l a k e d i s t r i c t

Since moving to London, I have seen my interest in photography shift from “things” to landscapes and people. Not that I don’t like shooting “things” any longer, but I did start to want to seek out impactful and memorable scenes. With that interest in mind, I had heard that the Lake District would provide some incredible scenery of the mountains and of the lakes. So on the weekend of June 4-5th, I grabbed my gear and took a train up to Manchester to meet with a friend that I originally met on Flickr, Bhawi. 

When I arrived in Manchester, we set off on another road trip up north. It took about 2 hours to drive from Manchester to the Lake District area. From the pictures that I googled, the Lake District looked amazing. Mountains that were different shades of green surrounded the towns in that area and there were several pictures of lone docks or piers situated out into the still waters of the lakes. The Lake District is a place that a lot of people came to walk or hike. I am a person that loves to hike and be out doors when I can (I like hiking but I am no camping guru by any means), so before I set out to this area, I did some research on potential hikes we could take.

The thing about hiking in this area is that there are no marked paths. It is nothing like the hikes we have in the Vancouver area where there are signs or markings that show that you are on the right path. Instead, you are equipped with a compass, gps and topographical map and that’s it. It was like reading a hieroglyph! One would guess that we could easily get lost ... and we did. Haha. Bhawi was not impressed. Anyway, I decided that we could try a hike that was estimated to be about 5 hours. It was the hike up the Langdale Pikes which started near New Dungeon Ghyll. 

The paths were so obscure that we got lost from the get go. We didn’t even know where to start but just decided that this “looked about right” so we headed in that direction. So much green and the surroundings were so natural. There were a ton of sheep too.. it was like sheep country here.. Crap everywhere.. they poop a lot! Little sheep running around with their parents, grazing the grass... it sounds funny but it was really cool to be in their surroundings and to be amongst that kind of company. Literally, by the time we got to the top of the mountains, all we saw was mountains, the towns below, and sheep. No people, nothing... it got to be really quiet up there and very peaceful too. 

Anyway, onto how we got lost, we were following this “path” that ended up with us going several kilometres in the wrong direction west. When we met up with other hikers we asked how we could get up to the Pike Stickle (one of the mountains that we were supposed to climb up), they indicated that we first had to climb up another mountain before walking across. When we asked them how long it would take to get back on track, they said it would be at least 2 hours lol. So up we climbed. From the Pike of Stickle we then went to the Harrison Stickle, about 1 hour east before heading back down the mountain towards the car. All in all, it was about a 7 hour excursion haha. 

After the hike we immediately went to the local pub and grabbed a pint and some grub. Then we drove off to stay overnight in the town of Keswick by the Derwent Water lake. We fell asleep properly well that night with the hopes that we could catch the sunrise next morning by the lake. We were just too tired though and by the time we left the room at 5:30am, the sun was pretty well above the horizon. Still, we got some of that nice color in some of the following photos. Good thing we got up for this too because it clouded over very quickly by lunch time and started to rain by the afternoon! 

Although we got lost, there were many good memories of that hike. From me telling Bhawi constantly that we are almost there (to which she responded at the end of the day, you lied to me the entire day! Lol) to constantly trying to avoid stepping into the sheep poo, it all played a part in making this trip worthwhile. Oh, and the views were amazing! Too bad the weather wasn’t too great (it was pretty well overcast the entire day) but it was a lot of fun anyway. Definitely have to make a trip back here again!