A 5 day Eastern Fells Trek, Lake District - Traveling through Longsleddale, Over Gatescarth Pass to Scales Farm, Helton and back via High Street
Sometimes crazy ideas work and it helps when the weather gods are on your side. My friends had their annual horse holiday booked at Scales Farm and invited a few of us to join them. When venturing into the Lakes I do try and leave the car behind and with that thought in mind the plan started to come together to ride to our holiday cottage. In the Lakes if your traveling by foot, hoof or wheel it is quicker to use the old packhorse routes through the fells than travel on the valley roads. In the lakes there are over 20 fell or mountain passes, which all have a history of being packhorse or drovers roads and are mostly now classified as bridleways or byways ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hill_passes_of_the_Lake_District ). Starting fr om Longsleddale we rode over Gatescarth Pass to Scales Farm, Helton ( http://www.scalesfarmcottage.co.uk/ ) for three nights and then rode back via High Street. Altogether we rode for five days and covered nearly 50 miles. For this ad...