Easedale Tarn Wild Camp
Sunday 3rd May 2015
Today's Wild camp takes us up to Grasmere in the central Lakes District.
Despite living in the lakes all my life, i'm non too familiar with this part of the Lakes, I always prefer my "back yard" when it comes to wild camping and walking, that back yard being the western lakes and in particular the Ennerdale / buttermere valleys.
Since I live in the small village of Frizington just on the outskirts of the parks western fringe these are the valleys closest to me and a half hour walk or a 5 minute drive see's me in Ennerdale.
Despite being obviously biased, I honestly believe these local valleys offer up some of the lakes best views and most diverse terrain in such a small area, from the gentle rolling hills of Dent, Blakley raise and Lank Rigg, to the Craggy outcrops of Pillar, Haystacks and fleetwith Pike and the mini mountain ranges of melbrake and Grasmoor, there's been little reason for me to venture much further afield all these years.
Perhaps its a tad unadventurous of me I suppose you could say, but I know what I like and I like it here.
I guess I always think of the more central and eastern areas of the lakes as the tourist hotspots of the park and so have always avoid them, especially in the summer months where you'll find hoards of tourist walkers grouping en masse tramping around the same old deeply worn paths.
And being the sort of person that avoids people as much as possible...if possible.....I like to stick to the areas less frequented.
Not that im totally anti social, I believe in live and let live, each to their own and all that and ill give a friendly hello to anyone I pass and give assistance when and if requested.....its just I will avoid groups of people whenever possible......
......And of course the previously mentioned varied terrain and relatively quiet solace of my backyard valleys does nothing to help me change my opinion, especially the Ennerdale valley where only the locals and the odd coast to coaster is occasionally seen and gives off an air of serenity in comparison.
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| Ennerdale |
Anyways, I was once again Joined by Mr Tear and he really wanted to do a "proper" wild camp up on a hill.
I suggested a few places including Blea tarn near the Eskdale Fisher grounds campsite we previously stayed at and Fleetwith Pike near Honister, both being fairly short but still quite substantial hills with good views.
I didnt choose anything too long or big since my fitness isnt quite back to 100% yet and Mr Tear was still nursing an football ankle injury which had been playing up of late.
Mr Tear however did suggest Easedale tarn and he seemed confident his ankle would hold up to the walk so I said why not, since I haven't been to visit that particular tarn myself anyways so it would be a new experience for us both.
We set off around 1:30pm and headed towards Keswick, Unsure of the grasmere area Mr Tear had been in contact with Mr Andy Wardle.
(Another wild camper who makes good Youtube videos, his YouTube page is here Andy Wardle's Youtube Page and his videos are well worth a watch for any of you wild camping fanatics out there.)
Anyways Andy had suggested parking overnight at a layby near the travellers rest inn, and walking from there rather than look for a parking place in Grasmere itself, the advice was heeded and were glad to report that the car remained in one piece and untouched all nigh so cheers for that Mr Wardle (thumbs up).
After a wrong turn at Keswick and managing to find ourselves in Stonethwaite (school boy error especially for locals like us hah!) we arrived at the aforementioned parking spot around 3pm and after checking our maps for a route we set off.
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| The route (same both ways) |
The weather was overcast but mild, not warm exactly but not too cool either and there wasn't much wind at this point despite the forecast predicting gusts of 40 mph in the afternoon easing to 20 mph through the night.
The walk started by taking us away from our objective to a small farm road accessed at Mill Bridge, taking us westerly to Low Mill Bridge then south to Goody Bridge, there are some nice private lodgings here where I'm guessing the local deer are a problem as a few of the cottages had signs on them asking for visitors to please keep the gates shut so the deer wouldn't get in, I'm guessing they make a menace of themselves by eating peoples flowerbeds.
And it wasn't long before we saw a few of these menaces up close and personal like....in someones garden no less..
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| Oh Deer! |
After about 20 minutes of casual walking we reached the bend in easedale road where it meets with the track that leads us up to the tarn, the track crosses several small bridges over the beck and off shooting streams in the lowland area and these streams seemed to be somewhat overflowing, most likely due to the previous nights heavy rainfall, this meant that part of the track adjacent to the streams were submerged at points, not too badly, but it meant picking out a way around the banks at times else our feet risked getting wet before we even really started.
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| The path up to Easdale Tarn |
Soon enough the short but sure climb to our destination started and the path became a bit rougher, in total it took us around an hour and a half to get to the tarn from the layby where we left the car, we did stop a couple of times to let our rather unfit bulks have a bit of a rest, of course to passersby we were just stopping to take photos ;)
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| Waterfalls at the foot of SourMilk Gill on our rest...er...photo stop. |
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| The waterfalls half way up the walk, a popular spot to stop, especially in the summer no doubt. |
Once past the Waterfalls which marks about the halfway mark of this little walk, its another little push up alongside SourMilk Gill before you finally reach Easdale Tarn itself, by this time it was nearing 5pm and most of the elderly walkers that passed us on the way up (Im not kidding!) were now passing us on their way back down, we timed it just nice so that only a couple of walkers were left at the tarn leaving us to pitch camp undisturbed and more importantly not disturbing others.
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| SourMilk Gill |
We pitched on the far side of a little outcrop which pushed into the tarn, trying to make ourselves as hidden as possible incase other walkers were still to visit the tarn, as I said most of the walkers had left by now and only a couple were seen heading back down after we had struck camp.
At this time there wasn't much to see since the cloud had dropped around us and the weather had gone from pleasantly mild to quite cold and the cloud around us started to strip the heat from us and made everything damp and reduced visibility somewhat, so the full grandeur of our location was literally lost in the fog.
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| Camp struck alongside the tarn, notice the low cloud reducing visibility |
We chatted a little while we made a brew, the low cloud now surrounding us forced us into our shelters, and not long after we had some tea on, nothing fancy for me this time, just a tin of Boston style beans and a couple of beef burgers and bread, followed up with a marsbar.
We listened to Mr tears radio for a little while before I retired to my sleeping bag as the suns dim light eventually set behind the mountainside.
For once I actually felt pretty tired and was fighting off falling asleep since we arrived, fearful I wouldn't sleep through the night if I had a catnap I settled down and watched a couple of episodes of the walking dead (Not the best thing to watch as you're camped out on a mountainside), I eventually drifted off into a light sleep around 11pm.
Of course, as usual it wasn't long before I was awake again around 1am to the sound of howling winds around the nearby crags and the tent flapping about around me, I could hear Mr Tear cursing at something, I shouted out "You okay marra?"......
"Yeah...this f**£ing wind, think my tents gonna blow down haha" he replied..
"Yeah welcome to my world pal" I snorted back..."this is getting to familiar a thing for us" I said.
The wind was perhaps 25 mph with gusts hitting 45+ and rocking our world, this carried on through the nigh interspersed with rainfall....well i say rainfall, I think it was just the rain filled clouds hitting us as it hurtled past giving the impression of rain.
Mr tear did have an Anemometer with him but neither of us chanced opening our shelters to take a reading the sleeping bags were far to warm and snug for that kinda thing.
And so we were both mostly awake the rest of the night with the odd whoop and holler coming from us as the winds gave our shelters a good buffeting at random intervals, the time was spent reading ebooks on my phone and trying to listen to some music to put me back to sleep which I did at around 3am.
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| Easedale tarn panorama |
I awoke around 5am, I felt wide awake instantly and also like I had slept all night when in reality it had been a couple of hours at best, but it was light and although the wind was still pretty brisk it was quite clear.
I quickly got on my waterproofs and gloves and jumped outside to see the now cloud free crags that surrounded us.
I took a few photos before jumping back in my tent, packed most of my gear away and set about making breakfast.
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| Breakfast in the hills always tastes great! |
It wasn't long before Mr Tear awoke (Me shouting 'Robbie! you up yit marra?' about 5 times probably did it ;) ) and before long we were packed and on our way back down the hill heading for the car and it wasn't even 6am yet!
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| Once again heading home all too soon |
I must admit, although we now have our packing away down to an effortless 'T' its still the worst part of the trip, its that feeling that the trip is ending, and its always the last time your pack away, you don't feel it when on a multi nighter and you're packing camp and then moving to another camp spot its always that last morning of a trip when you get an almost foreboding dread that comes over you.
A kind of melancholy sadness if you will.
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| The boulder which marks the end or in this case start of the path to and from the tarn |
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| The view back down the path towards Grasmere |
We reached the car around 7am, another trip in the bag and another spot visited.
Overall it was a great little trip and we plan on coming again in the summer when the weather is a bit better with hopes of getting some nice Astrophotography shots.
And of course as soon as we got back down to the valley floor the sun came out over the tarn.....typical. :D
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| The sun did finally come out....as we headed home. |
Thanks for reading,
Until next time.....
Have fun and be safe!