Stonethwaite to Grasmere Day 3

We left Stonethwaite in fine weather and headed up past Lining Crag to Greenup Edge, a climb of about 600m. Along the way we encountered the only bad weather in our whole time in the Lake District ... and even this was only a few passing showers. Hardly what the locals would call bad weather!

We lunched at the turnoff to the ridge walk where the perils of the Coast to Coast walk were brought home to us. A woman walking not far behind us had slipped on a rock in the wet conditions and broken her wrist. Her husband had already created a makeshift sling, so we gave her some ibuprofen (the strongest stuff we had) and pointed out the quick route down the valley to Grasmere.

Lining Crag

The ridge route provided us with more spectacular Lakeland scenery as we crossed Calf Crag, Gibson Knott and Helm Crag before taking the knee-shattering steep path down into Grasmere. We entered town through Poet's Walk where Dorothy Wordsworth doted on her brother William as he paced up and down composing his poems.

Above Grasmere

Grasmere is one of the most popular of the Lake District villages and having come down from the solitude of the fells it was a bit of a shock to wander lonely as a crowd among the many non-hiking tourists.

The evening meal in Dale Lodge was an opportunity to farewell Heather and David who had been our convivial companions for the last few days and to wish Heather a slightly premature happy birthday.

Tomorrow it is back to just the four of us as we march on to Patterdale beside beautiful Ullswater.