Day 3 Rosthwaite to Grasmere

Day 3 started at the Scafell hotel with all of us happy about having only a 9 mile day.  We wouldn't have been happy had we known it would take 9 hours.  When we started walking, it was almost drizzling, not enough to even put a raincoat on.  About an hour later, when I could actually see the rain, I put the coat on.  I kept it on the rest of the day even when the rain stopped because of a cold hard wind blowing.  As you can see below, it was pretty overcast, but the weather really had no effect at all on our hike, except for messing up Keith's passport which he keeps in his pocket.

We walked along a valley which had several waterfalls and several climbs.  I finally had my 'up legs' (I would say 75%) so had less trouble on the climbs.  Te one problem here is that the ups are sneaky.  When you get to the top, there is usually another up behind it, and then another.  On the Appalachian Trail, you can tell it's a false top if you can't see the sun through the trees ahead.  That doesn't work here.

Finished this climb

Turned around and saw this.  We had to reach the top of that peak about 3/4 over to the right. We spent about 20 minutes with a couple of other groups, I think it was the Canadians, and the Australians,  while  "the boys" went down on what they thought was an alternate route.  It wasn't.

After reaching the top, we descended some and then had a choice of a valley walk, or a ridge walk.  We chose the ridge and had some great views the rest of the day.

We had a long steep descent into Grasmere, which looks like a nice little tourist town, but we had spent so much time climbing and viewing that we hurried through to our B&B, which was on the outskirts, and went to dinner and bed.  Arriving at Grasmere that late meant we missed the gingerbread store.  Sorry to all the folks I promised gingerbread

We had a small change in penalty points.  Keith lost a power bar on the trail when he put his coat on.  

Lois found it and gave it to him when she caught up.  Keith gets .5 penalty points for losing a small item, while Lois has .5 removed for finding it