The weekend has been very wet.
The Met Office have stated that, between 10:00am Sunday 28/6/20 and 10:00am Monday 29/6/20, Honister Pass recorded 212.8 mm of rain, “provisionally a new UK June daily rainfall record”.
Honister Pass is in the Lake District. It’s been very wet.
But after some investigations Lisabet and I did spot a gap in the rain towards the Eastern Lake District. So, after work, into the car we went and nipped up and over Kirkstone Pass for an energetic hike around Aira Force.
We were rewarded with a lush gorge and waterfalls absolutely roaring with water.
All photos shot on a Fujifilm X-T2 with a 16–50mm f/3.5–5.6 lens using a customised Velvia film simulation.
Heading up Kirkstone Pass with the cloud shelf just starting to lift off the fells.
And heading down ’t’other side of Kirkstone Pass, Place Fell (657 m/2,156 ft) in the distance with Brotherswater underneath it.
Ambitious young ‘uns hiking back up Kirkstone Pass.
The trunk of a Monkey Puzzle tree ( Araucaria araucana ), looking like wrinkly “skin” that’s sagging with age.
Looking down into the gorge from the bridge above Aira Force. The sheer wall of sounds and flying spray everywhere was immense.
Looking straight down the sheer drop of Aira Force.
Further upstream along Aira Beck you can find some more falls. This is High Force, more of a series of powerful cascades. Still gorgeous, especially in this soft light.
Zooming in on those details of High Force.
Aira Force, in full spate after a weekend of heavy rain. The waterfall is probably one of the Lake District’s most famous, dropping 70ft in two parts with a picturesque packhorse bridge arching above it.
As I’ve written on this blog many times before, the word “force” comes the Old Norse fors meaning “waterfall”. The word “Aira” comes from two Old Norse words: eyrr , which means a gravel bank, and á , which is a river, giving us “river at the gravel bank” and the full name meaning “the waterfall on gravel-bank river”.
We popped out of the Aira Force gorge a little early to go for a quick wander up Gowbarrow Fell. There were some views of Ullswater and its fells that I wanted to show Lisabet. And boy what a view we got.
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