Hallin Fell

Hallin Fell in the moonlight.  Lights of Penrith to the left

Jonathan and I had a work meeting in Penrith this afternoon.  We took our running gear and stopped off at Glenridding on the way home.  Our route went along to Patterdale then over and up to Boredale Hause, The Spaghetti Junction of The Far Eastern Fells.  We had planned to go over Beda Fell and drop down to the road but we decided against this, and changed our route to pick up the Boredale Valley track and road.  I took a tumble on this track, cutting my hands and ripping my jacket but it was otherwise a really nice run down.  We ran around and headed up the steep path up Hallin Fell, trying our best to photographically capture the beautiful moonlit night.  We thought we might see some fireworks but, despite it being dark, it was still relatively early.

We ran down from Hallin Fell, back along the road for a bit before veering off on a track towards Sandgate.  We followed a footpath which goes through someone's garden (always feel a bit funny about doing this, especially in the dark).  Eventually the track met up with a road and then a well defined path which goes along the eastern shore line.  We had about 4 miles to go when Jonathan's head torch started to flash.  The Petzl Nao flashes when the battery is running low.  He swapped his battery but his spare was flat he tried my spare which was also flat.  I gave him my spare head torch to use which isn't as bright so he was struggling to see on the rocky path.  A few miles later and my head torch started to flash.  I started stacking up my contingencies: Jonathan was already using my spare head torch, I had my phone which has a torch setting on it - might get half an hour out of that.  I had a gps which lit up.  Worse case scenario, we would have to walk it in sharing the light of my spare head torch.  The last few miles were a bit unnerving but I did think that I should get a good hour out of the spare head torch as the battery in it was fresh.  Failing that, a slow moonlit amble!

Eventually we saw the lights of Side Farm and the track back to Patterdale.  A good 12 miles done with a bit of adventure and calamity.

heading up to Boredale Hause

the track down Boredale Valley, I've brightened this up, was much darker than this

save that battery Jonathan!

Jonathan at Hallin Fell