Shap was a lot busier before the M1 motorway opened in 1970, at which time an amazing 9000 vehicles per day were recorded passing along this road. This is the main west coast route between Scotland and England it has seen much traffic including the less than welcome army of Bonnie Prince Charlie in full cry for London and the slightly more profitable passage of love lorne couples heading norht for the marriage forge at Gretna Green.

Well March is getting off to a cold start but I was totally snug and warm in my Laser-Comp tent (you will see that this is the tent of choice among the light-weight aficionados of the Backpacker's Club. Our team numbered seven blokes and a single lady plus her lovely dog: Moss, but as Lance has a different tent for every day we had nine tents! That's me closest to the fence on the right of the picture. Should mention that I am also making use of my new winter-sleeping bag: an Alpkit Pipe-dream 800, this is only the second time out for my new bag, after its first bed-night I hung it up to air on the washing line at home, it fell off and as I picked it up from the patio managed to snag it on a drainage grate making a ten inch right angle tear! My St. Vitus dance of rage was performed in a snowstorm of down! I didn't feel very good about that! But thanks to Mrs summonedbyfells's deft needlework all seems to be well.

We will be off in a bit with grateful thanks to Wolfgang of the Buck Inn for his generous hospitality, which got us all off to a great weekend. We will start with an ascent up the gentle ridge of Green Howe seen here enjoying the frosted morning sun.