Their story, in their words…
On day 1, We took the coach from London Victoria Coach station to Penrith, from there we took a bus to Keswick where our hike began.Luckily the weather was good and we hiked up and around Bassenthwaite lake finishing the day wild camping in a field around the top of the lake.The main challenges of day one was dealing with the fatigue of the seven hour coach journey, getting lost and attempting to cross a field of sheep in the middle of a public footpath.
On Day 2, we took on Mount Skiddaw, and wild camped in a field by the Great forest.The main challenge of the day was the severe incline and the weight of our bags along with finding a suitable place to sleep.Throughout the trip we repeatedly had to overcome the issue of water weight or having concerns regarding how much water we actually had left before the next town as we were relying on it for cooking, cleaning as well as hydration
Day 3 began in high spirits which were quickly dampened (once again) by incline as we took the more advanced route up to High Tove than originally planned.We spent the night at High Bridge End Farm. Day 4 was a shorter hike as we journeyed from High Bridge End Farm to Gillside campsite, the whole team was beginning to feel fatigue at this point in the trip, the weight of our bags making us more prone to injury, Blanche hurt her ankle on a rocky decline and Ollie and Mia were also struggling with knee pain and unfortunately we did not have any ankle or knee braces to help. As a result the team had to reevaluate the next day’s hike up Helvelyn after making it to Gillside campsite
On Day 5, we left Gillside campsite and took the bus down to ambleside in search of knee and ankle support in order to be able to continue the last few days of the trip, we managed to book an extra night at Gillside campsite in order to let ourselves rest in the meantime On our 6th day, we spent the day exploring the area around Gillside and re routing our plan for the next day so we had less incline for trip home. And finally, on our final day, we hiked to Pooley bridge along the altered route planned the night before due to the team’s fatigue which we then took the bus from there to Penrith in order to catch our coach home.
Overall, from this experience we learnt how to work in a team effectively as well as refine our organisation, communication and problem solving skills. Following some introspection we felt that we overcame numerous challenges, such as trying to find a field to sleep in,budgeting and endurance. However it is evident that our critical thinking skills had developed following this experience. We unanimously agreed that it was a widely successful expedition and that we have grown a lot, gaining countless good memories as a consequence of Mark Evison granting us this opportunity.
Moreover, following our experience many of the team members feel a greater sense of independence moving forward. Because the act of planning, budgeting and actually carrying out our trip was difficult, in terms of balancing school work and finding time to properly research our route whilst simultaneously calling innumerable campsites to check if they were available for us. It was an arduous process with our team meeting consistently to check on our process and create alternate routes in case anything were to go wrong during the expedition.Therefore from this experience we have learnt resilience and how to adapt to other people’s schedules whilst also prioritising our own time management.
