The upland scenery of the Lake District

Perhaps the most telling effect of the role of ice in fashioning the upland scenery can be seen in the creation of the corrie basins which bite deeply into the sides of the ridgesThings to do in Windermere. Whereas the preglacial setting was one of rounded slopes gently curving upwards to merge with flat plateau tops, corrie development has led to a rough scalloped appearance. Not every part of the upland surface has been affected to the same degree and on many ridge sides there is a marked contrast between opposing slopes. The Helvellyn ridge, for example, presents its smooth face towards Thirlmere on the west, and this contrasts markedly with the indented, deeply cut angular topography which runs down to the shores of Ullswater.

Valleys like those of Grisedale and Glen ridding start in corrie basins, often with scooped out lake hollows for example, Red Tarn and Grisedale Tarn.

They are backed by a steep headwall, and on their sides precipitous slopes reach up to the narrow divide or arete ridge. Two of the best known features of the Lake District landscape, Striding Edge and Swirral Edge, are aretes formed by corries biting deeply into what was once almost a continuous smooth eastern face of Evelyn. Seen from the mountain top, the narrow spines are impressive enough, but if the scree which has accumulated on their sides were to be stripped away, the resulting solid rock slopes would be almost precipitous.

Many of the corries, though by no means the majority, contain small lakes held up either by rock sills or a boulder moraine. Impressive morainic ridges occur across the entrances to Blea Water above Mardale, Bowscale Tarn on the Skiddaw massif and Gillercornb at the head of Borrowdale. Most moraines resemble great heaps of boulders piled one on top of the other as they were left behind when the corrie glacier had lost its impetus and was only too willing to dump its load of debris. Crossing boulder moraines can be a tiring experience, as anyone who has negotiated the rock jumble across the entrance to the corrie containing Levers Water above Coniston knows. Most of the corrie tarns occupy quite shallow rock hollows, but in the case of Blea Water at the head of Mardale the surprising depth of 207 ft was found. The back¬wall is usually very steep even when compared with the slopes of the side walls. Dow Crag, formed of a hard andesite rock, is precipitous in its upper part and for that reason the vertical buttress is favored by rock climbers.

Although the detailed form of corries varies considerably depending on the rock type, orientation, the presence of secondary features like moraines and screes, there is a surprising uniform relationship between two of its major dimensions the height of the back wall and the length of the 'seat'. Measurement made from the many corries scattered throughout the Lake District show that the ratio of back wall to seat varies within the narrow limits of 1:2•8 to 1:3'2. Rock type seems to play little part in determining the distribution or size of the corrie basins. The fine group which overlook the Buttermere valley from the southwest brings this out very clearly. Ling Comb is cut entirely in a hard igneous granophyre a type of granite with large crystals. The adjacent corrie enclosing Bleaberry is hollowed out of both granophyre and slates, but in spite of this dual rock composition its form is not very different. In a wider context corries show no preference for any of the major rock types, as they occur both in the Skiddaw Slates, as around Blencathra  and Black Combe , as well as in the Borrowdale Volcanic Series at Coniston Old Man , Langdale Fells  and Helvellyn.

Margy and Wayne Lutz were camping in Coastal British Columbia when they discovered their dream home: the float cabins of Powell Lake. They're not houseboats, but "float cabins", that is, they're permanently anchored to shore. Float cabins were first built on Powell Lake as inexpensive and portable homes for loggers and fishermen. Since then they've become regulated and the 200 float cabin owners here these days lease their water lots from the BC government for 0 per year. The Lutz's bought their retirement home in 2001 for 35000 Canadian dollars (about 000 USD, at the time), what they considered worth the risk if their experiment in off-grid living didn't workout. A few years later they retired early from their school district jobs in Los Angeles, anxious to start living their dream, and moved into their small (420 square feet, plus a 200-square-foot sleeping loft) floating home. At the time it didn't have indoor plumbing so they hiked 4 flights of stairs up the granite cliff to an outhouse (they've since installed a composting toilet indoors). Today, the Lutzs live completely off-the-grid. There's no water heater (they boil it on the wood stove as a luxury) and no plumbing. They hand-pump water from the lake (for washing dishes, they remove most food first and use only biodegradable soap and the water is returned to the lake). There's no trash pickup. They compost nearly everything. For their energy uses, the Lutzs rely on solar, wind, and thermoelectric power. For ...
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