Scafell wild camp,Duomid ....May 2018

- May 28, 2018

It was a lovely drive up and over the Birker fell road to Eskdale and it was already in the 20's when i left the car at 10 am

The rough plan was to pick up a few missing Syng peaks i had missing

The one i wanted most was Cam spout crag and as i didnt have anyone with me to tell me it was a crap idea to skirt across the face of Slight side........thats the route i made up

Tough,steep and in places loose as it was it made a nice challenging route up with the ever present Great moss to fill my eyes with

On the picture above you cant make out my path across the above view as there was none

But what a cracker jack view it gave....a dinner and hydration stop was now in order

I then made my way up a ridge onto the Scafell massiff and was treated to a glyder pilot using the warm strong winds to get him up and over the Scafells

The views as always on a clear day were extensive with the Isle of Man and the Dumfries hills visible in the distant heat haze

Id thought of maybe cutting across to camp on a spot on the back of Scafell pike i found a few years back,but there were hoards of people over that way
So after stashing my pack behind some boulders i slid down to Foxes tarn had a good slurp and filled up all my water containers for the short but sttep and loose pull back up to Scafell

After Dave Vaugauns excellent find of some longer lower pole sections,i bought some and they came just before this trip, here im using my arm pit ! to set the A-frame hieght to 55" which on me is my Armpit hieght

It was only 4 pm ish by now so chair lit out it was time for a brew and take in the views

It was a cracking flat pitch,even if i had to dismantle two walls that some knob had built recently the grass underneath had only just started to die off so must have been recent..LEAVE NO TRACE.....ITS NOT HARD

A few climbers were sat behind me so i went over for a crack and we treated to another glyder soaring above us

Tea again was a new one for me sent to me by Basecamp foods,who i buy off these days..it was still 20c at 6pm but when i ate it later it ws lovely,maybe a bit of pepper would have helped but it was a very clean pouch that went in my bin bag

Other than a few fell runners later on i had the summit to myself,as the ground maintance team moved around doing there stuff

Sadly sunset was a no show but dawn although always horribly early this time of year was very nice,even if it did silouette many many people over on Scafell pikes summit

It was a very flat pitch even though it doesnt look it here

A pic pulled off the Gopro caught me on the skyline

It was then just a short walk back to the car taking in Slight side on the way down and one last missing Syng peak for me here the oddly named Peelplace Noddle !