Greenup Pass

Monday 31st December 2012

The weather forecast for this walk did not look good. The rain that had started the day before had continued all through the night and was forecast to continue throughout the morning. The ‘F’ word was even mentioned in the forecast which made me rather nervous as I was attempting a walk that I had started, in the opposite direction, at Easter in 2010. On that occasion it had rained heavily all night and was still raining as I started to walk from Borrowdale through Stonethwaite up the Greenup valley, but it wasn’t long before my way was blocked by a raging torrent that forced me to turn back and find an alternative route over the hills via Blea Tarn. However, despite the weather forecast warning of flooding, when I got up for this walk it wasn’t raining so my fears were eased slightly and I decided to attempt the climb over the pass of Greenup Edge, which is something I’d never succeeded in doing before.

Leaving Grasmere I walked up the lane and into Far Easedale. The lane was very wet with deep pools of water littering the lane that would have been trouble for me if I wasn’t wearing the SealSkinz Trekking Socks that I had been using for the first time on this holiday. Despite the flooded lane my feet stayed dry thanks to my waterproof socks. This lane is a fantastic walk, whether wet or dry, and leads to Stythwaite Steps where a wet and muddy climb started up Far Easedale under grim weather. The promised rain soon began to fall and the wind blew strong but I battled on nevertheless. The weather wasn’t making this a pleasant walk, but the surroundings were just as awesome as ever with high crags either side of a valley that would have been a delight to explore, if the weather was good. Far Easedale is a fantastic valley, but this was actually only the second time that I’d walked along its length, with the first time being back in 2004, also in poor weather. In good weather the ridge between Calf Crag and Helm Crag proves too strong a temptation.

The bad weather encouraged me to just put my head down and plough on up the valley until I reached the top of Far Easedale where I had a rest at the top before crossing the upper end of the notoriously boggy Wythburn valley. This is a horribly wet place, particularly with the weather that I had to cope with as the path had deteriorated into a muddy slime and then disappeared to leave me with a boggy traverse of the valley until I reached higher ground on the other side where the path re-appeared. This was not a nice place to be in this weather, but I would have worse to come. Despite the weather, I resolutely climbed the path battling against the wind and rain until finally I reached Greenup Edge, the misnomer that is actually a wide boggy plain between the fells of High Raise and Ullscarf. I had never walked over Greenup Pass before and based on my horrifying experience on this walk I’ll not be in a hurry to repeat the experience.

The Coast to Coast Path crosses Greenup Pass, but that hasn’t made the path any clearer as all I found was a faint path marked by cairns crossing the bogs, and all the time it was raining and very windy. This was a truly horrible place to be in these weather conditions and not somewhere that I wanted to linger. Finally I reached the top of Lining Crag where I found myself on the edge of an astonishing cove with steep sides all around; if there is an actual edge at Greenup then surely this was it, even if it is only one-sided. Retreating slightly from the edge of the cliff-face I took a path that crosses the top of Greenup Gill and carefully made my way down a steep, manufactured path following the stream all the way into the bowl, continuing on this interesting path that I had attempted to walk up in 2010 and found impassable. With the rain continuing to fall I grew apprehensive about the raging torrent that had blocked my path almost three years earlier.

When I eventually reached the torrent that had blocked my passage in 2010 I found a gently flowing stream that was easy to ford. The Greenup path has an astonishing number of fords to cross and that was my undoing in 2010, but now, despite the prolonged rain, the river levels were not as high as then. I think that is because the Lake District is used to prolonged rainfall and has a vast network of rivers and streams to remove that water. For the Lake District to flood, recently most notably in November 2009 (and my experience was not long after that compounded by snow melt), requires enormous amounts of rain to fall in an astonishingly short space of time. This wasn’t the case now and I was able to continue along the water-logged path with no trouble all the way into Borrowdale. One of the reasons why I was able to complete this walk, despite the horrendous weather, was because I had gear that was able to keep me warm and dry. I remember as a child being told by an experienced walker that so long as you can stay warm and dry then you will be able to walk in any weather.

Once in Borrowdale I walked along the road through the Jaws of Borrowdale and then took a track on the right that climbed up to the Bowder Stone, which is a huge rock that appears to have fallen from Bowder Crag uncounted years ago. I had never visited this popular tourist attraction before and since there was no one else around I was easily able to climb the ladder to the top and enjoy the vertiginous views. My original plan for the end of this walk had been to walk through Borrowdale all the way to Derwent Water and then along the western shore to Keswick, but I quickly realized that it would be dark long before I reached Keswick. A walk through woodland brought me back down to the road and thence to the village of Grange where I caught a bus to Keswick, which was a much more prudent idea than attempting to walk to Keswick. This was an interesting walk in challenging weather that I found strangely satisfying in my adventure over Greenup Pass. I never saw anyone else going over the pass and I’m not surprised for the weather was truly awful.