Month: July 2016

By Liz

Day 3: Ennerdale to Stonethwaite

Expectations The long one! 15 miles from The Shepherds Arms in Ennerdale Bridge to The Langstrath in Borrowdale, including the first doozy of a climb, up Loft Beck, if we take the low route. This will be a pseudo-re-creation of 2014’s “Death Hike” when we recklessly took the high route despite a howling gale and…

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By Liz

Day 2: Cleator to Ennerdale Bridge

Expectations Short 5.6 mile jaunt from Ennerdale Country House in Cleator to The Shepherds Arms in Ennerdale Bridge, with first significant climb up Dent Hill and back down to Nannycatch. Felt sad during the Coast-to-not-quite-the-middle that we skipped Nannycatch, so looking forward to finally seeing it this time around. Dinner reservation for 6pm at the…

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By Liz

Day 1: St Bees to Cleator

Expectations Today’s route covers 10 miles from Stonehouse Farm in St Bees to Ennerdale Country House in Cleator. Should be a reasonably easy walk, 3-4 hours with stops for lunch/technology/views! We’ll start out by dipping our boots in the Irish Sea, drop a pebble from the Pacific Ocean (someone has to replenish the beach!) and…

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By Liz

Day 0: Getting to St Bees

Expectations Short walk from the Hotel Pullman to Euston station, where we catch the 10:30 London-Carlisle train, switching in Carlisle to the 14:35 train arriving at St Bees at 15:59. Even shorter walk from St Bees station to the familiar-from-last-time Stonehouse Farm in St Bees. Realities Updated at the next usable internet connection. Which turns out to be…

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By Liz

Harry Potter Day #1

(Harry Potter Day #2 will be the day we walk from Glaisdale to Littlebeck vis Grosmont, the setting for the Hogwarts station scenes from the movies. Though based on today’s tour, I’m beginning to wonder if I got that muddled up–it could be a different station on that steam train line. We’ll see!) Not the…

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By Liz

And we’re off…

Pre-flight dinner at Seatac Airport. Flight departed about on time. Beautiful initial view: For the next few hours the interior view was all I got to see and pretty quickly, the screen was a lot closer up after the person in front reclined their seat without warning, almost knocking my dinner into my lap. Ah, the…

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By Liz

Packing

Packing underway! Clothes first…. 2 Convertible Pants, Fleece, Sun hat, Gloves, Neck gaiter, Hiking Boots, Trail Runners, Sandals, Knee brace, 3 pairs thick socks, 4 pairs thin socks, Swimwear, Underwear, Rain hat, Rain jacket, Rain pants, Gaiters, 2 Shirts, 3 Wool shirts (long sleeve), 2 Wool shirts (short sleeve) And then all the other stuff… Poles, Paper tape, Knee brace, Kinesio Tape, First aid kit, Ziploc bags, Tyvek, Silver blanket, Handwarmers, Walking Book, Maps (OS+strip), Packhorse documents, protein bars USB cable (C &…

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