A 10km run on a very blustery day.Route: leaving the car in the lay-by just before Huck’s Bridge and running down the road to turn right on a footpath (obviously undermined by floods) and along the beck. Shortly, turning left uphill on a track and then right guessing the right line about 100m from the beck on a subtle sheep track on tussocky marshy ground and sloping steeply laterally frequently interrupted by small but steep stream-bearing defiles. Eventually joining a track from the other side of the valley and running more easily past High Borrowdale and then Low Borrowdale to take a steep track left uphill, walking some of the time, to reach the top of the ridge between Belt Howe and Roundthwaite Common. Turning left on a track across tussocky grass, often marshy but never impossibly so, with only occasional views through the cloud (at one point, of a steam train, another of wild horses galloping down into the valley), along the gentle ridge past Winterscleugh, Whinash and Dennison Hill to reach the stony track (Breasthigh Road) and descend to retrace the route back to the car.
Conditions: in cloud and very windy on the tops, and wet underfoot but (mercifully) not actually raining.
Pub: the Rifleman’s Arms, Kendal for Greene King Abbot Ale.
