The purpose of our trip to the Lake District was to climb The Old Man of Coniston. We had visited Coniston a few years previous and for some reason didn’t do the climb. Our cottage was next to Coniston Water which meant we did not have far to drive. We set off and arrived at the car park for 9am and got one of the last remaining spaces – we were so glad we did as it was a trek down to the village where the other car park was (about a km down a very steep hill). We were spoilt by the weather as it was going to be a beautiful day.

We set off along the path and the walk was quite easy – Stuart had told us it was only 2km so we didn’t think it would be difficult.

After about an hour of walking we reached the old copper mines. There was a really steep stretch to climb which was actually quite tough as there was lots of loose gravel.

The copper mine area was quite cool with things to explore and the views were stunning.

After another 30 minutes walking we reached the lake and at this point we looked up and could see the summit and realized that we had already walked more than 2km and there was still a long way to go – Stuart had given us the direct distance to the summit – not the distance of the path! Also at this point we were starting to get tired and the walk was very steep with lots of switch backs.

After the final switch back we had do do a bit of scrambling up some rocks. It felt really steep and we got a bit nervous – however a group of mountain bikers were biking down the mountain – and we decided that if they could go zooming down on their bikes we could walk up to the top!

We eventually reached the top – did some photos by the trig point, ate our lunch then headed back down again.