Searching For Smithy!

Photos from Martins Public Gallery

It was gloriously clear as we headed down Langdale in the car, I was enjoying the view so much I thought I’d take a quick detour via Elterwater.

We parked up in the lay-by and Rob, Rae, Smithy, Tom and I jogged down the road to the Old Dungeon Ghyll where we were due to meet Neil (a mate of Andrew M’s).

No sign of Neil? Smithy then went for a quick pit stop. Tom and I decided to check for Neil at the New Dungeon Ghyll first, before heading out, so we legged it down the road to NDG, then back across the field, no sign of him, and no mobile signal to ring him, we’d just have to set off and hope we bump into him on the way.

Returning back to ODG no sign of Smithy, surely he couldn’t still be having a pit stop!? A quick check, no he’d gone! Rob and Rae confirming he was bursting with energy and had set off at pace, walking poles in hand, towards High Raise.

Luckily we’d fitted a GPS tracker to one of his mechanical aids (poles), and we set off as quick as we could in pursuit of the signal.

Up onto the Langdale Pikes, round to Rossett, up Bowfell, over towards the Scafells, still no sign of Smithy and the GPS signal getting weaker and weaker, the pace with Poles clearly much sterner.

As we approached Fox’s Tarn traverse a quick glance at the monitor showed the signal to be static somewhere on the traverse and getting stronger, the path of the trace looking more erratic in the last ½ hour or so. Suddenly we were upon it, but no Smithy was too smart for us! as we dived onto a Bunny Rabbit with the tracker attached to its ear! Smithy had been too quick and evaded capture again.

As we trotted back down to the car in Langdale we thought best to download Smithy the application forms for the next series of Mantracker.

Another great day out and Tom had set a decent pace all day, my newly resurrected heart rate monitor reading an average rate of 165, surely that wouldn’t be sustainable, I think I’ll stick it back in the draw!