Ennerdale Wild Camp
The Weather forecast wasn't great for the weekend So me and Mr Tear decided to do a low level camp locally, Ennerdale water is only a stones throw away from where we live so we decided to do a quick overnighter somewhere along the shoreline.
We parked up at Bowness Knott carpark around 4pm, secured the car and then set off down along the lake at a leisurely pace.
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| Our route and Camping spot |
As I said although the weather forecast wasn't great at the moment the sun was shining and there wasn't much in the way of wind, it felt like a proper spring day.....for the moment.
As we arrived at our spot we saw what looked like the remains of a campfire, Im not against campfires but the rule of the wildcamper is "leave no trace" or similar sayings anyways....you get the jist, so it always irks me to see signs of others that haven't followed this simple rule.
The fire was piled high with wood and only half burnt so I guess whoever it was that had the fire couldn't keep it going, and then couldn't be bothered to take away or clean up what was left.
Anyways we kicked down the remains and threw the half burnt wood onto the shore and kicked away what ashes remain as we cursed the unknown person/s, the unsightly scar that was left behind can be seen in the image below.
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| Fire scar |
I think the thing that confused us the most was that the shore is literally 6 foot away and with the water being fairly low at the moment theres lots of shoreline to place a fire on which would leave no trace.
Standing on the shore we could now feel the strengthening wind coming across the water towards us, the clouds started rolling in and so we decided to pitch despite it still being quite early around 5pm.
Not only was our pitch open to the elements but it was also very close to the coast to coast path that runs along Ennerdale waters southern shore, we had already seen a local dog walker and a guy from...(I forgets but think* it was Devon area) who was visiting a friend in Seascale and was heading over to Honister despite the weather closing in and it being around 5pm and he was still several miles off his target, after a few minutes exchanging pleasantries we wished him well and set about pitching camp.
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| Camp set up on the shore of Ennerdale water |
I was again in my Zephyros 1, Its a very small tent but still spacious enough to store all my gear and just large enough for me to sit up in while weighing only around 1.4Kg although I have replaced the pegs and bags that came with the tent saving 100g or so on the normal weight.
I should say at this point that i'm not a super lightweight fanatic, the main reason for the weight saving on the tent is that I wanted to replace the poor standard pegs and bags the tent came with, the side effect of this was the newer pegs and bags just happened to weigh less.
It wasnt long after we pitched when the rain started, only fine spits at first, but soon it turned to drizzle and we quickly retired into our tents.
I put the jetboil on made a brew and some food......packet mash and pepperoni mixed in IIRC.....and after a craic we settled down and I watched a movie on my phone.
I drifted off to sleep around 10pm and then awoke around 1am to my tent mashing me in the face.
The wind had picked up something fiercely heading from east to west and hitting the tent from the rear, Apparantly this is how you are supposed to pitch these tents for the best stability but I wasnt convinced as the ridge pole was buckling and I could see the Fly lifting.
For the next 5 hours I lay with my back bracing the inner (and fly) as the winds tore around us, I must have eventually dropped off again as I awoke around 6am to the wind still blowing along with heavy sounding rain, but now it was coming across the water from the west to the east right and lashing into my porch.
The door and the porch either side of the tents ridge pole was now nearly touching the inner door.
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| 'Weather' heading up the valley |
I shouted of Mr Tear to see if he was awake but there was no response, or I just couldn't hear him, so I got out of my bag, Put on my waterproofs and started packing my gear away, I was nearly packed when the weather suddenly calmed and I heard Mr Tear mumbling something, I got out the tent while it was still fairly calm and declared I was packing while it held off.
Within 20 minutes we both had shelters down and packed and we laughed about the nights weather, we guessed 40 mph winds with gusts of 50, but we later found out that it was nearer 50mph with gusts up to 70
We also noticed it was considerably colder this morning and the local hills were covered in a topping of snow, though we didn't feel cold during the night.
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| Looking upto Haycick with its head in the cloud covered in snow |
Quite an experience and tbh quite glad we decided to do a low level camp rather than risk the intended Crag fell we were originally going to camp on.
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| Heading home |
Thanks for reading,
Until next time....
Have fun and stay safe.
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