BB1932 : See You, Don

Thursday 3rd October 2019

"See you, Don," he seemed to say.  

I had put out feelers to ascertain who was playing out this week and if they had any ideas of where to go.  I was puzzled by Terry's response.  

"Good," I replied "but what should we seek?"   

"I told you: see you, Don."  

Still baffled, I pressed him to explain.   

"C U ; The symbol for copper.  Cu.  There's an outdoor artistic copper trail up Coppermines Valley and it finishes next weekend. It's called Copper (in our) Veins."

Finding the route surprisingly proved a bit of a challenge. Although promoted by the Ruskin Museum, its website was rather vague.  The Herdy website had a sort of map but was somewhat lacking in detail.  The obvious solution was to telephone the museum.  A very helpful lady suggested we called in to collect directions.  She added that a number of the exhibits had sadly been stolen from the hills.

Other than that, the timing of our visit seemed most appropriate.  After all, it is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness in which the leaves and bracken are taking on a copper hue.

When we arrived at the museum, we saw a copper boulder stood close to the model village.

The man on the desk told us that nearly everything had gone from the hill.  What hadn’t been stolen had been transferred to safekeeping and wasn’t on display. There was just the boat and the boulder left. Apparently the first mass theft happened shortly after the trail opened.  The items were replaced but a second occurred after it was featured on Countryfile.  I resisted the temptation to ask him whether the police had found the stolen goods but it would have made a great headline: Coppers find copper!

We were therefore feeling a little thwarted but noticed that Wetherlam had not been stolen so after a Comitibus picture around the remaining copper boulder in Coniston we set off, passing some nonchalant Herdwicks that counted us out, up the track to the Coppermines Valley.

Near the YHA we found another Copper Boulder, a Copper Miner’s Truck and then some Copper Boots.  Clearly things were not as dire as what we had been led to believe.

There were men working  to reconstruct an old giant wheel.  That will make a good excuse to revisit the area when it is finished.  We continued up by Red Dell Beck and found more, somewhat denuded Copper Boots.  Then a single Copper soled Boot.  Presumably not worth pinching or saving.

The valley got steeper and the weather colder.  By the time we reached the summit of Wetherlam it was distinctly chilly- the “feels like” temperature was about zero.

We didn’t linger but headed down Keld Gill Head to Swirl Hause and on to Levers Water.  

We tried hard to get Terry to repeat his skinny dipping but he wouldn’t co-operate.

Lower down, we saw the new turbine buildings and then found more Copper Boots and part of a Copper Boat.  

There’s not much more to report.  There was a man walking Nicholas Crane style with a brolly in his sac.  The sheep that counted us out hadn't moved.

They were still there to count us back into Coniston where we adjourned to the Black Bull for, inevitably, some copper coloured liquid. As we left, the boys bade me farewell.  Can you guess what they said?

See You, Don!

Don, Thursday 3rd October 2019

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STATISTICS

BB1932 : See You, Don

Date:

Thursday 3rd October 2019

Features:

Coppermines Valley, Wetherlam

Comitibus:

Don, John, Martin, Mike T, Terry

Distance in miles (Garmin):

8.1

Height climbed in feet (OMN):

2,632

GPX track

BB1932.gpx

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