Their story, in their words…
The final routes we did for the Lake District Hiking Challenge were as follows: on the first day, we walked over Stick’s Pass from Glenridding to Thirlmere and our campsite. The second day we walked along Thirlmere Lake and climbed Seat Sandal. The third day we walked up Helvellyn on the White Horses Route and the last day we climbed Stybarrow Dodd then down to Glenridding.
We had to change the first day’s route as there were weather warnings due to heavy rain and mist – we decided that it was therefore not safe to climb Helvellyn that day. Therefore, we changed our route to go over Stick’s Pass, which was still challenging with poor weather, but safer. The weather was rainy and misty on most of the days that we were walking, which made them more difficult as it was slippy and it lowered morale, but we pushed through. Climbing Helvellyn (the one day of decent weather) was enjoyable and felt very rewarding. Camping (and cooking food on a Trangia) was also challenging with the rain: on the second night it cleared up and we got some beautiful views while cooking and it felt like a very special moment- and then Kate dropped the pasta! We did rescue it though, and it was still nice.
We felt ultimately very tired and proud of ourselves after the challenge – it felt very satisfying to have done something which tested our endurance and resilience. We think it definitely taught us how much we can do when we put our minds to it.
We got many things out of the challenge: we came out with better knowledge of how to do things such as risk assessments and budgeting, and how to negotiate and developed our cooperative skills as working in a group requires you to understand and balance the needs of many different people. We got better at adapting in the face of unexpected issues such as poor weather. also came out with better practical skills such as map reading, putting up tents and cooking over a camping stove. We also got a real sense of accomplishment out of this challenge and a reminder of how strong we can be.
