Wasdale Head

This isn’t a walk as such but nevertheless I managed 5 miles over the day.  Today was all about being part of the support team for Joey D’s attempt at the Bob Graham Round.  

The view on the way to Hebden Bridge to meet up with the family.

We were to be at Wasdale Head for around 14.30pm all being well.  Joe had set off at midnight – atrocious weather for him, windy, and the rain coming down like a waterfall.  It was no better when we set off up to the Lakes.  We had a good run and the children were really good.

We finally got to the car park – after first going to the wrong one – thank goodness for OS maps on my phone.  We were lucky the clouds lifted and the day cleared for us.  We had lunch and went for a wander.  

The scenery was just so dramatic absolutely beautiful, although when you looked at the top of Scafell and Great Gable they were still hidden in cloud.  It was a terrible weekend to be doing this run, but all the work and effort of getting a support team together you just don’t want to miss the opportunity. 

We had a good wander and met up with the guys who were to be Jo’s navigator and pack carrier on the next leg.  All fell runners are the nicest people you could ever wish to meet, friendly supportive and always encouraging. 

We started looking at our watches and time kept going on – I even had a mini bus driver come and ask if we had set up a pop up café – I explained about the run and that this was for the runners and not a shop – he kept jingling the change in his pocket hopefully until he finally realised I wasn’t going to sell him anything.  We even met a guy who’d just swum the lake Wastwater and was looking for the camp site he tottered off bare-footed through the car park carrying his yellow buoy. 

Eventually the two Pete’s (the runners) saw Joe coming down and ran off to meet him.  On reaching the bottom he said he wasn’t carrying on – by now it was after 17.00pm and he knew he wouldn’t finish in the 24 hours.  We all thought he had done well in such terrible weather – he’d done about 50 miles.

We took him back to his tent and he would get some sleep before driving back home on the Sunday.  We all agreed this had been a good  practise run and was unfinished business to be completed later.