tamsin.moye.me.uk

With plans afoot to test my new MSR Carbon Reflex 2 lightweight 2-man tent on Dartmoor for the weekend, we realised, at 18:00 on Friday night, that we’d managed to pick the weekend of the DMM, so the moor was likely to be swarming and not quite as peaceful as we had hoped.

So the plan was revised and saw us driving for 6 hours to the Lakes on Saturday morning, through Ambleside and then Chapel Stile up to the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel where we left the car. We headed out up the Cumbria Way, then climbed steeply up the flooded paths past Angle Tarn (the other one), to finally pitch up overnight on the shoulder of Ill Crag at 935m. The morning saw the crappy, wet, windy, misty weather lift a little so a spectacular view of Scafell Pike (see thumbnail) appeared as we finished packing up and headed over to bag the summit first thing, before heading back past Langdale Pikes and down the Cumbria Way in good time for the drive back home. GPX track and route analysis if you’re interested.

Conclusion: the tent is pretty cool, once we’d finished tweaking it and got it pitched right (well, Adie did while I made treats), although I wouldn’t generally take it out quite so high, in quite such crap weather, or pitch it anywhere particularly exposed. My ME Dragonfly 2XT is still my tent of choice for now. Mr MSR is relegated to competitions, or particularly gentle conditions.

On Saturday night (19 June), Adie and I set off from Edale train station at about 20:20, with a plan to make the most of the (nearly) shortest night of the year with a long walk through the night with headtorches, to mostly test the navigational skills… We headed out along the Pennine Way (with a few tasteful variants, e.g. climbing onto Kinder Scout NOT via Jacob’s Ladder), with a final detour off the Way after Laddow Rocks, across to Chew Reservoir, then out to Dad’s house for a much needed morning nap in Uppermill. Fortunately made it across the Kinder plateau before dark, and only really needed torches from 23:30 until about 03:30, when we had “breakfast” overlooking the Crowden in Longdendale reservoirs.

Total distance: ~23.5 miles; total time: ~11.5hrs; total climb: ~1400m; the gpx track and route analysis show a fairly good, steady pace and a couple of minor detours