On Saturday morning, Mary dropped Patty and I off at Keswick, where we toured their Saturday Market, an event that has only been going on for over 700 years. Afterwards, Patty and I hiked over 2.5 miles to Braithwaite village, from where we started a climb up Grisedale Pike (2595 ft). We didn’t go completely to the top, but we went over the ridge and came down the north side, stopping for a drink at The Cottage in the Wood, before making the final leg back into Braithwaite. From there, Patty and I took a bus to Windermere, where Mary picked us up and brought us to The Villa Levens in Kendal, where we would be staying for the next 2 nights. And after a quick shower, it was downstairs for a very nice dinner with Mary, Andreas, and Mary’s Uncle Frank.
Photo Notes:
This is Patty, in a view looking southwest, during our hike up Grisedale Pike (the peak on the right, 2595 ft). The faint path that you see leading up to that peak is the same path you see here. The mountain in the distance is Crag Hill (2749 ft), about 2.3 miles away, and the Force Crag Mine (out of view) is in the valley just this side of it.
At the point when this photo was shot, we had already hiked 2.6 miles from the Market in Keswick to Braithwaite Village, and then climbed about 1200 ft over the next 1.2 miles. From here, we would climb another 0.9 miles and more than 250 ft up that slope, to the Sleet How ridge (1750 ft) just below the peak, before returning to Braithwaite via forested mountain bike trails on the north side of the mountain. By the end of our hike, we had covered 8.8 miles, including an ascent of 1,469 ft, in 5 hours and 36 minutes.