Blea Water Tarn 13.4.10
Long drive round Shap and through to the head of Hawes Water, thoughts of the watery lost village of Mardale beneath its surface.
Set off into an increasingly wild setting as we ascended to the tarn, flanked by towering cliffs, hidden in cloud.
A cold 5 degree dip in this most perfect of cirques – the last to lose its glacial ice in the district, connected to the Loch Lommond glacier system apparently, and with an ice action that was exceptionally vigorous – how else to explain it’s extraordinary depth of 60m.
While Paul sited a post I planted a tiny tree. Then we went to the outlet of the tarn to record the sound of a periodic outflow which could form the audio for Paul’s movies of lake surfaces. This was a bit of slap stick as the ‘sound engineer’ fumbled the takes and a sheep insisted on a voice-over!
Off to the Hawes Water hotel and a pint, but alas no pickled eggs.
Richard
