Butt-Kicking Day

Day 3: Seatoller to Grasmere
Miles today: 13.5
Total miles: 44.51

The walk today kicked my butt--literally. We left Seatoller and walked toward Stonethwaite. We tried to take a little shortcut but turned the wrong way and had to turn around. Fortunately, we quickly realized our mistake and only lost a few minutes.

Once we found our way again we were walking along a beautiful stream. There were waterfalls and a nice path but it didn't last long.

Soon it was a climb straight uphill.

We are finding it particularly difficult to stay on the path. We are using a guidebook, map and GPS but still have to constantly stop to make sure we're still on track. The Coast to Coast is not way-marked through the Lake District. The biggest clue you will find are little piles of rocks called cairns, but they are few and far between.

We would climb a ways thinking we were near the top but there was always another summit. Nothing we have indicates where the top really is.  We climbed to Lining Crag and then to Greenup Edge before we reached the top.

After reaching the top, the guidebook had all kinds of warnings about not getting on the wrong path on the descent, but of course we did. Luckily we ran into someone and when we asked if he was going to Grasmere he said "No, Wythburn." We were able to get a GPS signal and see that the path we needed was just a short distance away.

In hindsight we maybe should have stayed on the other path. By this time there was a misty rain and a steep rocky path down. We went down, down, down and down some more. Streams were everywhere and we would cross them time and time again. We started worrying about running out of daylight so we're trying to move quickly down the hill.

We had hiked over six hours and saw NO sign of civilization except for a handful of other hikers going in the opposite direction and the guy going to Wythburn.

I was trying to be careful but ended up falling THREE times on the way down; twice on my backside and once face first. I was really lucky, though. No serious injuries, just lots of bruises.

We finally saw a sign for the public footpath to Grasmere and made it into town. Ian, the B & B host, was at the end of the lane waiting for us. What a welcome sight!

We got settled in, showered, then off to the pub. Another long day.