General

With www.clivecatton.co.uk not posting to FaceBook the weekend trip to The Old Man of Coniston did not appear on FaceBook. Here is a catch up.

On the way to the summit of the Old Man of Coniston

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We had an early start, on Saturday morning, for the Lake District this morning, planning to have breakfast in Lancaster. A check on the Met Office site said the weekend will be showery – but good news by the time we got to Hartshead Moor Services there was blue sky and sunshine.

Nearly at Lancaster on the M62. Richard assures me this is a passing shower.

Fuel for the day at what has become our regular breakfast spot in Lancaster.

All good trips start with a full English breakfast.

Photos – Old Man of Coniston

The start of the day – setting off from the car park.

Jeremy having a rest

Low Water – a good place out of the wind to have lunch. click on the above image for a larger version

Coniston Water

Jeremy heading up into the cloud and onto the summit.

When we reached the summit there was no way we could camp there – like Richard and I did last year. What we should have done then was head home – but we thought we could find somewhere out of the weather to camp.! That did not work out.

We made it to the summit of the Old Man of Coniston – but it was in the clouds, foggy, raining and very windy.

So we decided to camp down from the summit. We got the tents up and everyone had made a hot drink – Richard W had even cooked his evening meal when we decided to pack up, head down and back to the car. The weather was just too bad, with heavy rain and strong winds battering the tents we thought it better to pack up in the daylight and not in the dark in a crisis.

here is a photo of the tents through the rain

We did however have a great day in Lakes. We had an excellent walk to the summit of the Old Man of Coniston in good company. The variable weather gave plenty of good photo opportunities. And we all got home safely with a lot of wet kit to dry out!

There was a chance for one more photo before getting back to the car. There was a lull in the weather at just the right moment.