Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

Walk & Event Reports

Sunday 17th August 2014

B Walk

Whinlatter Forest

7 Miles Grade 3

Leader: Geoff Entwistle

Report by John McKay

Photos by Alan Holder & John McKay

Eleven people at the Sands this morning, eight for the A walk and three for the B. The three of us set off in my car, Geoff Entwistle, Alan Holder and me. The planned walk was Barrow & Outerside but depending on the weather there could be a change of plan. It was dry and quite bright when we left Carlisle but the forecast wasn’t good, heavy rain and gale force winds. This was the case when we reached Braithwaite so we decided to do a walk through Whinlatter Forest which Geoff knew from his HF duties. After a slight detour at the start, when we took the wrong path, we made our way to the Whinlatter Centre or more accurately the coffee shop. We had a very nice coffee and conversation with a couple from Romford in Essex, who have been coming to the Lake District for the past eighteen years.  We set off along the forest path and after just a couple of minutes the heavens opened up. Torrential rain but fortunately we were out of the wind, thank god, it was quite bad as it was. Alan and Geoff decided to put up their umbrellas. We made our way upwards through the trees passing several very wet parents and children, having a lovely day out in the Lake District. The rain did ease off a bit and we had some quite nice dry spells from time to time. Geoff told us about some of his experiences as a walking guide, very interesting  but not for publication. We took advantage of one of the dry spells to have lunch but after about five minutes the heavens opened up again so lunch didn’t last long. We set off again and from time to time we had some good views when we came to open areas. For the last hour of the walk it stayed dry so we arrived back at the car in good condition and were delighted to see an ice cream van parked in the lay-by. Off came the waterproofs and boots and we bought an ice cream and got back to the car just as the heavens opened again.  A wonderful walk,  I really enjoyed it, thanks to Geoff for coming up with it.

John