The Uldale Fells

Saturday 4th April 2015

After poor weather during the week leading up to Good Friday I was astonished to arrive in the Lake District and find stunning weather with bright sunshine and clear views. I couldn’t resist returning once again to this most perfect of places to go walking and I was thrilled to be back in the Lakes again, and delighted that the weather was so good. It doesn’t matter how many times I come to the Lake District I seemingly never grow tired of it. I had recently gone more than a year between visits and became more desperate than ever to return, but now I had a whole week to enjoy, and the weather was rejoicing with me. After passing through the village of Bassenthwaite I walked up a quiet lane banked by the yellow flowers of celandines and the green leaves of wild garlic until I reached Cassbeck Bridge where I turned up to the top of the ridge near Orthwaite. My plan on this holiday was to follow watersheds, which are the dividing lines between the catchment areas of two rivers. Coming off the road I climbed the ridge towards Great Cockup that lies on the watershed that had comes into the Lake District over Binsey on a ridge where all the waters south of me ultimately runs into the River Derwent.

It took a long time for me to climb the delightfully named fell of Great Cockup with many false tops prolonging the effort until eventually I reached the tiny pile of stones that mark the summit of the fell. After a lunch that was spent relaxing by the summit in the lovely sunshine, I headed across to Trusmadoor, a fascinating notch in the ridge with a reassuring profusion of rock on both sides of the pass. Since I was following the top of the ridge I made my way up the other side of Trusmadoor, after coming down from Great Cockup, and climbed up to the top of Meal Fell. I had visited these two fells previously in 2008 when I climbed both of them from Trusmadoor in cloudy weather, and on that occasion I had continued along the ridge towards Great Sca Fell. Now though, I thought I’d take an alternative route as I came off the ridge, and off the watershed, north into the valley of the young River Ellen.

When initially planning this holiday I was going to start the walk from the village of Uldale and approach the fells from the north along the watershed for the River Eden. Cuts to the bus service around the Northern Fells had forced a change of plans, and since I had plenty of time on this walk I decided that I could still do my original plan by walking down the tranquil valley of the River Ellen towards Longlands. This was a lovely, enjoyable moment in the walk as I made my own way down the valley with little or no path to follow and no sign of anyone else around me until eventually I picked up a farmer's track that runs beside Longlands Beck with the steep grassy slopes of Longlands Fell towering to my right. At the tiny hamlet of Longlands I turned onto a track round to the northern end of Longlands Fell before turning onto the ridge, picking up the Eden watershed that had come into the Lake District over Aughertree Fell.

At this point the sun had become obscured by thin cloud, so as I climbed the ridge of Longlands Fell it wasn’t as warm as it had been earlier in the day and the views were rather hazy, so I just kept my head down and toiled up the ridge. Beyond the top of Longlands Fell I followed the ridge up to Great Sca Fell. The Uldale Fells are not the most eye-catching fells in the Lake District being really just broad, undulating, grassy ridges with steep sided valleys. This made for a tiring climb with little compensation for the effort until I finally reached the top of Great Sca Fell where the watersheds for the River Derwent and the River Eden meet. I would now be following the Derwent-Eden watershed for many days, but first I had to cross the saturated col that seemed more like being a watersoak rather than a watershed, eventually squelching my way across and up to the summit of Knott.

Knott has a broad, but stony, top commanding great views of the whole of the Northern Fells with the most striking views towards the giants of these fells: Skiddaw and Blencathra. Heading towards Skiddaw I followed a faint path that plunged steeply to an annoyingly deep col and then climbed Great Calva on a very boggy path that may not be draining any water away, but drained all the energy out of me as I climbed. When I finally reached the fence at the top of the ridge between Great Calva and Little Calva I just wanted to get back down the other side of the fell as quickly as possible. With hindsight the best thing to have done would have been to have climbed to the top of Great Calva and descended down the southerly slopes on one of the faint paths that lead from the summit towards Skiddaw House. Instead I headed straight down to the supply road from the fence wading through dense heather descending parallel with Dead Beck.

By the time I’d reached the road I was exhausted and relieved that the walk was nearly at an end. I may have been thrilled to be back in the Lake District, but I had not started my holiday on the greatest fells. My preference on walks is to ascend steeply and to descend as slowly as possible, but on this walk I had done that the other way round. Long grassy ascents had not held my enthusiasm and the descent from Great Calva had been pure madness. My route was dictated by a desire to follow the watershed, though my descent from Great Calva had been nowhere near the watershed, but looking back it is curious to realise that my favourite spot on the walk was when I was not on the watershed. Descending beside the tiny River Ellen was an example of a long, gradual descent and of getting away from the crowds (even in the remote Uldale Fells). That is unfortunately not something that I would get to do very often on this holiday.