Blencathra by Fell’s Fell Ridge

Saturday 10th April 2004

At this time of the year on my blog I run out of walks that I have done this year and in order to keep posting something every week I go back to a walk that I did many years ago that hasn’t previously been covered on this blog. This practice is not going to work for much longer as I’m soon going to run out of old walks to go on my blog, but that is not a problem yet as I have a fantastic holiday to describe in the Lake District at Easter in 2004. Subsequent to this holiday I have returned to the Lake District at Easter more often than not as it is a great time of the year to be walking in the Lakes and a great place to be walking at Easter. Previous to this visit I had been to the Lake District on just two previous occasions and so I was still at this time relatively inexperienced at fell-walking and this will show in the choices that I made and the walks that I did, however this holiday does show progress compared with my two previous visits. Every time you go to the Lake District you learn a little more about yourself and that fabulous place.

At the start of the holiday I spent all the morning of that first day travelling to the Lake District, arriving in Penrith at noon where I caught a bus to Threlkeld and headed straight across the fields at the back of the village to the foot of Hall’s Fell. I stopped only briefly to have my lunch before beginning the climb up the steep heather-clad fell. The going wasn’t too bad with a clear path leading me most of the way up until I reached the rocks at the top of the ridge, and from then on I enjoyed fabulous scrambling over the rocks as I tried to decide where was the best route up the rocks. Route selection is always part of the challenge on steep scrambles, even if they are on narrow ridges such as this. Bear in mind that I was inexperienced in scrambling at this point, so I was not able to draw on previous scrambles to enable me to select the best route. On a number of occasions I clambered up some seriously steep rocks only to find a clear path on the other side that I could have taken.

I have subsequently descended Hall’s Fell Ridge twice, in 2006 and 2011, both times after climbing the even trickier scramble of Sharp Edge on the other side of Blencathra. I have not climbed Hall’s Fell Ridge again since this first time, which must be a shame as it is a great way of climbing to the top of a fell. With luck on that first ascent I was able to negotiate the steep rocky ridge and finally reached the summit of Blencathra, Hallsfell Top, which lies at the very top of the ridge. When I got to the summit I found that I was in luck as the cloud that had been covering the fells to the south was absent not only from the top of Blencathra itself, but over all the northern fells including Skiddaw revealing magnificent views across these fells and beyond to the Solway Firth and into Scotland. Subsequent visits to the top of Blencathra have almost always been when snow has been on the ground (such as below) and the only exception, Easter 2011, had low cloud.

The best views from the top of Blencathra are towards Derwent Water and Keswick and that was where I was headed so I proceeded west along the top of Blencathra, something I usually do when on the fell even when I’m not descending in that direction as the views west open out gloriously as you walk along the top. There is just a small drop to the next top, Gategill Fell, and you don’t lose much height before reaching Knowe Crags at the end of the ridge, the top of Blease Fell. This is a fabulous walk along the top of the world with great views ahead of you towards Derwent Water and the distinctive fells of the northern-western corner of the Lake District. At the top of Blease Fell I had a steep descent down the grassy slopes with trails cut through the bracken lower down all the way to the car park near the Blencathra Centre.

There is a great route to Keswick from the Blencathra Centre that wasn’t possible when Wainwright wrote his pictorial guide to the Northern Fells, but which is now mentioned in Chris Jesty’s revised edition. Long before that revision came out I took that route following footpaths behind the Blencathra Centre to the old farmhouse of Derwentfolds, and continued the descent to a footbridge over Glenderaterra Beck where a farmer’s access road brought me within striking distance on the old railway to Keswick. This railway was still active when Wainwright was writing his guides and finally closed in 1972. It is now open as a footpath from the outskirts of Threlkeld all the way to Keswick and is a great walk through the wooded valley of the River Greta with the railway crossing the river nine times on its four mile length. This was a wonderful way to end my first day in the Lake District on this holiday and set me up for a great holiday to come.