THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE..AMAZING AURORA BOREALIS..LAKE DISTRICT WILDCAMP.

Right well I said I was going to make most of this forecast for this week didn't I. This is literally a few days on from last week's video so I was getting a bit confused when I started doing that. I've recorded two videos in the space of one week and then one was out one week, one was out week after. Anyway, I'm in the Winlatter area, this is Winlatter forest just here and I'm parked just there. It's called Scorgill Head or something like that, Scorgill, Scargill summit, but the car park is for the Spoutforce Waterfall or something like that, Spoutforce summit and it's a free car park just there. If you google Spoutforce I think it's Spoutforce, it's a free car park and we're heading up, we're heading up to a place, an hill, where I've camped before, Sandhill. The reason for that being is Peter and Jamie Dixon are up there, a couple of my friends off of Twitter and that, that I've had a few camps with and stuff like that. But instead of coming from Caldale side, Braithwaite side, which is the route we've done, I don't know how many times, up team times, over Grisedale, I've been up and down over Grisedale three times or something, down that long boring Caldale mine track, five, six times. So what we're doing is, coming from Winlatter side, come out of Braithwaite, drove up past the car park like I've been saying and we're off up Ladyside Pike, now Ladyside Pike into Wainwright, I think it's like a Birkitt or something like that. So we're gonna get over this style here, we'll walk around Front Road, get over this style and off up, right up there, just goes and goes and goes, right up onto Ladyside Pike summit, drops down a little bit and then up onto Oakgill Head, off of Oakgill Head and then onto Sandhill. It's a lovely spot that, so yeah, let's get going. Hopefully I might be able to find some water on my way up, but if not, once I get onto Sandhill, I know that if I drop off the other side into Caldale Hawes, there's all them little cascades and little waterfalls there, so I'll have to go down and get some water there. So anyway, we'll get over this style, we'll get going, get off up here. Yeah, this is me blowing out my backside. Okay, so that path we took off at style, it goes off over that way, so I'm looking at map and the path that I needed, the walls run sort of in that direction, they sort of traverse the hillside as it sets off going up and the path literally just starts, front wall, looks like there's a bit of a sheet pen at the summit, it must go further down back to the road, it's got to do. So what I've done is, I'm on this side of this wall, pass on that side, so I've stuck to the left-hand side of the wall coming up here, hoping there might be a gate through or something like that, but I've seen now, it's just, it's been a steep little climb up Fultfields that, so, but yeah, I need to be on the other side of this wall here somewhere, so I might have to see if I can get over somewhere, there's no other way around it. Now that is, I don't know if you'll see on the hillside there, path traversing up up the hillside, flattens out a bit and then that pointy little bit at the top, that's Ladyside Pike and then Oakgyled beyond it and then over that other side of there, that is Sandhill, where we're going to. I did once come to that, when I first camped on, or when, I should have said when I first came along that ridge up Grisdale Pike, along to Oakgyled, the plan was to camp on Oakgyled, but it's, it's just like a little pointy summit, where you're just like a little bit of an outcrop of rock, you can't, you can't get a tent on it, so as I'm looking about and I looked across, I spied Sandhill, I thought yeah, that's, it's a lovely sort of dome top hill, that it's nice and flat on top and that's where I camped back to, I can't remember when it was, it was way before lockdown, maybe six, seven, five, six years ago, something like that, ain't so long, I had a cracking meet up there, so yeah, that's where we're going again, so yeah, I'll see if I can get over this fence, or this water, should I say, somewhere, what an amazing day it is again, look at this, absolutely beautiful, as I say we're on for a cracking forecast again and the main reason I've come out, not that I need much of a, yeah, not that I need much of a reason to come out when it's like this, but there's been going by me on Facebook groups, so it's the last night and early this morning, that there's a massive solar flare took place, over the last 12 hours or something, something like that, a really high category one, so that means that tonight, hopefully, might not be all late, it might not, like they've already said, you might not necessarily see it late tonight, you could do, you might not, maybe tomorrow night, but there'll be northern lights on show and a really strong showing if we do get to see them, which I'm absolutely, well I can't wait for that, if that happens tonight, stay up as late as I can tonight, it's forecast a clear night as well, so we're on for it, that'll be absolutely amazing if that happens, so I've got my Canon camera with me, my other tripod, and hopefully, like I say, stay up as late as possible and see if we can catch some of them green lights in the sky, I haste that. I've said before, one of the beauty things about coming up and exploring different routes, which is my aim now, every time I come to the lakes and always trying to camp on a new summit, I know we're camping on one we've camped before tonight, but as I said, I'm meeting a few friends, but at least we're coming up a route I've never done, so it's like I said, that's Ladyside Pike in front of us, and that's Oak Gill Head, and then this one here is Whiteside, so I've always come up them from Caldale side, Caldale oars, from down to Caldale Mine, that long track up there, or along Grisedale Pike and along to Oak Gill Head. I've never seen Oak Gill Head from this side, look at that, you know, it looks stunning, it's amazing isn't it, I say, explore these different routes and you see, you see some mountains from a different angle or from a different side, and it's just amazing to see Oak Gill Head from this side and see, it's absolutely, it's quite magnificent actually that looking at it from here, what a lovely, what a lovely top it is from this side of that, and then we're about half way, final push to the top here, final push, oh that has been a slog, it's not the actual top is it, that's been a steep slog up that has, I thought that was Summit Cairn just there, but this one must be it, it's a little bit higher, so Ladyside Pike, 703 meters, my first time on here, oh my way, and just look at this now, so that's past Grisedale Pike there, I forget what this one is in middle now, and then obviously this is Oak Gill Head just here, how fantastic is that, seeing that from this side, that's amazing, absolutely amazing, like I say seeing, you know, like see mountains and hills and that from different angles and that, it don't look a great deal from opposite side that, look at that from here, amazing, right that's where we're heading next up there, one climb out of the way, drop down a little bit, and then we've got that to go up, all in the name of fun, right well we've got to face Oak Gill Head now, and it looks, looks like there's a bit of scrambling to do here, might be a bit of hands-on stuff here, and definitely up the face of it there, so I'm going to take my pack off and put my paws back away, and we'll get on off up there and see what it's got in store, just look at that view, it's stunning here, absolutely amazing, looking back at Ladyside Pike where we just come from, that little bit there, that and all it was, summiting out, just seen a bloke come down here and all, he didn't seem too bothered with it, no hands-on, he just walked his way down it, it's probably one of them that looks far worse than what it actually is, there might be a little bit of hands-on in places though, we'll see, let's get on, let's crack on with it, oh how's that done, not too bad actually, it's quite steep, it's very smooth rock, but it's quite steppy, the rock is really steppy if you know what I mean, but yeah, this is Oak Gilead, I forget what height it is, 700, obviously 700 plus, 27 20 30 or something like that, yeah, so that is Sandhill just there, I can already see Peter and Jamie pitched up, but what I need to do is go get some water, so I'll have to go over there, meet them, ditch my bag, drop down into Caldell Hawes, go get some water, right, catch you back in a short while, all right, I've just had a few minutes talking to Peter and Jamie there, it's quite a past six, or 20 past six, we've still got loads of time, but like I said, I need to get some water, so just heading down to Caldell Hawes here, we'll get some water filtered and then we'll go back up here, all right, then this is one of the sort of cascades that falls off of Caldell Hawes, which is just up there, so get back off, get a couple of litres of water and fill this up as well, this is, I think this is 850 and I'll soak that up, I'll fill that up, get two litres per camp, all right, let's get this car, let's pack up, right, that's about, well nearly three litres, 2.8 litres, got a litre bottle, my B3, that's a litre, and then I've ended up having to get one of these smart water bottles, because my active bottles have disappeared, somebody's misplaced them, I don't know, oh yeah, this is 850 ml, so 2.8 litres of water to cart, all the way back up here, all that extra weight, nearly another three kilogram, all right then, we're all pitched up, what an absolutely stunning night again, usual in the, I mean same as what I was in other night, I'm not going into detail, but yeah, X-Lite Ultra 120, X-Mid 1 Pro again, and Jamie, what's your tank, Jamie? Kofu, Locust Gear Kofu, it's a pyramid style, the sort of MLD type, that's DCF as well, and Peter's over here in his, same as mine, but the two man version, just here, nice and roomy in that one, pretty much same, same length, but obviously wider, so yeah, with plenty of time before that sunset, it's 25 past seven, sunset is nearly nine o'clock, I think, or just about nine o'clock, and when I was heading down for some water, the Aurora app on my phone went off, red alert, so hopefully, that is looking directly north, if we get clear skies tonight, and that kicks off, we should get it, we should get it, hopefully, if that's going off now, red alert, we should get that tonight, hopefully, fingers crossed anyway, so yeah, I'm going to chill out now for a bit, put a couple of drinks in there, have a bit of a chinwag with Peter and Jamie, pass an hour or so on, so I'll, I'll catch you a little bit later on, all right, well, good evening, when I say good evening, it's good night, because it's gone ten o'clock, seven minutes past ten, to be precise, I've had a good few hours chinwagging with Jamie and Peter there, about all sorts of stuff, we've been talking about this Aurora, because it is absolutely kicked off, so to, we're all sat round Peter's tent, and it's sunset, we've had a cracking sunset, by the way, and all, absolutely beautiful, still quite a bit of colour left in the sky, and all looking over to the west there, it's all nice and red, sky's still blue, there's a, maybe an upstart starting to appear, but yeah, we soon got round to talking about Aurora, and the app has been going mental, it's, I don't know if you can see that, but it is, it's literally off the scale, I'm not sure, you know, I'm not, it's a, I don't know what readings are, but it literally is, it's off the scale, I've been looking, you know, people have been putting stuff on Twitter, and saying what readings are, and this or other, and apparently it's going to be the, the best it's ever been in about 20 years, apparently, so yeah, it's just, just gone, just gone past 10 o'clock, we've come to us tents a little bit, because as I was saying, after sunset, breeze got up a little bit, it's not bad, it's about probably 10, 12 mile and over, it's dropped a little bit chilly, so the down jackets went on and that, while we're having a chat, yeah, so we've come in us tents, because wind, wind's like a, it's like a southerly, maybe south, southwesterly, so we've all, we've all got us doors pitched, or us tents pitched, should I say, with doors looking directly north, so just straight at back of your, is looking straight north, so yeah, brew on, got a couple of cakes as always, and hopefully this sky is going to light up green at some point tonight, going to stay up as late as possible, like I was saying, all the way up, and see if we can get some of this aurora, so what I'll do is, I'll catch up with you a little bit later on, before I'm ready for going to bed, and hopefully, hopefully, fingers crossed, catch you later, right, well time is 20 past midnight, 20 past 12, and we've probably spent way over an hour outside, with cameras, you know, when I was spotting, I said we've got tent doors on, looking north, weren't long after that, Jamie says there's something kicking off above us, and we got out, took a few phone snaps, I'm not going to say much more, I'm just going to say, I'm going to bed, a very, very happy person, right, I've got some amazing, amazing pictures on my camera, on my phone as well, the phone we're doing, picking it up, absolutely amazing, but it kicked off above us up here, just unbelievable, greens, purples, pinks, the sky was lit up, I have never ever seen anything like it, so yeah, and I've got a cracking GoPro time-lapse as well, so yeah, I'm going to bed, very, very happy, not long since I woke up, got up about, well, I think it was about 10 past 5 or something like that, I could see the sun rising, but I wasn't getting out of bed, so I just rolled back over and went back to sleep for a bit, and I was literally up a few minutes, Peter's already up knocking about, I think Jamie's up, but yeah, just stuck kettle on, brew on, a bit of breakfast, and it's a lovely morning, I'll spin you round, this is what we're looking at, that's Jamie over there, Peter just there, absolutely beautiful, I've been, I've been spoilt on this one, lovely day yesterday, lovely sunset, and that amazing light show last night, wow, just lost for words with that last night, just absolutely incredible, and a lovely morning, it's been a peaceful night, a little bit of breeze, a bit on a 12 mile an hour, absolutely incredible, this area is bone dry again, it's a rare occasion when I've been out twice where I can pack tent away and it's bone dry, so yeah, all the prize missing out of this bag, it's lovely just to be able to unzip tent on a morning isn't it, and just lay in your tent and look out, and all this, get a bit of breakfast on on the brewery, yeah, catch a wee in a short while once I've got this lot sorted, so this is what we've got out here this morning, so saying, beautiful morning, beautiful morning, quite a few out last night as well, so we now went down here to collect water last night, there were two guys pitching up just in and a little bit later on we saw a tent pitched off up here, then you'll not make a mark but I can see them just on the left hand side of Grisedale Pike, you can still see two tents up here, they were like a darker colour tent up to there, orange colour tent, we're late on about sunset, we've seen this guy walking up over the ridge there, against that drop of orange sky, he'd come up over here, he'd got a big bag on here, I thought he was a little bit late, but yeah, quite a few people are, I'm sure I could see Wando, which is through the middle there, that one, through Gallon anyway, which is where I'm pointing, but I saw there was somebody on there as well, so, and everybody got trekked to that light shore last night, incredible that, absolutely incredible, if there's ever something that makes you think to yourself, you know when you're deliberating going out and you're thinking you're looking at forecast, if there's ever something that sort of confirms you, you know I'm glad I got out of that sort of feeling, it's made it all worthwhile, it was that last night, I just, I just can't, all above here, all above us here, it started off just above Grisedale Pike looking that way, like a shimmering sky, and it just got, it got better and better and better, you know, shafts of purple light, green you know, pink, incredible, absolutely incredible, I've never seen out like that in my life, I doubt we'll ever, ever see it, see it as good as that in UK again, especially this far down, or Scotland, get it quite a lot here, here up in north of Scotland, but I doubt we'll ever see out like that this far down again in our lifetime, so I've had my breakfast, I'm going to finish my brew, but I can start off packing up, right then, that is it, we're all packed up, mornings like this you just don't want to pack up, because you don't want to go, because I stop up here all morning, but these must we have to get off, so that is where I was, somewhere there, I can't even tell where I was, that's hard, no trace of it, but yeah, you know we're scuba, we leave no trace, so Peter and Jamie are heading back over Oakgill Head, they are going back the direction that I came, but the route I'm taking off is, as I always say, I always like to make them a circular walk, and so instead of going back down that way, back down the same route, I'm going over Grisedale Pike, and then I'm dropping along this ridge here, and that little lump on there is called Hopcourt and End, and then you drop down to the road, and there's a little bit of road walking to do, so that is the route I'm going to be taking, so we'll see if we can find a path off down here somewhere, if I just head off the edge earlier, I know there's a path just in front of me, I can see it, so yeah, that is the route off, and that has been an absolutely fantastic night, that's one of them little good arnit memories, you know, when I'm 70 years old and I'll be remembering that camp on Sandhill with Aurora, absolutely amazing, right let's get on off up here, there's a little bit of ascent to do, and then we drop off over Hopcourt and End like I say, right we're at the top of Grisedale Pike 791 meters, this is where I was thinking about camping first off, but I said before there's not many pictures on here, so I could see them tents down there, they're just packing up now, but it's very sparse for spots, so we'll keep going, drop down path here, over Hopcourt and End there, back down to the car park where the car is, right we've just come off at Grisedale Pike, I just got talking to them two lads, I don't know if you can remember me saying they were two tents just outside the hillside there, just been talking to them about that Aurora last night, it's just, it makes everybody so happy doesn't it, to see stuff like that, they were absolutely over the moon, I said, did you see that last night, like yeah, because it was just amazing, it's just, it's unbelievable isn't it, once in a lifetime stuff like that, and it's just what it does for people, it's amazing, so yeah we're on the path across to Hopcourt and End, which is down here, a little bit winding, a little bit loose and scree just here, so just take my care going down here, it's not too bad, yeah what a beautiful morning again, it's just two camps in one week, I can't remember last time I managed to get two camps in one week with this weather, this forecast, both camps tent away, bone dry, you know it's just, you've got to make most of it haven't you, you've just got to make the most of it, get out there, get it done, make the most of it, all right then this is Hopcourt and End, 631 meters or 632 meters, something like that, it's not a Wainwright, I think it's maybe one of these Birkits or whatever it is, it's quite a, quite an heathery mossy top, some nice little looking knolls, you could probably get a tent on it, but nice one just there, all right we'll get over this stile, cross over this fence, a little bit further to go and then we drop off at Farside down and see if we can pit road up somewhere, and then we've got a bit of road walking then back to the car park, what a morning, I keep saying it don't I, looking back up to Ladyside Pike there, and looking back up to Port Galed there, how amazing does that look from this side, I said it yesterday didn't I, that's got a proper mountain feel to it from this side, when you're on Sandhill side looking at it, not look a great deal, but just look at that from here, how amazing does that look, proper mountain look to it there from this side, amazing, absolutely amazing, I'm enjoying this walk down here, this is looking back up at Grisedale Pike just here, and I've caught an end just at back of here along the ridge, it's been a lovely walk down that, and this is the Grisedale Forest area, first time I've come down here, come up here or come down, like I say, exploring new routes, seeing mountains from a different side, from a different angle, all that's to experience, it's good to see, good to see you know, different valleys and things like this, obviously there's a lot of forestry work goes on down here, you can see all the trees and obviously you can see down here where they've done a lot of forestry and that, down in front of me here, but it looks as though they obviously they take them down, cut them down and they replant, this is all new fresh growing ones just in here, yeah we're not, we're not far off at bottom now, last couple of hundred meters or so, still on his way down, but further we're getting down there's a lot of bilberry bush in a muck heather, you can see all that, all this lighter green here, it's all bilberry that, or winberry or wherever you, wherever you come from, it's got about three or four different names in it, where I come from it's bilberry, in peat district that, when they're in fruit them, I've had my fair share of bilberries, they're absolutely lovely them, really, really high in vitamin c, really nice, really nice, right and well we've hit the, one of the forestry tracks now, we've come down hard at the forest, we're sort of right middle of it now, right middle of this forest, so we've come, we've come down from up there, we've only left onto this forestry track, we follow this for about half a mile I think it is, to Swinside or somewhat like that, so to a car park there, then we're joint road and then about another half a mile back to Scoresgill car park, that's where we are parked, so about a mile or so walking, just over somewhat like that, before we're back, but yes we're down out of that forest now, that last bit there was a little bit muddy and tree roots exposed etc, a little bit rough coming down that last section there, but yeah we're right in it now on a nice track, all the way back to the car, one thing I forgot to mention as well, I've had that sort of two or three month, in fact it's more than two or three months, because Kerry and Leonie got me it for my birthday last year, so it's been since November, new GoPro 12, so I have personally, I've noticed a lot of difference filming with the contrasting highlights and shadows and everything else in it's far better than what I was using on old nine, and now we're getting that clipping on that nine and all, you know sound and stuff like that, I'm sure some of you will have noticed that, I did get a few comments saying that nine were plagued with that, but yeah what I've also got as well is, obviously I've been using the foam windslayer all this time, but it does a good job that actually to be fair, but what I've been looking at to get in, and this is first outing week, I got one of these media mods with a little sponge thing out corner, so I've used this on this trip, obviously without, till I get back home and put all the footage on the computer, I won't be able to sort of see whether there's a vast improvement to audio on it, so you'll have to let me know in comments whether you think the audio on this has been slightly better than what it has been previous, it is supposed to improve the audio or go processor, it's just a marketing, bit of marketing spiel, but yeah we'll have to see, it ought to because for 80 quid, which is what they are now, when they first come out I'm sure they're about 50 or 60 pound, I thought about getting one, I thought no I'll leave it because that foam windslayer is not doing too bad, yeah I thought yeah I'll get one, see how it goes with it, but yeah when I was looking I was like bloody 80 quid just for them, you know like literally a case that you put your GoPro in and so what it does allow you to do as well, it's got a jack plug in back, it's got a USB-C, there's three other parts in back of it, so what you can do is put an external mic on, like a Rode or one of them DJI ones, and you can have a lapel mic click to you or whatever, ones that will come Bluetooth, the wireless ones, so I have got a set of Rode wireless mics, so I might have a go at that, it's also what I like about it as well, it's got two cold shoes on it, there's one on top and there's one outside, it's obviously my little light, the GoPro do a little light, but again I weren't paying that money, I managed to get one off Amazon for about 20 quid, which looks exactly the same more or less, so yeah that goes on there, it's got about four different settings on it, flips on to cold shoe, treat does that, so again that's what I was using last night, and it would, that little, nice little compact setup that, so yeah this is what I'll be using going forward, hopefully it does the, does the job, all right then, well we're only two minutes from the car park, it's literally just there, so I'll wrap it up here, well we've got a view of the, just about the top of Lady Sai Pai cart up there, that's the ridge we walked up yesterday, so while we've got them views I'll wrap it up here, so yeah absolutely amazing one, this one, not gonna do too much talking about it, I hope you've just, you'll have obviously seen it up to now, up to this point, but yeah that's, it's been absolutely amazing, like this is one that'll be in front at memory bank for a lot of years, a lot of years, so yeah hope you've enjoyed watching as much as I've enjoyed experiencing it, so I'll wrap it up here, thanks for watching as always, stay safe out there, and I'll catch you out next time.