One word can be used to describe Scafell Pike...
Horrendous!
My parents, and their friends joined us for this one. In theory that was going to be great. Someone to help us on what would be the hardest climb.
We stayed at mom and dads the night before. They live not too far away, so why waste the money on a BnB? Unlike the trip to Wales, the drive to Scafell was awful! We set off at 06.30, to get there super early... that didn't go to plan.
The first part was motorway, and that was easy. We then got off of the motorway, and landed in Keswick, a sort of half way point for breakfast.
Cracking breakfast from Booths, and why not? but it took far too long. Because the plan (at that point) was to smash it up Scafell, and be home in Scotland for 20.00. (spoiler alert, that didn't happen)
The trek from Keswick to Wasdale Head (the base of Scafell) was out of this world. After only 5 years of using only A roads for work and 3 years living so close to the dual carriage and motorways, you forget that other roads exist. About 80% of the road to Wasdale was single carriage, back country roads (with specially made, designated points to pull in for on coming traffic)
It was nearly 11 am by the time we made it there (after getting lost twice) which was three hours later than me and Emma wanted to start.
When we did eventually arrive, Jill (my moms friend) was talking to the parking attendant, who told us that there was no point in going to the top, the viability was 0... what did she know? We weren't there for the views, we were there for the challenge.
Half an hour into the ordeal, we reached our first challenge.
An unabridged river, thrashing because of reasons unknown... the guide said we'd have to cross a stream, but this was like Niagara fucking falls. This, was the stream of hell, an unrelenting force of death and destruction, leaving nothing alive in its wake.
We had to cross it, and cross it we did. It took an hour. One whole hour to cross six feet. We should have turned back there.
In fact, that was the hardest part of the walk (apart from listening to the others moaning and resisting the urge to push them down the hill) me and Emma finally made it to the top. As a group, we were the only ones there.
The walk back down was... testing. There was wind, rain, hail stone... That's right. HAIL STONE.
But OK. We had managed it. Made it up to the top, and back down, we didn't die.
However, we didn't get home until ten pm, and not only our clothes, but our boots were soaked, and the weather wasn't going to improve any time soon! there was no way we were going to be able to do Ben Nevis the next day. In fact, writing this, we still haven't done it. the weather hasn't improved and other stuff is getting in the way.
Hopefully I'll manage Ben Nevis before i go back to work, but the next 3 Peaks in 3 days will have to wait until my next holiday.
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