INEOS Grenadier - Tour of the Lakes - Part two
After a cold a breezy night in the iKamper atop the Grenadier, the following morning brought sunshine, a clear sky and brisk temperatures. The wind had changed direction overnight and was now battering the Grenadier from the side of the awning; it was probably the ‘flapping’ that woke me up, that and all the beer I had last night.
After carefully negotiating the ladder from the roof top tent, bleary eyed I gave the Rhino-Rack batwing awning a quick inspection and was impressed that it was still in position. The awning isn’t one of those self supporting types, it has telescopic legs that I’d had the foresight to secure in place with guy ropes the previous night.
I was more impressed that my camping table with odds’n’sods stacked on top was still upright.
With the wind blowing a gale, I decided to opened the back doors of the Grenadier and cook breakfast in the back. Coffee first, obviously, then a fry up using my Vango Sizzle and Jetboil Summit Skillet.
In the strong wind, packing up the iKamper was a doddle, but the awning on the other hand was a proper nightmare. It was like trying to fit a bedsheet in a hurricane, it probably looked like that, too. Good job no one was watching!
The problem was pulling out the pegs from the guy ropes, then retracting the telescopic poles and slotting them back into their supports with one arm, whilst holding onto the awning with the other!
The further around I got the more the awning billowed out like a rogue sail, determined to yank me across the campsite like a kite with questionable steering. Eventually I managed get the awning into a secure position that enabled me to reverse the Grenadier into a better position out of the wind so I could pack it away properly.
Exhausted, I made myself another brew and marvelled at the view. Midtown Farm campsite is a jewel, and one I will be visiting again in the future.
After I recovered from my awning ordeal, it was time to pack up - there wasn’t much, just my chair, table and fire pit, and a bit of washing up from breakfast. That done, and before I could begin the day’s green-laning adventure, I had to negotiate the beach run.
If you remember from part 1, access to the camp field was via a short beach run, and walking along the beach I was a tad concerned as it was fairly soft, but I had my ActionTrax with me in case I broke the surface and sank, so I wasn’t overly concerned.
When it comes to driving on sand preparation is key. Lowering tyre pressures to increase the tyre's surface area will provide better traction and help reduce sinking.
Nah, I didn’t do that, what I did was engage 4x4 high and gunned it!
Keeping a steady speed, momentum was my friend, and using gentle steering I managed to reach the exit without breaking the surface, and too much drama.
Upon reaching the exit I couldn’t avoid a sharp turn, and at this point I could feel the Grenadier begin to sink into the soft sand, but momentum was on my side and carried me through to the more solid access lane.
After another chat to Helen, who along with husband Robin run the site, I made my way back to Corney Fell. If you remember, I drove down it in convoy in part one, and of course, driving up a rutted lane is always more fun than driving down.
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, this lane can be quite challenging, it isn’t necessarily damaging, but the storms that we’ve had over the years have created some incredibly deep channels that need to be negotiated.
Before I reached that section of the lane there’s a fairly steep incline which during summer can be overgrown with vegetation, but seeing as this was March all was fine.
Once past the tree-line you’re treated to a few small ruts, some can be avoided, others not so much as they cross the lane. Then, around halfway along I reached the start of the technical sections.
It may have been a beautiful morning, but the wind was still very much making itself known - when I set up my iPhone and tripod it kept blowing it over, so no videos, sorry!
When I’m driving something as large and capable as the Grenadier, I don’t always take the sensible passage through the ruts, I instead opt for a sillier route, both to test the vehicle, and to take some dramatic photos.
I love driving solid axle vehicles with coils all round over terrain like this. I can feel as the suspension flexes and opposing wheels, at maximum travel, leaving the ground, it’s a weird sensation.
The Grenadier did a good job, with its suspension flexing and opposing wheels sometimes off the ground, surprisingly I didn’t even need to engage either of the front and rear lockers. The only time I lost traction was when I stopped to take a cross-axle photo, reversing a couple of feet and a little forward momentum saw the Grenadier trickle its way up and over all obstacles.
Although the lane looks quite gnarly, and it is, I’ve driven an AWD Dacia Duster up here once, but I really had to be careful with wheel placement, so it is drivable in a smaller 4x4, if you know what you are doing.
Upon reaching the top I pulled over for another brew and to admire the view.
From here I headed back along the A595, took a left onto the A593 through Coniston, and onwards towards my next lane, Arnside Intake, or Trailwise reference, SD3499-01.
Starting from the west heading east, the first section of Arnside Intake is fairly narrow with large stone mounds, dips, and tight corners to negotiate. Then it widens for a 180º turn and small incline that’s littered with small stones - nothing serious. From here on it used to be quite a technical lane with large rocky steps to negotiate, but not anymore.
To keep the lane from being closed, a local 4x4 tour operator took it upon themselves to grade the lane, and by grade I mean filling all the sections with stone and shale, and now it takes on a whole different character, in fact, it was so boring I only took one photo - really quite disappointing.
At this point I appreciate that some of you reading this will say that all lanes should be fit for purpose for all users, and I agree… to a point. The only thing you need to worry about now is meeting other 4x4s coming in the opposite direction as there isn’t much room to pass each other, so be prepared to reverse a little.
Feeling dismayed, I joined the road and headed towards Ambleside, then down towards Troutbeck, Windermere and eventually onto the A6, north towards my final lane, Breasthigh.
Crookdale Beck was fairly low, but I‘d heard on the grapevine, well Trailwise 2, that there were a few large rocks hiding beneath the surface. Sure enough, just out of view, the Grenadier’s nethers caught one of them, but all was good, despite a painful sounding scrape, the underbody protection plates did their job well.
As I’ve written previously, Breasthigh was graded a few years, and again is a shadow of it’s former self, but because all the shale that was used to fill the massive holes wasn’t compressed, it’s quite easy to become bogged down on some of the steeper sections. Fear not, the Grenadier made it look easy. Again, no front or rear lockers were required, just low box with the centre diff engaged.
Still blessed with a gorgeous blue sky dotted with the odd cloud, I couldn’t resist pulling over again to soak up the views.
Breasthigh Road crosses mainly open fell land, and climbs steeply to 430m from either direction with the majority of its 2½ mile length being bedrock, large loose stones and hard-packed stones.
On the way back down, heading toward Tebay, there is one gate that can be a tricky to negotiate, especially in a long wheel base vehicle. As well as the gate itself being fairly narrow, access to it is from a very tight 90º angle, and the Grenadier, having solid axles, doesn’t have the tightest of turning circles.
So, taking the turn as wide as I could, I inched the Grenadier, which suddenly became the widest 4x4 on the planet, into a position that would hopefully see me squeeze through.
With most of the Grenadier through, I noticed that the rear near-side wing was precariously close to the gate post, so I figured that a simple shunt should give me more of a gap.
You know what they say about great plans? Yeah, it didn’t work. What actually happened was as I reversed, the loose shale (remember that?), caused what was now also the heaviest 4x4 in the world to slide into the gatepost resulting in the Grenadier resting its rear passenger door handle on the post!
Many expletives later, I had a brainwave. I figured that if I placed a large stone under the rear tyre it would potentially make the Grenadier lean away from the post, minimising damage. Finding a large stone I did just that, and my theory was correct… until I drove off the stone and I watched in horror as the back wheel arch extension scraped against the gatepost.
Fearing the worst I was overjoyed to see that there wasn’t even a scratch on the wheel arch, nor the door handle. I don’t know what material INEOS use for their extensions, but it’s tough, very tough.
With a huge sense of relief I left the Grenadier in second low, and ambled my way down rocky descent whilst enjoying the views of the snow capped hills in the distance.
It wasn’t long before I reached the road that would take me to Tebay services, then the 70-odd mile drive back to Muddy Towers via the M6. Tomorrow would be spent at work, so the Grenadier would be sat in a car park all day, but the day after I had another date with Russ from Ardventures. This time I would meet him in Hawes, North Yorkshire, to drive some equally stunning roads.
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