Blencathra (and Latrigg)

Tuesday 19th December 2006

This day started very cold and with the same clear blues skies that I'd enjoyed the day before, but it didn't take long for it to cloud over which left me with a grey overcast day. It almost made me wish that I'd done Blencathra the day before when the weather was much better. C'est la vie. I caught the bus first thing in the morning to Scales and proceeded to walk into Mousthwaite Comb climbing above the levels. The path thrillingly clings to the side of the fell as I slowly climbed towards my goal: Sharp Edge.

The cloud descending over the edge ahead of me ominously forebode the later weather conditions as I climbed beside Scales Beck to Scales Tarn where I turned right up to the start of the edge as clouds began to envelop me. It was now time for me to begin the edge and frankly, compared with this, Striding Edge is a piece of cake; this was a terrifying experience especially with rocks that were wet and slippery. The bad weather conditions were making things very tricky, and my new walking pole may not have helped, but through sheer determination I managed to get to the top of the edge where snow dominated the landscape.

With my terrifying ascent over I crossed the snowy landscape at the top of Tarn Crag to climb up to the summit of Blencathra. The scenery was very thrilling and since it was still quite early (before midday) I decided to head back across the snow to have a look at the memorial cross on my way up to the cairn on Atkinson Pike. Returning to the summit I reluctantly began my descent down Hall's Fell Ridge, which was made a lot easier with my walking pole. Without it I would have had to put hand to rock many times, but that wasn't necessary now as I effectively had a third leg to keep me steady all the way down. After emerging from the clouds I found a good spot to stop and have my lunch, gazing out at the dreary, grey scenery that was enlivened only by the awesome landscape of Blencathra itself.

After lunch I descended the rest of the ridge down to the fell wall, though it's funny to recall that when I went up a couple of years ago the lower part of Hall's Fell Ridge seemed to be rather tiresome, but on this walk I simply lifted my pole and ran down; it was great fun. Rather than going into Threlkeld I took the path along the bottom of the fell all the way to the Blencathra Centre. From there I took a path marked 'to Keswick' passing Derwentfolds on my way down to Glenderaterra Beck. This is the route that I took back to Keswick on both my previous walks up Blencathra (the first time I went up Blencathra was in 2003). This time however, rather than turning left after the river onto the Keswick Railway Footpath, I turned right and started climbing Latrigg.

I had never been up this small hill before, but my father mentioned that he had when he came to Keswick as a boy. After he told me about this I felt I had to make a (not big) detour to Latrigg in his memory. Leaving the track I made my way across grassy fields to the top, which I was disappointed to discover were featureless. The path passes over what I assume was the summit before carrying on around the edge of the hill (it doesn't deserve to be called a fell). The only redeeming feature of Latrigg are the views across Derwent Water, which are usually great, but in the diminishing light they were unfortunately nothing special. With the light quickly fading I headed off the hill down into Keswick.