Oliver Neale's trip report

Saturday

The next day, the weather was dry and mild, a wonderful contrast to the 30 degree heat we had been suffering in Cambridge. While many people on this trip had signed up for the scrambling course, John-Jo and I were not among them. Instead, we decided on an ambitious walk: 18km over about 3 mountains. “What made it hard was we were going up and down from the ridge a lot,” says John-Jo. Lucy, Liane, Charlotte and Harveen signed up for our walk, knowing not what we had in store for them.

We started strong, climbing Old Man Coniston by an effective but accidentally unconventional route. We got to appreciate the area’s copper mining heritage, passing abandoned mining cottages and mine shafts, a fair amount of scrap metal, and a working quarry.

We were going strong, until we reached the bottom of the third mountain and found the path upwards had been entirely overgrown with ferns. Undaunted, we trekked upwards through the ferns. The lack of daunt did not last long though, so we devised an alternative route. The plan was to avoid summitting the third peak, instead skirting around it and sliding down the side of the mountain. Our short-cut proved hopefully better than the alternative, and thanks to John-Jo’s leadership, we made it back to the bunkhouse just past 7pm, ready to immediately start cooking.

After dinner, we were called to a meeting. Five people had to stay behind on Sunday. This was because the RAC had offered to provide alternative transport in case the car couldn’t be fixed, and they might arrive in the morning and want to immediately transport people back. Ranga, Lucy, Liane, Charlotte and Harveen heroically volunteered to not go out on a walk, and we could finally go to bed.