After a protracted week of tortuous organisation via an extraordinary amount of emails of various importance and irrelevance, four of the original five explorers met at a London pub. A while later, they were seen departing for a traditional Travelodge in the foothills of the Cumbrian Himalayas. With not even a titter from the reception desk, the four manly men retired to their room and made the youngest sleep on the floor, presumably because his youthful frame could take it.A pleasant morning more suited to early autumn than late November accompanied the intrepid explorers to Threkeld at the end of leg 1. Here they abandoned the car and took a lengthy detour to join the actual route at the base of Skiddaw. It was now that the weather remembered that it was in fact, November and as if to make up for the earlier, unseasonable warmness proceeded to throw hail, wind and snow at the group. Dressed only in leggings, Dave's nervy tale of frost nip on his nether parts betrayed an otherwise unmentioned worry. With the unfortunate fate of having one's reproductive heritage cryogenically preserved hanging over the heads of our explorers, the decision was taken to retreat. A knee injury to Ian cemented the decision and the actions were justified repeatedly in the pub as both sensible and correct.
On Sunday, after a night spent in a Chinese 'curry' house and exploring the Kendal Film Festival, Nick and Casper left the still injured Ian and the now injured Dave to watch tales of daring and frankly dangerous climbing exploits on the big screen. Dropped off somewhere on the road near Dunmail Raise they climbed Helvellyn before knocking off the rest of leg 2, up Fairfield and down to the Travellers Rest for a well deserved dinner. Ian and Dave joined them for a thoroughly undeserved but richly enjoyed dinner.
The weekend was more of a success to team building than the route finding but lessons have been learned and at least some of the route has been scouted out. We have also each added a single sock to our Christmas lists.
Ian.
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