Lakelands Passes

A few days leave brought the chance of short trip to the Lake district.  This was livened up no end by the tail end of storm Ashley which caused a fair amount of damage around the UK.  It left Cumbria's roads covered in debris.  All the roads through wooded areas were covered in thick leaf debris, the passing cars cleared wheel tracks but left a long line of slippery mess down the centre of the lane.  

The plan was for a steady ride to Langdale and to spend the next day riding the Lake District's  mountain passes.  Being October the lakes were fairly quite and the traffic was very light.  In summer the lake district is choked with traffic 

The first pass on the list is Wrynose, this starts in Little Langdale and runs to the Duddon valley and is closely followed by the Hardknott pass.  The road is steep with tight hairpins and on this occasion many of the bends were running in water. 

The hairpins are tight and steep enough to need first gear.  The views are spectacular, as is the sense of isolation.  As well as the hazards of the actual road there are sheep wandering about and at one point a herd of cows.  Towards the end of the Hardknott Pass there is set of hairpins that feel almost comically steep.  These are ancient routes and would have been used by pack horses and carts, it must have been  quite a struggle with 1 horse power. The Hardknott Pass is also the site of a Roman fort built in around 120 AD.  It must have been a grim posting, winter in the area would be very bleak 

While Wrynose and Hardknott are the steepest of the passes, the others are worth riding as well.   I diverted for my planned route to ride down the the valley to Wasdale Head.  The road runs down the side of Wastwater which is England's deepest lake and at the head of the lake is England's highest mountain, Scafell Pike.  Its some time since I visited the valley and I have been here in the past to climb, hike and scuba dive.  The lake had clear water for diving and oddly a Gnome garden at about 50m depth.  A quick coffee in the Wasdale inn and then back on the road.  

Wastwater

As with my last trip I was having a few satnav issues and the Garmin Zumo XT kept trying to turn me around and go back where I had come from.  I need to set some routes close to home and work out what settings need changing.  Navigation issues became a bit of a pain so I rode the Whinlatter pass and then gave up and went exploring.  I like riding the narrow lanes that cross the Lakeland fells, it makes for slow riding and sometimes involves a few dead ends but you get to see a lot and get away from the busy roads.

The final pass of the day was the Kirkstone pass and this is very different to the start of the day, the 

road is well surfaced, steep and with normal bends rather that hairpins.  The temptation to push on was tempered by the fact that sections has water running across them and the signs that make it clear that these bends take no prisoners.

The Pass leads down to Ullswater and I did a little exploring and headed from Pooley Bridge towards Martindale this includes a short very steep section of hairpins.  Following the road to fork leads to two options Sandwick is just a few houses, the other road eventually becomes a bridleway leading to Patterdale. 

The end of the road
 54.54098858458318, -2.8769732052718346

The run back to Langdale was into the setting sun which gave some great views of Windermere.

The following morning I went into Keswick before heading back home across the A66 to Scotch Corner and south down the A1

Despite the rather grey and overcast weather it was a good if brief trip.  The crowds and traffic of summer has gone and the mountains feels much more impressive with a bit of weather.