Exploring the Lake District

by Zoe M and Charlotte D

On Sunday the 16th of March the PGS A Level geographers embarked on their field work trip to the Lake District. We arrived and were swiftly greeted by Faye, one of our tutors, who showed us the beautiful site at FSC Blencathra before we were treated to a much-needed dinner after six hours on the road. 

The next day, after an introduction to that day’s investigation, we travelled to the Easdale valley, where we proceeded to make the trek to Easedale tarn, encountering various glacial features along the way; most excitingly a rouché moutonnée hat, comprised of a smaller roche moutonnée on top of a larger one! After a careful descent from the tarn we stopped off in Grasmere, popping into the world-famous gingerbread shop (where there was rarely no queue!) before making our way back to the centre for a lesson on data presentation and GIS. 

Energised by that day of physical geography, we were excited to start our human fieldwork and it didn’t disappoint. We spent the day in Keswick looking at its representation as “Adventure Capital UK”. As part of this, we completed land use maps, questionnaires and pedestrian counts. We also had free time at lunch to explore the town and see for ourselves why it draws so many tourists each year. In the afternoon, we visited the lovely Derwentwater which was stunning in the springtime sun. When we returned to the centre it was time for our quiz, won by Adam. 

On the fourth and final day, we ventured to the edge of the centre to measure the infiltration rates over different land uses (forest and grassland). We took a few minutes to admire the view one last time before bidding farewell to our tutors and leaving the wonderful Blencathra Field Studies Centre for the final time. 

Overall, we all thoroughly enjoyed this experience, with particular highlights being Miss Burton's travel trivia which lightened the mood on the long journeys as well as being treated to an unexpected flypast by the RAF’s low flying training. This was a wonderful trip and we really feel we have benefitted from this deep dive into fieldwork ahead of our NEA. Thank you to Miss Burton and Mrs Knott for organising this trip as well as the FSC Blencathra for providing such interesting lessons and fieldwork.