Quick lakeland wild camp.

WSeathwaite, walked up the path to Stockley Bridge, turned right and climbed up over Greenhow Knott, followed the path up Styhead Gill to Styhead Tarn before heading up to the stretcher box and then carrying on to Sprinkling Tarn, the weather was gorgeous, the sun was shining and the skies were pretty clear meaning we had some great views on the way up.

It took a while to find somewhere to pitch the tent as a lot of the ground was soaking wet or really rocky, when we eventually found somewhere we put our cans of beer and Gin and Tonic in the tarn to cool while we erected the tent. Once the tent was up the stove went on to boil the water for our Expedition Meals, these have become our favourite camping meals since we stopped buying the Norwegian ones, they are made locally to us, taste great and come in a range of flavours and calories, they  are also light and packable and you only need to add water then leave to stand for a few minutes before tucking in.

While we waited we retrieved the cans from the tarn and tucked in, there’s nothing quite like a nice cold beer while watching the sun set and the clouds start to roll over the fells opposite, it was nice to have some decent beer in cans too as it saved carrying heavy and bulky bottles. The same goes for the growers cup coffee…it’s a neat little bag that you tip hot water in, leave to brew then tip the coffee out into your mug, it some how keeps all of the ground coffee in the bag so you end up with nice tasty, smooth coffee, loads easier than messing around with filters or the Jetboil Coffee press.

Through the night the wind got up and it started to rain, when we finally crawled out of our sleeping bags just after 7am we couldn’t see the opposite side of the tarn and the rain was really coming down, we scoffed our cereal bars hoping the rain would stop before we had to pack up, unfortnately it didn’t. We packed up what we could inside the tent, donned our waterproofs and then set about dismantling the tent and stuffing it into the bottom of my rucksack.

We then descended down near Ruddy gill to Grains Hill before heading back to Stockley Bridge then back down to Seathwaite, by the time we got to the car our waterproofs were drenched so we decided to head to Keswick and to the George Inn for a huge (half) slice of cow pie and a couple of beers before heading home.

Kit Taken:Berghaus C7 Pro Rucksack, Aku ,X-socks airforce trekking light, X-bionic baselayer pants,  Montane Terra Convert Pant, Rab Boreas pull on,Rab Super Dru Jacket, First Aid Kit, Leatherman, Buff, Berghaus Tech T, 2 bottles of water,Steripen, Iphone, Petzl Tikka Plus 2,  Garmin GPS 60 and paper maps, Terra nova laserlarge 3, Alpkit Pipedream 400, Rab sleeping bag (from their factory sale), Alpkit Airic mat,Therm-a-rest Prolite Plus, Jetboil Stove + Gas, Expedition meals (x2), Growers cup coffee, Ceral Bars, Folding trowel, Small microfibre towel, Montane beanie, Rab Powerstretch gloves, various stuff sacks and airstream dry sacks, Mammut Ajungilak Air and Mammutt Softskin pillow, Titanium mug (x2), Can of Gin and Tonic (x2), Can of Vedett beer (x2), Spare batteries and various bits and bobs.

2 Comments

  1. graham plews
    Sep 1, 2012

    Hi Andy

    where do you buy the expandition meals from. Also the location you camped at is it a difficult walk and how long did it take?
    im thinking of doing it myself in a few weeks, ive got most of the equipment just need the food and a rolling matt etc.

    i would like to go on a friday night and walk up pitch up and stay for a night or two. What map did you use?

    excellent web page, those meals you cook look amazing. im gona try some myself

    • Moggy
      Sep 1, 2012

      Hi graham

      The meals are from http://www.expeditionfoods.com/

      The walk it’s self is nice and easy, there’s a big steep bit after stockley bridge but it’s all well
      Defined path!

      The map I used was one I printed from
      My track logs program
      But the normal 1:25 map for the western lakes I think it is would be fine

      The actual camp spot is at sprinkling tarn It’s just a case of finding somewhere flat and dry.

      Cheers
      Andy

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