Crag Fell and Lank Rigg

Thursday 23rd December 2010 

On this walk I returned to the spot where I undertook my walk last Christmas Eve, near Ennerdale Water, visiting the lake before starting the walk. Last year was the first time that I’d actually been to the water’s edge of Ennerdale Water and I was glad to make the acquaintance again of this beautiful lake. Rather than taking the route over Anglers' Crag, which I took last year and was fraught with difficulty, I climbed beside the stream, Ben Gill, on a faint but fun, little path that climbs the steep hillside. This is a wonderful, brilliantly made path that made the climb a sheer delight for me as it ingeniously wound its way up the hillside. On the main path I crossed the gill and climbed the steep hillside up to the top of Crag Fell, which has awesome views up the valley of Ennerdale, but sadly on this day the higher fells were shrouded in hill fog, though fortunately the mist was keeping mostly away from me. Leaving the summit of Crag Fell I descended the grassy slopes and passed through a wood before climbing back onto the open fell. After passing over the uninteresting hill of Whoap I climbed steeply to the wind-swept, bleak and isolated fell of Lank Rigg. Ever since Wainwright left a two shilling coin at the summit of Lank Rigg, later visitors to this remote fell have left similar coins for others to find. I however didn’t find any buried treasure (though I didn’t look very hard), nor did I leave anything there myself. I stopped for lunch in the shelter of a cairn, southwest of the summit, and gazed out over the West Cumbrian landscape, towards Sellafield nuclear power station and out to sea. When I returned to the summit of Lank Rigg I found that a bitterly cold breeze was now blowing. For most of this holiday there had been little or no wind, so this was an unwelcome addition that prompted me to put my cagoule on as protection against the wind while descending the steep slopes of Lank Rigg before climbing over Whoap again. Passing through the wood once more I climbed back up to the top of Crag Fell where the wind was just as cold as it had been on Lank Rigg. Slowly I descended the long western slopes of Crag Fell back over Ben Gill and into a wood where an excellent path dropped me gradually down to the valley floor. 

This was a nice, relaxing walk in excellent, but cold, weather. The fells however, were not at the standard that would have made this a great walk. Crag Fell has a great, craggy, northern side but the rest of it is a dull as the entirety of Lank Rigg. My previous day's walk, over Fellbarrow and Low Fell, suffered from this as well. They were good as a short, relaxing, walk, but were not very satisfying as an all-day walk in the Lakes. My only real reason for going up these fells was because they are Wainwright Fells. Five years ago I started setting myself the target of going up every fell that Wainwright had written about in his Pictorial Guides. After going up Lank Rigg I had just four Wainwrights left to complete the list of 214 fells. These small, outlying fells may not have the stature of the bigger fells, but as Wainwright's they have equal standing with Helvellyn and Bow Fell and all the rest of the Lakeland Fells. Next Easter I aim to return to the Lake District and complete the Wainwrights