Skiddaw and Blencathra

Sunday 5th April 2015

After a good night’s sleep at Skiddaw House Youth Hostel I awoke to gorgeous blue skies. The last time I stayed at Skiddaw House it had been really cold with snow lying on the ground, so it was fabulous to now be striding out of the hostel to warm weather. Soon after crossing the River Caldew I came off the path and made a course through heather towards the top of Hare Crag. Upon reaching the rocks at the top of Hare Crag I was now on the Derwent-Eden watershed where the streams south of me flow through the River Caldew and ultimately into the River Eden, the great river of the Pennines that extends its influence into the Lake District and claims much of the waters to the east including everything flowing out of Ullswater. To the north of me was Todd Gill, a stream whose waters flow into Bassenthwaite Lake and leaves the Lake District in the River Derwent. Most of the water that falls on the Lake District ultimately flows through the Derwent and reaches the sea at Workington.

For many days on this holiday I would be following the course of this watershed that divides the catchment areas for these two great rivers and at this point I was following the watershed as it steadily climbs the hillside along a faint path all the way up to the north col of Skiddaw, the highest fell in the Northern Fells. Upon reaching the wide track at the top of the ridge I followed the stony zigzagging path up to the north top of Skiddaw from where the main summit was only a short walk away along the stony ridge. Upon reaching the summit ridge the views had opened out to reveal a stunning temperature inversion with mist filling the valleys outside of the Lake District and over the Solway Firth while blue skies reigned overhead. It was a stunning sight where the Lake District seemed as an island floating on a sea of clouds.

When I was at the top of Skiddaw two years ago the weather was bitter, but now it was sensational with hardly a breath of wind and fabulous views across the Lake District. As I made my way south along the summit ridge of Skiddaw the views opened out across Derwent Water towards the fells of Borrowdale in a scene of breathtaking beauty and tranquillity. After crossing a col I climbed up to the top of Skiddaw Little Man, whose summit views are some of the best anywhere in the Lake District. With the whole of the majestic view of the Lake District arrayed before me I was reluctant to move from that spot, but the Easter weekend crowds coming up the busy Keswick path soon forced me to come down the steep path on the other side of the fell and leave the crowds behind by following the fence along the watershed over Jenkin Hill and up to Lonscale Fell.

I had to be very careful when descending the northern slopes of Lonscale Fell as there were drifts of snow still on these steep northern slopes so I was relieved to reach the col at the bottom and start the fabulous narrow ridge of Burnt Horse. To my right were steep crags and I was following a path that clings precipitously to the edge making for an exciting, though short, walk along the ridge until it broadens before I gradually descended beside a fence to the clear path from Keswick to Skiddaw House. Staying on the watershed, I crossed the path and headed to a fence junction marked on maps as The Stake. On the other side of the fence the ground was very wet, but dry ground was just a short distance beyond where a faint path headed straight up the grassy hill towards some rocks. I was walking up the grassy slopes of Mungrisdale Common, which is an infamous fell in the Lake District whose only point of interest is a rock known as Cloven Stone.

I had lunch at this point before making my way across the damp, dreary top of Mungrisdale Common that doesn’t warrant anyone's attention, however, Wainwright gave this grassy mound a chapter in his pictorial guides, even though he said this ‘upland prairie’ was best left to the sheep and precious holiday hours should not be wasted there. Ever since Wainwright gave it this undue attention people have been coming to this sodden field and when I reached the pathetic pile of stones at the so-called ‘summit’ there were a surprisingly large number of people clustered around it. When I visited the miniscule top previously, in 2008, I had come across from Blencathra, the only sensible approach, but I had wanted to actually climb it now and having done so crossed the horrendously boggy fell to the top of Foule Crag on the edge of Blencathra.

At the top of Foule Crag the watershed (a watersoak on Mungrisdale Common) turns left, but I turned right climbing up Blue Screes in order to visit the top of the majestic Blencathra. While I was making my way across to the popular summit of Blencathra, dark clouds had appeared overhead, but they were short-lived and by the time I had returned to the top of Foule Crag the sun was shining once more. With hindsight I shouldn’t have returned to Foule Crag and I should have descended down the steep, grassy, northern slopes of Blencathra from the summit until I reached a sheepfold and then followed Roughten Gill down (this is Wainwright’s recommended route). My route had been conceived to lessen the severity of the gradient and led to my descending on the north bank of the stream. The steep slopes into the gill made this such a tiring and hateful descent that by the time I had passed through the boggy ground at the bottom and finally reached the bridlepath, I had had enough.

When I checked the time I realised it was too early to go straight back to Skiddaw House so I made my way around the top of Glenderaterra Beck onto the Keswick to Skiddaw House path, which I followed heading towards Keswick for a short distance. Two years ago, I had abandoned a plan to climb the north-east buttress of Lonscale Fell because of snow, but I was now able to resurrect that idea and attempt the scramble. There was no path and no sign that anyone else had ever climbed up the steep, wet heather and rock buttress. This was a scary scramble that at times reduced me to crawling up the fell literally on my hands and knees whose one redeeming feature was when I finally, triumphantly, shakily reached the end emerging exactly at the east top of Lonscale Fell and from there the summit was just a short distance away for a second visit of the day.

The weather was once again sensational after the clouds earlier in the afternoon so the views south towards Thirlmere or over Derwent Water to the fells arrayed beyond were mesmerising. I caught my breath back after my harrowing climb by gazing at the views south over the Lake District, wandering around the fell looking for better views. All day I had been astonished at how good the weather was on this walk and with such sensational views. The views now, at the end of the day, were even better than they had been when I had visited Lonscale Fell earlier in the day. As I made a direct route from Lonscale Fell to Skiddaw House I reflected that this was the sort of day in the Lake District that I never want to end so that I had just kept on walking going from Skiddaw all the way up to Blencathra, which is something I’d never done before, but always dreamed of doing. The sun had shone on me in a fabulous day in the Lake District, but that sun was a ticking time-bomb for my skin.