We’d hoped to finish the previous day’s epic hike in the Wasdale Head Inn, a classic climber/hiker’s pub at the end of Wasdale valley’s dead end road, but our late return thwarted this plan so it was first on Tuesday’s itinerary. We woke later than usual from our camping spot on the edge of Wast Water and enjoyed a pint in the lovely old pub, which is decorated with cool old mountainey pictures and maps. A sign states emphatically that there’s no wifi and that we should talk to each other instead, which I liked – although it would have been useful to let Ryan’s dad (who’d followed yesterday’s progress live until my phone died) know that we’re alive as there’s zero phone signal in the valley.

We were suffering from mobility issues due to seized quadriceps and in Ryan’s case, potentially damaged knee ligaments/cartilage, so didn’t expect to do anything remarkable that day. We’d studied our climbing guidebooks in the pub at Wasdale and had decided to travel to the Borrowdale Valley to mess around at Raven crag and climb Corvus, a famous multipitch route graded Diff. The drive up the northwest side of the National Park felt a bit adminney in the middle of the day, but we’d planned well as in contrast to yesterday’s generally dry, clear weather, it was now wet and claggy.

Mountains, lakes and forests reappeared as we headed east through Buttermere, an area I’d never visited before. It was serene and beautiful, even under the grey sky. We went to Buttermere village for lunch and found the Bridge Hotel, a nice whitewashed, beamed, stone-floored bar, but it was eerily quiet and the whole facemasked waiter, disposable menu thing seemed a bit awkward. Ryan spotted a couple of big cherry trees out the window and we filled our pockets with juicy red snacky-snacks, then set off east to get closer to tomorrow’s climbing spot. The cherries didn’t make it to our next camping spot at Honister Pass.

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Honister Pass is a winding road through a deep slate valley – the type you get on car adverts – which rises gradually as it runs parallel to a wide, shallow river, then steeply. After a brief stop to let the engine cool down (steep slopes set the overheating alarm off) we parked in a pull-in a couple of hundred metres down the road from Honister slate mine, high up at the head of the valley and overlooking the long road which snakes between its V-shaped sides. To my frustration we found a gash in the front passenger side tyre, probably caused by a sharp bit of slate. We changed the wheel and spent the evening admiring the sweeping, rock-strewn valley, drinking gin, cooking pasta, singing badly and looking down the picturesque road at a stunning, pink-orange sunset. Today had been quiet but we were happy knowing that tomorrow, we would climb.

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