Yvan Seth's Hole in the Internet

View from our tent, Mickledore is the distant pass

I wasn't sure how far we'd get this day, as we weren't following my original plan by now and had to head back to the Woolpack in Boot to pick up our gear. We were also quite delayed setting out from the Wasdale campsite, having made the bad decision to wash and dry some clothes while we had the chance. The clothes dryer at the NT campsite is weak, it took ages!

Looking back at Wastwater and Wasdale

We took a route from Wasdale to Boot following, approximately, the "coffin road" via Burnmoor Tarn. The route was a little soggy, but not bad, with clear views of the surrounding fells. This is called the coffin road as in history Eskdale had consecrated ground for burials but Wasdale didn't, so the dead were carried from Wasdale following this route.

Scafell from near Burnmoor Tarn

About halfway along the route we skirted the north and east sides of Burnmoor Tarn, passing the intriguing Burnmoor Lodge. This Lodge is privately owned, but used only for holidays (by the owner and people he knows), it has no running water or power and is 2 miles from the nearest road. It was built in Victorian times by, I presume, the local lord as a hunting lodge and was probably also home to the gamekeeper. (Turns out this is probably correct.) The stretch of walk around Burnmoor tarn provided some reflective sights for us. First a view of Scafell from the south, the outline of which pretty much gave our route up to the peak from right to left. Later on a view down on Eel tarn, where we had walked through two days earlier.

Eel Tarn below (Harter Fell waiting for us beyond)

From Burnmoor Lodge we headed up along the edge of Boat How before descending into Boot. Boot is an attractive little place which is technically a hamlet though the locals think of themselves as a village. Two central pubs (plus the Woolpack a mile down the road) are indicative of its busyness as a tourist destination. But it seems mainly to be one of the quiet sorts of tourist spots, attracting people who have an interest in being "away from it all" (no obvious yobs, or chavs in sight.)

Burnmoor Lodge

We hung out briefly in Boot, getting an eyefull of the place, and having an icecream from the little general store. Vowing to come back for Thunder and Lightning (an intriguing ice-cream flavour that they'd run out of) at the end of our hike. While we were enjoying our icecreams I had a bit of a chat with a local who was putting a postcard rack up outside the shop. He mentors and shadows Duke of Edinburgh groups and told us a good route to reach a campsite would be to pass via Harter Fell and Grassguards Gill to a farm campsite in the Duddon Valley near Seathwaite. With our plan for the afternoon decided we set off for the Woolpack.

At the Woolpack our gear had finally arrived! We were told that the DHL driver said that Saturday deliveries to the area were impossible and that the box should never have been marked up for Saturday delivery! Luckily we hadn't really needed its contents yet; nice Montane waterproof jackets for Kat and myself. We were carrying Montane Feather-Lite jackets already, but these won't hold up to real persistent rain … and we'd been told to expect it. It turned out to be good timing, the sky was darkening and there was certainly rain ahead! We had a pint of fine ale each then set out for Seathwaite.

Looking back to Scafell

The trek up the road, across Doctor's Bridge, and up towards Harter Fell was quite enjoyable all told. We reached an attractive spot where the path crossed a gill (unnamed on my maps) and this is the first point where the route went wrong. The path on the map turns right and follows the water course, but we went straight on. I'd tried to go to the right but the paths I found all seemed to end in impassable bracken. So we followed the obvious path, which took us all the way up to just over the 460m mark, 100m higher than I'd intended to go.

Climbing out of Eskdale

At 460m we found a path down the hill, I looked back and took my last photo of the day, looking up at the peak of Harter Fell. Then it started to rain, Yaël scolded the weather in futile rage. We continued our wet trek downhill until we reached a fence-line with a pine plantation on the other side, this is where Yaël slipped and hurt her knee. If I'd been thinking clearly at this point I'd have taken a grid ref off the GPS and confirmed our location, but we were all wet and grumpy now. So I misread the map, and took us to the watercourse visible ahead. On later reflection this was a pretty terrible map/terrain misread. If we were really where I thought we were we should have been standing in the middle of a forest! No trees? No forest! Oh well, I didn't notice at the time.

Harter Fell looms over us

The watercourse we were headed for happened to be in the middle of a peat bog. After making our soggy way through the peat hags to the halfway point I'd realised my mistake. But not to worry, the map shows a footpath leading to the fence on the other side, which rejoins our intended path. May as well keep going rather than double back! The rest of the peat bog was no worse than the previous half, but when we got to the footpath we found that it was blocked by a shut and locked gate. On the map there is a dot that seems clearly on the other side of the fence-line, so for the next part of our adventure I blame the map!

We should have tried to climb over the gate I guess. Instead I doubled back a bit with the aim of getting into the forest alongside the bog. We did it, but it wasn't easy. First I managed to step into a knee-deep boggy bit, mmm, wet shoes. But fair enough, the others both had shoes full of water by now because I'd led them into a bog (my shoes are higher and a lot more waterproof it seems.) Next we had a large water-filled ditch to cross, it took some effort finding a crossing point but we did it. Then it was packs-off to clamber over a ringlock fence, not too hard. Then we had to jump across a very deep and steep-sided water filled trench. Finally, we crossed about 30m of the most difficult terrain we encountered during the trip. It was the plantation border, which can best be described as a mixture of layered trees and rocks on top of a bog and covered in scrub. It was good to finally bump into the clear path!

We were on the official path now, but not hugely better off. The path through the plantation and down Grassguards Gill was a cross between a creek and a bog. At one point I was knee-deep in path! It's a nice stretch of scenery though and I'd recommend it... just try for dryer weather, but given that there may be no such thing I'd suggest wearing wellies and treading carefully (waders perhaps?)

The path down Grassguards Gill ends at a farm where we turn right and head along a road following the contour of the land. This is easy walking now, all the way to the quaintly named Stonythwaite Farm where the path bends to the left and goes through a beautiful spot below Wallowbarrow Crag. At the next farm we head east, cross Wallobarrow Gorge, and cut through the church at Seathwaite. Then its a short stroll up the road to the Turner Hall Farm campsite.

We covered about 24km this day, and near 800m of total ascent and decent. This was our longest single day distance of the hike. It was hard work, and by the time we got to the campsite it was twilight. The rain started again, and the ground turned out to be quite stony. An ordeal indeed!