Day 5 - Up and then back down

Today was a bit of a mare. The stay in White Lion in the middle of Patterdale was excellent,huge portions of yummy food (I had a pie by the way) and copious amounts of Strongbow and to top it all a nice room on top of the pub,quality! We decided on an early start on the 16 mile high climb to Shap over Kirsty Pike and set off just after 9 after visiting the local shop for supplies of Kendall mint cake and the like.

Walking up Angletarn Pike was a hard slog,Sherpa Kerr's keen sense of direction was helpful as I was advised "you see the top there,just walk towards that". The wind was picking up and moved from blustering to something that should of had an accompanying Benny Hill music as we approached Satura Crag, then we were met by people coming the other way. Apparently they had been waiting at the top of the ridge for the wind to die down but had given up as it seemed to be getting worse.

Naturally we poo-pooed their lack of fortitude and continued but as we approached our poo pooing was thrown in our face for it seemed Satan himself had climbed to the top and positioned his rectum in our general direction and proceeded to fart out great gusts of wind at Hypersonic velocities.

We decided to give it half an hour to see if it would calm but it didn't. Quite frankly watching people getting blown off their feet 600m up on a wet rock covered ridge was a bit scary ; when the three burly Fireman who were up there waiting went past us going back down we required approximately 0.003 seconds to decide that they had the right idea.

We all schlepped back down the hill and went back to the pub. Luckily we were in time for the two o'clock bus to Pentith and via another cheeky pub stop to Shape. Nice town but very stretched out. Tomorrow is a Mega Slog for 20 miles over to Kirkby Stephen.

Although its a shame to miss out about 10 miles in the middle I've done it before and I prefer not to be blown off a 600m summit so take that Mr Wainwright!