Number 3 in my best days out ever top 5.
New years day 2000
Coniston
We were staying in the Coppermines Valley to celebrate the new year. The family and several friends and aquantancies partied and played through the 31st December 1999 and into the small hours of 1st January 2000. I think I went to bed sometime around 4am. Slept well and awoke at 8am feeling really good (considering the amount of alcohol consumed over the previous 12 hours). I dress quietly and go downstairs. Another couple are up and going for a walk. Everyone else is asleep. I grab a banana and step over the sleeping bodies on the kitchen floor and out into the cold new years morning.
There isn't a cloud in the sky and the ground is hard with the frost. I cut through the quarry and head up to join the main tourist route to Coniston Old Man. It is cold but I can see the sunlight on the slopes above and am keen to get there. As I reach the path and head up I find a body lying motionless in the middle of the path. My first though is S**T this could spoil a good run. As I get nearer I am releived to hear the man breathing and after some shouting I manage to wake him and establish that he is OK. He declines my offer of help to get him back to Coniston (thankfully) so I press on.
At Small Water another couple are just getting a brew on after camping there, we exchange waves and I carry on up. Soon after that I am in the sunshine and on the summit taking the fantastic panaramic view. The running over Brim Fell and on to Swirl How is pure pleasure I am feeling really great. Down Prison Band and onto Whetherlam enjoying every step, concentrating and working hard but the energy seems to keep coming. I take the long descent steady finding it hard to keep my eyes off the view and on ground. As I approach our cottage I can see people are up now and they spot me coming down. No doubt in awe of my superb descending technique!
When there we all exchange 'happy new years' and I am given a bacon butty.
The perfect way to start the new year!
Russell
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