I came up with many inspirational walks during lock down all of which I tried to write down the moment they entered my head, some were full planned walks, others were the names of summits I wanted to revisit. Red Screes was one of those summits I just needed a route that I hadn't used before which was when I came up with this route. I have only ever looked down on the Scandale Valley which you get a great view of from Little Hart Crag, Dove Crag or best of all from Scandale Tarn.

It was whilst kitting up last Sunday morning in Eskdale did I suggest the route to Rod who was well up for it, all that was left was to ask David who coincidently had also been thinking about planning a walk on Red Screes so there we had it, the three amigos were back.

The last time we were all together was March 14th when we walked Hallin Fell and Steel Knotts so it's fair to say despite emailing each other sometimes daily we had a fair bit of catching up to do. Todays walk took us just over six hours but I reckon it could easily be done in five if we hadn't stopped so many times while putting the world to rights.

We met at Low Fold car park under brooding skies from which a downpour looked imminent, had we have known we were in for a soaking perhaps we would have chosen a walk to suit the forecast which had changed at the last minute but what the hey, we're here now and more important than that, we were back together after three months apart.

Despite the looming drizzle it was a very mild morning and to be honest the last thing we would have wanted was to add layers but we had no choice if we were to stay dry, in fact Rod left the car park wearing a short sleeved mid layer while David and I opted for soft shell jackets and soon I felt like I was producing steam between the layers. It was still dry as we walked up North Road towards Sweden Bridge Lane but the impending drizzle was in the air as the skies grew darker.

David spots a raptor from a distance of about 50 yards, from this distance we couldn't see what breed of raptor it was at first except that it was a raptor which appeared to be eating something, after a few minutes it flew away but not before Rod had taken out his camera and on full zoom took this image. We walked over afterwards to take a closer look and found the intestines from a small animal left on the rock.

Full credit to David for spotting the Kestrel and to Rod for photographing it.

We weren't heading straight for Red Screes and had opted to include Middle Dodd which meant a pathless traverse along Red Screes north shoulder. Finding where to leave the path would have been much easier had the cloud not been so low which totally obscured both Middle Dodd and Red Screes summits which added a little confusion over our position at times

Pesky cloud!

We left the fell side and started our walk back to Ambleside via Kirkstone Road which lead us past what should have been a busy Golden Rule made famous by the legendary fell walkers such as climbing legend Harry Griffin. From the Golden Rule we walk back into Ambleside where despite many of the shops and cafes remain closed the pavements are busy with tourists who look through shop windows.

We took in the slight ascent from the main street back onto the Old Lake Road where I take in the view over Ambleside once more before arriving back at our cars and layers and boots are removed. Things are far from normal right now but as David had put it earlier, todays walk was the first time he'd felt a sense of normality had returned but I don't think he wasn't just talking about the affects of lock down, I think he was referring to the drizzle and low cloud earlier which when you think about it, made a lot of sense.