For me this was pretty much a bucket list thing I wanted to do. So as I had the opportunity I started to plan a short trip up to the Lake District National Park and looked for possible locations to spend the night. As this was going to be my first time camping I tried to pick a location that was easily accessible , had good parking and a relatively easy walk in and out.
Recently I had been on holiday to the lakes with my wife, while we were there we visited Buttermere and walked the circumference of the lake, even spotted the Mission Impossible film crew filming for the next movie. I really liked the area as the lake was situated at the bottom of the valley surrounded by mountains , Haystacks and Fleetwith Pike to name but a couple. So this was the area I started to research and found Warnscale Bothy. After watching a few youtube videos I got several good ideas of parking and possible routes up. Now at this point I had very little equipment and so I done some more research and finally decided on a tent and as i had acquired some Amazon vouchers I used these to purchase a Vango Banshee 200, my first tent at the age of 52! I also purchased a few other items such as a sleeping bag, inflatable mat, pillow, and a new rucksack to put all the gear in, this was the Osprey Kestrel 68L.
After much researching it was time to actually see if I could still do this at my age and level of fitness.So with the time off work I packed all my gear loaded the car and left Ramsgate at about 06:30 hours and headed for the Buttermere valley some 412 miles up on the A1(m) to my parking spot at Gatesgarth Farm.
I took a steady drive up making several rest stops along the way as I knew I had plenty of time to get to the parking spot. Having visited the lakes many times before over the years I came prepared with a bag of pound coins specifically for parking, I have been caught out so many times before while away with having no phone signal to get a ticket via apps of just not having enough change so top tip, take some coins for the car park, Now Gatesgarth Farm car park is very reasonably priced, at the time of writing it was £4 for a ticket valid for a full 24 hours from the time of purchase , great deal I think. After arriving and purchasing the ticket from the pay and display machine i got myself ready, change of footwear and put on the pack, locked the car and headed off to the trail head
Having not done any form of camping let alone wild camping I have never had to hike anywhere with this amount of gear before. Not only was i carrying the camping gear i was also carrying the photography and vlogging gear. The pack weighed in at around 19kg , now if your young and fit that is probably not a great problem but for me it proved a real challenge. There were several points along the route I questioned what I was doing and could I make it to my spot. Thankfully I am pretty determined, stubborn, headstrong call it what you will but at this point I was miles from home and nowhere to sleep tonight other than my chosen spot i pushed on and made it upto Warnscale Bothy
The Bothy itself is very well disguised as its made from the same slate and stone that litters the side of the fell and just blends in, so unless you go looking for it , its pretty easy to completely miss and walk on by. This is where a GPS device comes in so handy, for years now I have had a Garmin Montana 650 loaded with all the OS maps and so before I set off I load the device with my route and any waypoints I want, such as parking as this particular device can also be used as the satnav to get you to the trailhead, love this bit of kit. Having arrived at the bothy there were a group of three guys who had arrived earlier and where staying the night in the bothy.
I stopped and had a chat with the guys for a while and as i had no intention of staying in the bothy i started to look for somewhere to pitch up for the night, and really who can argue with a view like that. I was so pleased with myself for making it up here and getting the tent set up i was looking forward to spending the night outside on top of a fell overlooking the beautiful landscape bellow.
I did manage to get a few images I am happy with but really this was more of a personal challenge for me rather than the photography .
Below is a short extract from the vlog i made of my trip, if you want to see the full video please head over to my YouTube Channel to see this and many other videos I have done. If you liked them please consider subscribing to my channel. I hope you will and look forward to chatting with you over there.
