Crag Hill and Causey Pike

Monday 31st May 2021

At the start of this day I wake up at the foot of the stream that comes down the narrow valley that is sandwiched between Whiteside and Grasmoor having wild camped in a bend in the valley just before it opens out to Lanthwaite. When I put my head out of the tent I found clear blue skies were once again welcoming me and I also found there was a brisk cold wind on the tops that prevented me from feeling too hot. After breaking camp, I set off up the heavily eroded path that follows the stream all the way up to Coledale Hause and marvelled at the power of water that in recent years have washed away the efforts of man to maintain a path in this valley. Despite the poor state of the path, this was a fabulous route up that passes many small waterfalls through stunning scenery and had me stopping many times to admire the view back down the valley until eventually I reached the pass of Coledale Hause where I turned right climbing the scree directly in front of me. The easiest route follows the footpath up to the col between Crag Hill and Grasmoor before turning up broad grassy slopes to the top of the hill, but I wanted to climb Crag Hill direct. I climbed this way in 2007 and relished the opportunity to do so again through a gully that provided me with some delicious scrambling up to a platform above Eel Crag where I stopped to admire the view down Coledale and all around me.

Slowly I climbed the ridge above Eel Crag enjoyed every step that led me all the way up to the top of Crag Hill. Wainwright called the whole fell Eel Crag, but even he acknowledged that Crag Hill is a better name and since that is what the Ordnance Survey calls it, then that is how I have always thought of it. The distant views from the dome-shaped top of Crag Hill were very hazy as they had been for several days, but at least it felt cooler. Continuing on, I made my way to the start of the narrow, rocky ridge that Wainwright declared was the best way off Eel Crag, but I was disappointed to see that it is now in a terrible state with an abundance of loose stones that have made the traverse particularly unpleasant. There are many places in the Lake District where the paths have been repaired with paved stones, but there are many more places like this that are still heavily eroded and have not been repaired. Sadly the fells are slowly deteriorating due to huge numbers of people who walk over them every year and the heavy rain that is becoming more severe and the existing paths are just not able to cope. With these sad thoughts in my mind, I climbed up to the top of Sail and, diverting off the clear path, I touched the summit before returning to the path to descend this pathetic mound of a hill.

The path down from Sail was repaired in 2010 with a huge number of zigzags and I was curious to see what the path was like now. This path has been heavily criticised by many people and studying it now I decided that the problem is that there are too many turns across too wide an area and is itself now showing signs of erosion. Plus, I was amused to see that there is now a clear path that goes all the way around the zigzags completely missing them out. I guess that’ll be the work of fellrunners. Passing over Sail Pass I climbed up to Scar Crags and battling against a strong wind continued along the ridge to Causey Pike having last been over these two fells in 2009. After having my lunch in the shelter of Causey Pike I set off back along the ridge passing over Scar Crags again and down to Sail Pass where I turned right onto the path that descends steeply below Scar Crags onto a mine road. As I was descending I was frustrated to realise that there is a path that goes direct from Causey Pike to High Moss which would have prevented me having to climb over Scar Crags again. Coming off the mine road I crossed High Moss and began to ascend Outerside reflecting that the weather had been poor on my previous ascents.

I was last on Outerside at Christmas 2009 when there was snow on the ground and it was blowing a gale, and the only other time was in 2006 when there was low cloud. With no such problem now I climbed the heather-covered fell to the top and down to Low Moss, over the tiny undulation of Sile End before descending to Barrow Door and finally climbing to the top of Barrow. There I had a relaxing descent down the ridge into the village of Braithwaite where I immediately bought some water to make up for my lack of water earlier in the day. While drinking from a large bottle of water I walked along the old road between Brathwaite and Keswick where I bought some supplies before climbing steeply out of Keswick passing the Castlerigg Stone Circle, down to Naddle Bridge and up to Burns Farm Campsite where I would spend the rest of my holiday. This was a thankfully shorter walk than the twelve-hour epics that I had been doing over the weekend and had left me feeling very tired. I appreciated being able to walk over some great mountains, but had been disappointed by the deterioration in the fells that has left some paths very slippery.