time for a well earned breakfast.

Later I cycled over the exposed Birker Fell Road which reaches 238 meters as I transferred accommodation from Eskdale to Dunnerdale. A wild wet and windy cycle ride.

The weather improved and , maybe for just one day, the rain stayed away. Well it did so apart from a couple of violent hail storms and a strong wind.

I used the Ravenglass & Eskdale heritage railway to get me to Boot village.

A couple of low hills were ticked off.  England's highest mountains are nearby and were snow capped.  Sadly the highest points remained in low cloud but despite this the views from Boat Howe and Great Howe, were stunning.

It has rained a lot and the ground was sodden.  This caused the paths to be like streams, the streams (becks) to be like rivers, while the rivers were actual torrents.   Wet feet were inevitable!

 I hurried along( well hurried by my standards) and managed to catch the 15.40 return train thereby saving a 5 mile walk. The forecast is poor so it feels a real success to have had at least one good day on this trip.