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BB2427
: Naked on Whinfell
Wednesday
31st July 2024
With hindsight, perhaps I
should have known better, given our encounter with the military last week, BB2426.
I chose the route to introduce Robert to territory he not previously
explored. Our initial targets (not sure
that is a sensible word to use in the circumstances) were the communication
towers on the Whinfell Ridge near Kendal.
After parking at the lower end of Borrowdale (the Westmorland one), we
headed up the valley.....
..... before striking off left to climb to the first tower. Not far ahead lay the second and main tower.
Tony
reminded me that when we visited on BB1708,
we found that the security fencing was
in a bad way. We phoned to report the
damage but ended up feeling that we were under suspicion.
Stan and I had been there on
one of our lockdown compliant adventures, BB2021 ,
and all then seemed to
have been returned to good order.
Today, as we reached the main
tower, we discovered once again that the security perimeter was damaged and the
“no man’s land” was now occupied by sheep.
The outer fencing was not intact and the building alongside the security fences
was now in derelict condition
The inner
fencing to the tower was intact but it did seem possible for a Slim Jim to crawl under in a
couple of places. We had no Slim Jims
with us so we can’t be sure.
Sobered by previous experience,
this time we didn’t stop to report the problems but were concerned that we might have triggered
an alarm or been picked up on surveillance cameras. It was time to move on.
Our main objective was Whinfell
Beacon. At
the top we met a couple who told
us that, on their arrival, they had disturbed a naked rambler. They were unable to give us any physical
description other than “male”. Consequently
I don’t know if it was the same one that we spotted several years ago, BB1317,
but I
hadn't heard of anyone casting their clouts lately.
We
enjoyed the view over to the Scafells .....
.....
to the Howgills.....
.....
and over Kendal and down to the estuary.
It was pleasantly warm whilst
we had our lunch.
Worryingly, we
saw a car being driven up the private road to the towers. Had the surveillance detected us? We took
no chances. It was time to move on.
There is one problem with the
Whinfell range unless you tackle it as a linear walk; there are no footpaths
marked on any map that I have seen that offer a different route back to the
car. Bryan and I had managed a descent
out of necessity many years ago (BB1244).
Today we wondered if we could find that way down.
In
the distance we could a possibility .
It
was essentially the same route but a rather different
experience to that December. Unfortunately,
this time it meant passing through a lot of very deep bracken or descending via
a stream that had some rather challenging drops. I am pleased to report that we all made it
safely down to the valley.
However, our fears returned. We could hear not one but four very
loud jets in
close proximity. The military were
taking things seriously. Fortunately
they had not anticipated us descending the way we did so they flew up the
wrong valley.
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Relived at our escape back to
the car, we set off back to Kendal and the Tap.
What a surprise!
It seems that the
Naked Rambler had been in there earlier in the year. The Landlord
had been so amused that he thought it would be fun to commission a statue of him
to stand in the corner of the
yard.
It
then occurred to us that maybe
he was the one, naked on Whinfell,
for whom the jet pilots were
looking?
Who
knows? Not me!
Don,
Wednesday 31st July 2024
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