A wet and wild day saw gusts of up to 80mph raging across the high tops of the Lake District and horizontal rain was sure to make things that little bit more interesting. Even at low levels it was difficult to walk against the strong winds at times, making a navigation course in the hills above Elterwater a challenging day out.
Luckily, strong winds tend to blow from one direction and so by staying low, on the lea slopes of Dow Bank above Grasmere we managed to crack on as normal, sheltered from the howling weather higher up.
The great thing about this area is that it has got so many features to practice navigating to, we had plenty of places to go and by heading out beneath Huntingstile Crag, we made our way down into Hammerscar plantation.
Woodland in upland environments is often ignored thanks to the lure of the high peaks, but these old mountain forests are some of my favorite places to visit, especially at this time of year when everything is starting to wake up from its long winter slumbers.
Whilst practicing 'contouring' around a series of re-entrants, we managed to spot a lone roe deer gambling expertly around the crags but sadly, as is often the case with such sightings, it had seen us long before we'd seen it and it was off before we had the chance to get the camera out.
After spending an hour or so ticking off features low down on the hillside, we headed up and into the now easing weather for the final few sections of navigation. Taking in a number of ring contours just below the summit of Dow Bank, we practiced boxing, taking bearings and all manner of other key navigation skills, before returning via a small tarn atop Huntingstile Crag, back down into the valley for a well earned cup of tea and some serious drying off.
