Causey Pike

Sunday 25th January 2009

This was a good little walk over a fabulous fell. I only had a couple of hours in the Lake District before having to drive home so I decided to go for a walk up the distinctive fell of Causey Pike. I had recently been reading Wainwright’s book on the North-Western Fells and been thinking that if I lived locally (which would be a dream), I would often go for short walks up the fells and this walk was an ideal example of what could be done. As I was preparing to go to the Lake District I still didn’t know where I would be walking on the second day, until I thought of this lovely little walk inspired by Wainwright’s guide book. I parked just above the farm of Uzzicar and walked along the road past Stoneycroft to start to climb the hillside immediately after crossing the bridge over the Stoneycroft Gill. I previously went up Causey Pike only once back in 2004 after walking from Keswick, past Cat Bells, to the foot of Rowling End.

On that occasion I took the popular route across the hillside below Rowling End making a direct course for Causey Pike, but on this occasion I decided that I would take the older path that climbs steeply up to the end of the ridge at Rowling End. Soon after I started the climb the good weather that I had enjoyed the day before came to an end as it started to rain. Nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed the climb up Rowling End on an excellent path that ascends beside Elias Crag and gave me fabulous walking with occasional rocky bits to scramble up. The rain was intermittent and had stopped by the time I reached the summit of Rowling End which provided me with good views of the Newlands valley but fails to earn a chapter in Wainwright’s guide books. Walking through the rain and heather along the top of the ridge, I passed over Sleet Hause and started to climb the wonderfully steep, rocky buttress of Causey Pike where more delicious scrambling was required. Once at the top of Causey Pike I encountered snow once again but it seemed safe enough to proceed as I visited the many distinctive tops of Causey Pike, and so I traversed the ridge over Scar Crags, which unlike Rowling End was deemed worthy of it’s own chapter by Wainwright. The snow was a little deep in places but safe enough to proceed and was not as tiring as it had been the day before when I had actually grown rather sick and tired of the snow. In fact I quite enjoyed that walk along the ridge (ridge walking is one of the best forms of walking and is always a delight); I even began to enjoy walking through the snow, but I was to get a rude awakening once I got to Sail Pass.

My desired course was to turn right towards the miner's track through the Stoneycroft valley, but that way lay under deep drifted snow. To my left was little snow and I could easily have descended that way into the Rigg Beck valley, but I decided to try the snow. In other circumstances this may have been dangerous as it was steep just below the pass; in fact, later on I was chatting to someone about the path at this point as he had been up there the previous evening when the snow was frozen solid and needed crampons. As stated in my previous post I don’t have any crampons but I think I will have to get some if I want to do any more walks like these. Fortunately when I went through the snow it was soft and deep enough for me to be able to wade through it following the footsteps of others that had passed along this steep path earlier in the day. Under ordinary circumstances this is an excellent narrow path, created by miners, that cleverly crosses the steep hillside below Scar Crags dropping gradually down onto High Moss. I passed this way in 2006 in poor weather and now, once again I was passing in tricky conditions.

Soon the path eased and all that was left for me was a long, easy descent through the valley back to my car, but the weather had a few more treats in store. Once I was on High Moss it started to snow, and as the snow under foot disappeared during my descent so did the snow that was falling from the sky, turning into rain. So it was that I had a wet end to the walk as I followed the excellent miner’s road beside Stoneycroft Gill all the way back to the road where my car was waiting. I really enjoyed this walk, despite the poor weather, as the hills themselves were of such high quality, particularly the distinctive Causey Pike itself. The snow below the pass was a little tricky but was soft enough to be negotiable without crampons, and without being in danger of slipping so at no time during the walk did I feel that crampons were necessary. As I prepared to leave to go home a really annoying thing happened: the rain stopped and the sun came out, so it was becoming a really good day for walking, which is really annoying, but couldn’t be helped. I have learnt many times over the years that one can always come back to a hill and try again in better weather, and frequently I have changed my plans due to the weather. The hill never changes and will still be there next time. During this weekend I made decisions to continue walking in weather that it could be argued I wasn’t prepared for, but I believe I always made the right decision to continue as I was able to complete my walk successfully. I learnt a lot during this weekend about walking in snow and I will certainly try to be better prepared next winter.