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BB2319
: Putting The Wainwrong Wright
Wednesday
7th June 2023
Those
of you with good memories may recall that
just about a year ago Stan and I climbed
Mellbreak and claimed it for our Wainwright
total. The sad fact is that we now
know it was actually a Wainwrong.
Within
hours of publishing the report BB2218
: Towards and Fromwards,
regular reader David W challenged the assertion.
His message read: I
don't wish to upset you..... ..... but if
you're bagging Wainwrights I think you really do have to go to the south top of
Mellbreak.
I
tried to fob him off with some fatuous arguments
but, to my shame, he was right. After the
severe (very) climb up the nose we had emerged
at what we thought was the summit. It
looked like the summit.
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The
unspectacular mound in the distance didn't
compare, or so we thought.
Sadly,
we were wrong. That unspectacular
mound is a tad higher than where we had
been. We had visited the wrong top.
Ever
since, we have kept schtum about the error
other than, when asked for our total, including
it as ½.
We had the intention of revisiting
the hill and mounting the true highest point
as the climax of this round.
Last
week we had conquered all but one of the
Wainwrights. Today our aim was to
rectify our mistake, thereby converting
213½ to
the proper 214.
It's
a long drive to Loweswater consequently
we had to be up early, too early for Tony
so his seat in TV Mike's car was taken by
Mick. Brian completed the team.
My
previous visits to Mellbreak have been up
by way of the nose, steep and challenging.
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Today
we thought we would take a softer option,
partly because I had a heavy rucksack. There
appeared to be a track gently rising on
its eastern flank. Indeed there is,
and with good views back to Loweswater and
its surrounding hills.
However,
being a wimp, I found the path of scree
with the steepness of the hill falling away
on my right hand side to be somewhat disturbing.
A tumble could have been bad news.
Fortunately we all survived and turned
west to reached the plateau where Grassmoor
dominates the view to the east.
The
obvious thing to do was to head first for
the false summit to measure its height.
The figure registered on my gps was
1,679 feet.
It
was still hard to believe that the far point
was the higher summit but obviously we needed
to check that out.
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It
was. 10 feet higher. Job done,
we could now celebrate. The heavy
load in my rucksack came out. The
fizz the bottle contained coupled with Stan's
flapjack and the cookies that Mick had nicked
from his wife's party preparations were
most enjoyable.
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Incidentally,
the fizz was not champagne. Nor was
it Prosecco, Cava or any other foreign bubbly.
It was English with a rather upmarket
name- Asquith Gardens. Its provenance
is somewhat obscure (apart from the fact
that it came from ASDA). The producer
is Rolling Green Hills Ltd about which I
have found little other than it seems to
be linked to Nyetimber, a producer in the
South Downs of rather more expensive English
Sparkling wines. Maybe it is their
supermarket brand? Whatever, we enjoyed
it.
We
descended to the south......
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.....stopping
briefly to admire the Scale Force waterfall,
which with a 170 foot drop is the longest
in the Lake District.
Once
down at Crummock Water, we stopped for lunch
at Low Ling Crag- delightful little promontory.....
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.....
with classic views.
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From
there is was a pleasant stroll along the
lake. We could have carried on further
but for some strange reason the Kirkstile
Inn was calling. Naturally we responded.
We had something to celebrate. You
could say that it had been a half decent
day! All 214 now completed. The Wrong
had been Wrighted.
Don,
Wednesday 7th June 2023
Thanks to Mick
and Mike for some of the photos
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