A favourite rock

Early Sunday morning last week, I took myself off to the bottom of The Struggle, that steep bit of road from Ambleside to Kirkstone Pass. There are still encouraging messages for Tour of Britain riders written on the road surface, but not for me.  It felt cold for the first time in months, but panting up to the inn, my hands and ears were quickly warmed.  Through the free car park, with campervans of all sizes and shapes, and up to one of my favourite pieces of rock in the lakes. It is a piece of ash, Lincomb Tarns Tuff / Dacite, showing clearly different layers of eruptions and flow into the previous strata. It is very steep from there, but less than 20 minutes later the top of Red Screes is reached, this time in a very cooling north easterly wind, bright sunshine, and the last remnants of cloud being blown away, so no Brocken Spectre today in the low sun.

Leaving the summit into the still shaded Scandale should have been cold, but I’m sweating all the way to Sweden Bridge. A quick chat to the farmers at Round Hill, and then gently uphill all the way back to the car, passing the sadly tumbledown High Grove Farm.