Great Mell Fell

Eventually the gradient eased, and we broke free of the woodland. A crossroad of paths loomed out of the mist. The path to the left disappeared downhill and appeared to avoid the woodland; I decided we'd try that path on the descent. The path to the right appeared to be going back towards woodland and so we avoided that one. We followed the path straight across the crossroads and this took us uphill.  After about 10 minutes we saw a couple of figures ahead of us in the mist. The man turned out to be a Scotsman and the woman was dipping into a bag of Fruit Pastilles. I'd not had a Fruit Pastille for ages and I wondered if she'd think I was taking a liberty if I asked for one. I didn't get chance though since Calse and Mo had continued walking along the path into the mist. I had to follow them to keep them in vision. I have a fear that one day they'll wander off and I'll lose them. I've been thinking about fitting them into a climbing harness and then attaching that to a retractable dog lead. I'd then always be able to get them back.

The summit of Great Mell Fell is marked by a small cairn and is quite unremarkable, especially on a misty day. There was nothing to delay our departure and we set off back down.

Crossroads Return

A few minutes later we could just see, through the mist, that Scotsman and Pastille Woman had diverted from the main path on to one to the left. I figured that their path would still arrive at the crossroads of paths we had found on our ascent. 'Come on', I said to Mo and Calse, 'let's see if we can Tommy Top them by getting to the crossroads first'. We increased our pace, and rather than finding Scotsman and Pastille Woman nearby, we found another elderly couple there. They were having exactly the same conversation as we'd had on finding the crossroads on our ascent. That is: the path through the woodland was a bit of a nightmare, and that they'd take the path downhill to the left on the descent. The man was a dead ringer for Sir Tony Robinson and even sounded a bit like him too. 'Those ferns were horrible', said the woman, 'I'm sure they are bigger now than they used to be'. 'I think it's because we shrink as we get older', I explained and then considered that this might not be politically correct, as an afterthought.

We set off on the alternative descent route. After a while I looked back and could see that Sir Tony and Fern Lady had been joined by Scotsman and Pastille Woman. 'Hey, we forgot to Tommy Top them', I said to Mo and Calse. I suggested going back to do this, but Mo and Calse weren't interested.

The alternative descent route was infinitely preferrable to the one we had used for our ascent. There was no woodland, no mud, and the ferns kept socially distant. 'The views becoming clearer', Mo announced, as though a man who has just regained his sight. 'Yes, that's because we are dropping out of the mist', I informed him. The path delivered us down to the lane we had been on at the start of the walk, and we followed this back to the car.

Somebody had parked so close to the rear of my car, and so close to the front of the car behind it, I could only assume it had been airlifted into that position by winching it down from a Chinook. 

When we got back into the car, the windscreen received a few droplets of rain. It looked like we had timed the walks in our 3 hour weather window to perfection.