Crossing the road we followed Sam as he headed along a small path between the bracken down to the river Duddon. It was great to see him off the lead and following his nose after so many walks with him on the lead. He would walk / run so far ahead and then stop and look behind to check that we were still following him and then when he saw us he would carry on, I announced to everyone that Sam was in charge of navigation today! I think that I was talking to myself as John and Sarah were well behind me busy chatting away.
Reaching the river we saw an unusual sight, a series of large stepping stones across the river with a metal guide wire strung out above them. It was the first time I had seen anything like this and I was suitably impressed. Sam took no notice and went for a swim instead of taking advantage of this method to keep your feet dry! On the other side of the river a path led upwards through the trees and that was the way we went, a handy signpost said that this was the way to Grassguards, so far so good then! This path through the woods really made me chill out. All around on the ground lay leaves and if the weather was not a give away on its own I realized that autumn was here. John kept Sam playing and on the right track by throwing various sticks for him to run after, he hasn't learnt the fetching bit yet!

I was very impressed with this section of the walk, a nice path through the woods led to some small crags before coming out into an area bordered by Grassguards Gill on one side and the forestry commission land on the other. Heather and grass made a welcome change of colour after the browns of the fallen leaves in the woods below. Sam was racing ahead and the terrible trio chatted away while walking through this delightful little area, I could feel all the stress dissolve out of my system, this is just what the doctor ordered!

All too soon for my liking we reached Grassguards and crossed over a footbridge next to a ford. We then stated to follow a footpath that led along side the small stream in a wide clearing between the trees. This soon degenerated into a very faint track and John began to question if we were going the right way, I think the sight of two walkers coming towards us on the other side of the stream, making very quick progress compared to our pace was a bit of a give away! Hoping over the stream we found a proper path, had a quick chat with the walkers and then made much quicker progress, this is what happens when I don't have the AW book to hand! Reaching a couple of small rocky outcrops we decided to sit down and have some refreshments. This is when Sarah discovered that Sam will not leave anyone alone who happens to have food on them!

For some reason the night before I had programmed a way point into the GPS for the summit of Green Crag. This is the first time that I have done this and I was playing with the GPS trying to get it to “goto” that way point. The arrow on the display showed the direction and the readout said just over a mile. All we could see was the wide clearing and the trees with nothing else insight apart from Harter Fell on the right. Eventually we reached the end of the clearing and a fence with a stile. In the distance we could see a few rocky tops and one of them must be Green Crag, but the GPS did not really give me an idea which one, perhaps if we got nearer? Getting over the stile was fun as we had to man handle Sam up and then down over it. Unfortunately he took a bit of a tumble on the way down and got his feet tangled up in the steps landing in a heap. He just lay there without moving and at first I was concerned as Sam never ever just lays there doing nothing! A minute or so later we realized that he has developed the same sense of humour as me, as all of a sudden he gets up and runs away with a wicked looking glint in his eye, it was as if he was playing a joke on us!

A faint track led onwards and as it was heading in the general direction we wanted we followed it. This was easy if boring walking as we trudged our way along, the skies became more overcast and I am sure it got cooler. It seemed to take ages to get anywhere near the outcrops we could see and as I kept looking at the GPS the distance to go kept getting smaller while the direction arrow started to move to the left and away from the path. As we reached the first rocky bits in a long time we stopped for another refreshment stop and took the time to check the map out.

It was still a struggle to get Sam up to the top as for the first time today he seemed a bit unsure of where to go. Sarah took the lead and as soon as she went up Sam followed with the help of a bit of pushing from me. And there it was, the summit of Green Crag. Just as we reached the top we obviously left the shelter from the weather that had been provided and we noticed the wind, it even started to rain. I took of my fleece and put on my Paramo jacket and then just sat down in a hollow below the summit and had a drink. I felt so warm and snug it was great. Sat there out of the wind I felt great, Sam came and joined me and laid down next to me, Sarah stayed on her feet and kept looking around for John. In fact as time marched by I was totally chilling out and thinking that I could spend hours up here just laying there out of the wind and looking around at the views while Sarah became worried and then concerned about the lack of John on the summit!

Eventually he turned up just before we started to send out the search parties. He had that look on his face that said “bloody hell!!!” He had indeed found the hardest way up. This was one of the things that I had thought about while planning the walk, a varied walk up with some scrambling to get to the top bit. John had taken my words to heart and had indeed found some scrambling that put hairs on his chest, I wanted some of that!

By the time we came back down to Sarah she had had enough and wanted some ear defenders if we did another route! As I want Sam to come on more walks with us and I did not want to put Sarah off, we called it a day. The summit area of Green Crag could have kept us busy for hours with all the scrambling that it offered, I was impressed.

Once again we struggled to get Sam back over the stile but once over we followed the path back down towards Grassguards until we reached a point where another path led off to our left. As far as I was concerned this was going in the wrong direction and as I had liked the way we had come so much I was disappointed not to be retracing it, but we do live in a democracy and John got his way! So we headed away from where we wanted to be, I was ready to step in and begin navigation duties again when the path joined up with a forestry commission track and started to head in the right direction again, ok so I am not always right!

It started to rain now and even though it was very easy walking my feet started to play up again, at times I was reduced to a slow hobble and that coupled with the rain started to annoy me. Meanwhile a bit further along the track Sarah decided to see if Sam was any good and fetching sticks back. Unfortunately John decided that Sarah's stick was too “girly” and not a “manly” stick for a dog like Sam. For the next half hour or so John selected various sizes of stick ranging from branches to full blown logs for Sam to play with. I think the recent felling of trees in the area helped John here. It started out as being funny and soon ended up being ridiculous funny as there was no way Sam could get his teeth into the later ones, he tried though, boy did he try! Watching Sam and John have a battle of wits certainly took my mind away from my feet! Luckily for me this track that we walked along ended up at the ford at Grassguards so I was able to walk back down the path that I had enjoyed so much before. As I write this Sarah is now on holiday in Florida with her better half, who knew nothing about it as it was a surprise for his 30 th birthday. As I am also going to Florida next week we talked again about places to go, things to see, things to do and where we could meet up for a night out. In fact for most of the walk we had discussed this but in my own mind of twisted logic I could not write about it in case Paul saw it. The fact that I have not uploaded this to the web site before they left just goes to prove how daft I am! I did feel sorry for John as he has already had his holiday and unlike me and Sarah has weeks of work to look forwards to instead of getting the chance to meet Mickey Mouse and friends!

So this sort of conversation about Florida accompanied us most of the way back to the river and the stepping stones. Just to break it up John pointed out an ants nest that he found, a very large construction of pine needles that had ants walking all over it, it was an impressive feat of construction for such small beasties. Back to Mickey and friends……

I had started the day feeling stressed. By now I was chilled out and looking forwards to my holidays that to be honest I had not thought about until talking to Sarah on the way up. The path over the river and up to Grassguards was one of the most pleasant that I have come across, Green Crag was one of the easiest Wainwright's that we have done and the summit area gave us some great scrambling. This was one of the best days!
All that remained was food and various suggestions happened, in the end we ventured back down the valley to Seathwaite and the Newfield Inn. At first we left Sam in the car but on the door of the pub was a sign saying “dogs welcome”. Inside Sam settled down under the table and fell asleep. He was not the only one as nearly every table had a dog beneath it! The food was very good and the stone floors meant that all sorts of walkers felt welcome, from two legged to four legged, they were all made to feel at home. It is many, many years since I was last in the Duddon Valley and I had forgotten how quiet and beautiful it is. The meal just made for a great end to a great day.