Coniston > Great Langdale

16 miles, 72 partly cloudy and humid. Slept in and repeated my breakfast of scrambled eggs and mushrooms on toast with coffee. The eggs are prepared wet with a nice custard texture, my favorite. The other meals Ive had have been well prepared, but I’m used to a lot more seasoning. I can see how some would call it bland.  

Muscles and joints felt rested and ready to go. Once again I had the trail to myself hiking north to Yewdale Beck, where I got lost. The lake region is a web of walking and bridal trails on most of the blazes are sun bleached and look exactly alike. I went right into Guards Wood when I should have gone left.  

I walked across one big hill of sheep and cows when I should have walked across another hill of sheep and cows, the problem was that caused a cascading failure of my 33 steps of instructions in my guide book. To my own defense take a look at the picture, the circle is where I made my wrong turn.  

I ended up heading east and then about a half mile in the wrong direction back into Tarn Hows Wood. I’m glad I carry a compass. There aren’t many places to stop on the trail so far, most require diverting into villages and adding additional miles, but today had a farm with a tea shop so I stopped for lunch.

Lots of rolling hills and woods for a couple miles to nice stone path from Skelwith Bridge to Eler Water. I talked with some other walkers while eating an ice cream cone in Elterwater.  

I’d love to come back and hike the hills that were the backdrop for the last few miles of today’s hike. The views were amazing and I had the trail to myself again for about an hour until the end of my day. 

 I’m staying at the New Dungeon Ghyll. It’s very nice, but the wifi sucks. Dinner was very good. Trout, sweet potato and cabbage. Currently drinking a pint, missing Mona and looking at the Langdale Pikes.