Two days at Grizedale

My friend suggested a trip to the lakes for a couple of days and as it turns out it was perfect timing, the first half of the week was not good (but that is another boring story). Straight away I suggested Grizedale Campsite, I hadn't been up there this summer but it is one of my favorite sites and being right in the forest makes it perfect! After a bit of flapping on my behalf, and Jon arriving a little earlier than I expected, we got on the road and arrived at about 11am. Tents up, we got a perfect spot with a lovely view.

After lunch it was time to head out but as Jon put his bike together he realised part of his quick release was missing so we rolled along to the bike shop and Grizedale and got a new one. After that it was time for a bit of biking. We started with a technical ascent and then descended into Hawkshead. Here Jon punctured, he runs tubeless but they weren't for sealing so we had to put a tube in. From there we headed back into Grizedale, some hard climbing, some of it was so steep I decided to was easier to carry my bike than try and push it!

We dropped into Satterwaite on a bridleway I've only ever tried climbing, it was definetly fun as a downhill. Then it was an extra loop up onto Parkmoor and through the big puddles before dropping back to the campsite.
My Garmin Stats:
16.29 miles @ 8.1mph
650m climbed


In the evening after some pasta for tea we got a fire going and spent the evening enjoying the fact that it was summer for the day.

The next morning I was awake by 7am after not getting to sleep till after 3am. I need to get better at sleeping again! We set off about 9:30am after a big breakfast and putting the tents down. It felt a bit cold and then on the first climb the sun came out! After that it was short sleeves all day!

I had decided that a loop round coniston water would be the perfect way to practice my navigation. It turned out that the weather really was in our favour. After a hard climb we dropped to the south of coniston water before heading up the hills on the other side and eventually joining Walna Scar road. I had to go back to try one bit again after chickening out but other than that I rode all of it. We dropped into Coniston and found a nice cafe for lunch. Burger and chips and ice-cream and I was stuffed. It made climbing back into Grizedale hard. After that I made my first random navigation moment. I wanted to check it was the right bridleway before we headed down, so I took a bearing was sure so we headed down. At the bottom I realised that although I had read the map perfectly took a bearing perfectly I had actually never meant to go down there. It didn't matter as it was a fab descent and although the way we came back up was a push I'm glag I found it was I now want to ride down it!

Garmin Stats:

21 miles @ 7.3mph
860m climbed