Grasmoor direct

Saturday 28th September 2013

I have wanted to do this climb for a long time, in fact ever since I first read Wainwright’s Pictorial Guide to the North Western Fells. Wainwright’s description of the direct ascent of Grasmoor was intriguingly tempting as he wrote that it was “on the whole … probably less difficult than the North Wall of the Eiger.” The western face of Grasmoor is certainly imposing and is a formidable object overlooking Lanthwaite and the northern end of Crummock Water. Every time I’ve planned to tackle the ascent weather has kept getting in my way. I tried to climb Grasmoor direct on the day of Will & Kate’s wedding in 2011, but eventually I used a different route to climb Grasmoor due to high winds, and then this year I chickened out once again due to snow and strong winds, so when good weather, one of the last really good days of the year, appeared I grabbed the opportunity to finally achieve my long-held desire of climbing Grasmoor direct.

I got up very early and drove for four hours to the Lake District, parking near Lanthwaite Green Farm at the foot of the steep western slopes of Grasmoor. The weather was perfect; after all my previous failed attempts I had just the right weather for the climb with hardly a cloud in the sky and hardly a breath of wind. A short walk up rising slopes through bracken brought me to a steep scree run that was frustratingly slippery due to the severity of the gradient so I was greatly relieved when I finally managed to reach the top of the scree and climb through a rock gateway up a grassy rake that led me to a terrace where I could finally have a rest and contemplate my progress and the views. Wainwright mentions a ‘fat man’s agony’ at this point, a narrow squeeze between two splintered rocks, but the worn way now avoids the splintered rocks by simply scrambling up the rocks to the left, and the fat man’s agony is seemingly no longer in use (so maybe the ascent would be less painful for Wainwright now).

An all-too-short scramble up a shallow arête led me to a pinnacle where there seemed to be many alternative routes but I was determined to take the most challenging along the very edge of the arête, which brought to mind something I’d recently read in 'The Great Outdoors' magazine about solo walking. The article was treating solo walking as something ‘you must try’ as if most people would never do it, but I have always solo walked right from the beginning, and so I don’t consider it as dangerous. But as I was scrambling up the arête I realised that no one knew I where I was, I hadn’t told anyone I was going to the Lake District, only that I was going for a walk. If I’d slipped off that arête I’d have really had problems as I’d still not seen anyone all day and it would be another 24 hours before I was going to be missed, and even then they wouldn’t have known where to look.

After this cheery thought I reached the pinnacle from where I could see that I still had some way to go along a rough curving ridge that leads up to Grasmoor End, the prominent terminus of the Grasmoor summit plateau. From this vantage point I had fantastic views towards Buttermere and the Scafell Pikes on the horizon, and also across Lorton Vale to Loweswater. I had been in the shade throughout the climb, but now I was bathed in glorious sunshine on this wonderful day with views all around. After absorbing the view I walked across the grass and moss of the summit plateau to the top of Grasmoor from where I crossed the plateau to the northern edge and the awe-inspiring Dove Crags. It would be great if there was a walk up those crags but the best that Wainwright had to offer was around the edge so I would have to be content now to walk along the top and slowly descend straight down to Coledale Hause with Grisedale Pike ahead of me and Skiddaw looming large on the horizon.

I enjoyed the path down to Coledale Hause as it is little used and delightfully rough, but it soon leads onto the well-used path across Coledale Hause. I had been aiming for Grisedale Pike, but on a sudden whim I headed up the steep slopes of Sand Hill, simply because I’d never climbed them before. From there I soon reached the popular path that skirts around the top of Hobcarton Crag near Hopegill Head where I turned right around the top of the crags and all the way to the top of Grisedale Pike. There were fantastic views from the top so I sat on the side the hill and had my lunch while trying keep away from the crowds at the summit. I returned back along the fantastic terrain at the top of Hobcarton Crags to Hopegill Head where I veered north off the main ridge and down a steep, narrow ridge that leads excitingly to Ladyside Pike. I had visited this fell just once before in 2005, but now I returned in much better weather, not for the sake of Ladyside Pike, but for the craggy ridge that leads to it from Hopegill Head.

It was exciting to scramble down the steep crags to the Notch, and even more exciting on the return when the winds seemed to have picked up and provoked more caution, until eventually I returned safely to Hopegill Head. With the great weather continuing I proceeded along the narrow, rocky ridge that leads from Hopegill Head to Whiteside, which I had started to walk along last Easter and was turned back by strong winds, but I had no such problem this time and easily reached Whiteside, my final fell of the year. While sitting on the side of the fell I gazed out across the Cumbrian coastal plain towards Scotland and contemplated the fact that this was undoubtedly my last mountain walk of the year, so I reflected on the last nine months. This has been a rather nostalgic year for me as I returned repeatedly to the Lake District reliving great ascents that I’d remembered from the past without really going anywhere new all year, not even in Scotland. Next year I will have to visit some new areas, but I can’t forget about the Lake District. Despite returning frequently this year I’m not tired of the place and instead I am just as desperate to return. It seems the more times I go, the more times I want to come back.

As much as I loved the climb of Grasmoor it was ultimately disappointing as it didn’t last long enough to be truly satisfying. It was too easy; the description by Wainwright made me think it was going to be hard, but it was nowhere near as difficult as the North Wall of the Eiger. I suppose after all that hype it could never live up to it. After the climb I had a glorious stroll through the North Western Fells, but there’s no hiding the fact that the whole day had been about one climb that was over by half-ten which left me with almost a whole day to fill, albeit in glorious weather. After my long contemplations at Whiteside I decided that I didn’t want to descend by the same route that I’d taken at Easter so I descended north from the east top down knee-crushing heather slopes to Dodd. The end of the walk was marred by a horribly steep descent through heather off the end of Dodd, but once I was on the fell-wall path I had a pleasant walk back to my car at Lanthwaite Green.

Allen Crags

Saturday 7th September 2013

After suffering with torrential rain on the day before, I had hoped for something better on this walk, but it wasn’t to be. It was raining when I left Borrowdale Youth Hostel, which is really depressing as you know you have a pathetic day coming up, and it continued to rain all day. It is better if you can start the day well, then you have hope it’ll continue like that, but when it starts bad you think it will never end, which makes it hard to start. I started the walk by returning along the now familiar path to Seathwaite along the same route that I’d taken just two days previously. It had not occurred to me until this point that the way I’d planned this holiday was to go from Langdale to Borrowdale on Wednesday and to Wasdale on Thursday, and then return to Borrowdale on Friday and back to Langdale on Saturday. On the last day of my holiday I was returning to where I'd started and unfortunately I didn’t have good weather for it. When I got to Stockley Bridge I finally parted company with Thursday’s route as rather than heading towards Sty Head and Wasdale I continued beside Grains Gill.

This hugely popular path is heavily manufactured as it is often used as a route up to Scafell Pike and the occasions when I have used it in the past has been while ascending or descending that great crowd-pulling mountain. Despite this it’s not a bad route with a few interesting easy scrambles and I quite enjoyed the climb up the valley towards the grey murk lurking around the imposing face of Great End. At the top of the path I crossed Ruddy Gill and joined the highway-like path between Langdale and Sty Head heading up to the col just below Esk Hause that is often confused with that pass. This slightly lower pass is the highest point on the path and is not far from the top of Allen Crags. My plan for this day had been to climb Thornythwaite Fell on my way up to Glaramara before walking along the ridge to Allen Crags and from there along the highway to Langdale. I had decided against this plan in view of the weather, but since I was now so close to the summit of Allen Crags I decided to nip up to the wind-swept top, which elicited a questioning response from a passing walker who had seen me go up and immediately come back down to the pass.

The weather was even worse at the summit of Allen Crags, so having slapped my hands onto the summit cairn I turned around and came back down again. From this point the rain started to ease slightly and briefly stopped before starting once again with renewed vigour, which obliterated any thought I had that the weather would get better, so I disconsolately continued along the highway and  dropped down to Angle Tarn and then up to Rossett Pass. On this last climb of my holiday I became rather sad at the thought of leaving the Lake District and that Allen Crags might have been my last mountain of the year. I remember standing at the top of Stob Ghabhar a couple of years ago at the end of my holiday in Scotland thinking that I wouldn’t see the view from the top of a mountain again till the following year. Although I have since cautiously ventured into the world of winter walking I still prefer to do all my walking in the spring and summer so I still have that moment when my six month exile is about to begin. You can’t beat a good summer’s walk over great mountains and I am going to miss it.

Beyond the top of Rossett Pass I started to descend the excellent path that leads into Mickledon and Langdale and I reflected that I hadn’t properly been on this path before. I had climbed out of Mickledon to Rossett Pass in 2003, but I took a wrong turning, missed the start of the zigzags and climbed straight up beside Rossett Gill. Wainwright described Rossett Gill as the best-known of the Lakeland foot-passes due to its stoniness which had been getting worse year after year. Improvements to the path have now made the route very much easier and is actually a pleasure with the direct route no longer apparent and the zigzags were a delightful descent along a wonderfully engineered path, especially at a point where the path drops through a short stony gully. This may be a lovely route, but the rain was showing no signs of easing as I slowly made my way down to the bottom of the valley and along Mickledon to Langdale.

By the time I reached the hiker's bar at the old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel I had wet feet and was soaked, so I refused to leave the bar until the rain had stopped. My holiday may have ended with two very wet days, but I had enjoyed some fabulous weather earlier in the week. I had walked along some very popular paths that have been heavily engineered to cope with thousands of pairs of feet every year, but they pass through some truly stunning mountain scenery. Rossett Gill may be a very popular path (and even on this walk in torrential rain there were dozens of walkers on the path), but it passes through some of the best rock scenery in the country. For most of this holiday I had concentrated on the area of the Lake District around Scafell Pike where the indisputably best scenery anywhere in the Lake District is located. After a couple of drinks in the hiker's bar the sun finally came out but by that time the bus had arrived to start my journey home and it wouldn’t be long before the rain was back, and so would I.

Whin Rigg and the Corridor Route

Friday 6th September 2013

After the wonderful weather that I enjoyed just two days previously, the weather on my holiday was becoming gradually worse until on this walk I had persistent rain that left me completely wet by the end of the day. It wasn’t raining when I started so I quickly set off to Lund Bridge and up the steep bank beside Greathall Gill to Whin Rigg. I had come down this way seven years ago in a hurry, but not this time as rain began to fall soon after I started to climb the steep, bracken covered slope. On reaching the top of the ridge I headed across the broad grassy terrain to the top of Whin Rigg, another first-time ascent for me, where sheer crags fall scarily down to the screes of Wastwater. During the course of the morning rain passed over me in waves, but it was still very windy and deterred me from exploring too closely to the perilous edges of the crags. Nevertheless I ventured as close to the edge as I dared in order to get a good view down the precipitous slopes and take a few pictures.

I continued along the fell beside the edge of the crags making my way across to the neighbouring top of Illgill Head and then all the way down to Wasdale Head on a great path in the best weather I got all day with the giants of Wasdale Head brooding before me under dark clouds. I had taken a similar route to Borrowdale from Wastwater in 2010, although I took the lakeside path then below the Screes instead of over the tops before climbing Scafell Pike. My plan for this day had been to once again climb Scafell Pike, but eventually I decided that this wasn’t the best day to climb the highest mountain in England. My easiest route over the fells to Borrowdale would have been to follow Lingmell Beck up to Sty Head, but I fancied taking a tougher route to Sty Head over Lingmell Col and along the Corridor Route. This involved climbing the tourist route towards Scafell Pike, which is usually a very busy path, but not on this day as soon after I started the climb it started to rain again and this time it would keep falling for the rest of the day.

As I climbed Brown Tongue the clouds descended around me and the rain fell ever harder. On occasions like this you can only keep your head down and keep going along the path hoping to reach your destination as quickly as possible. After sheltering from the rain at Hollow Stones while having my lunch, I finally reached Lingmell Col where I saw a large group of people resolutely walking from Corridor Route up towards Scafell Pike in the high winds, driving rain and low cloud. I don’t know who they were, but it was the first time I’d seen that many people since starting the climb. I passed over the col and immediately started to descend again, this time on the excellent Corridor Route. It’s been many years since I was last on this route and in places the demon path-builder has had his evil way and ruined what was a delightful path, but in many places it’s still just as good as it’s always been.

I guess the path repair is unavoidable as the problem is popularity with the more people who use a path the more it wears away requiring work to prevent erosion that itself detracts from the delectable quality of the route. The proximity of Scafell Pike means that this route is often used by people climbing that mountain (such as the group I saw) and so such remedial work will be required. It is a pity that I can’t have the Lake District to myself. The Corridor Route retains the scrambles that make the route so fun and interesting, and also fortunately deters the passing tourist from using it. The continuing rain failed to ruin my enthusiasm for this excellent path as I satisfyingly made my way along the route and eventually reached Sty Head for the third time in three days. The weather was getting worse each time I was there and I feared to visit the pass a fourth time in four days lest even worse should await me.

On coming down from Sty Head I decided to stay on the left bank of the Sty Head Gill rather than crossing the bridge on the bridlepath. On my first visit to this area I took the footpath on the left bank of the stream and ever since I have always favoured that route over the more popular bridlepath, and this occasion was no different despite the poor weather. The path was very faint, seemingly rarely walked, fortunately, with the wet conditions making it particularly tricky especially on the scrambly sections near Taylor Gill Force where the path descends perilously along a cliff edge above the waterfall. This is a fantastic route, and great fun no matter what the weather, especially due to the close views one gets of Taylor Gill Force. Once I reached Seathwaite Farm I returned to Borrowdale Youth Hostel by walking along the road to Seatoller.

Despite the weather on this walk I think I really did get the most out of the day by walking in some tremendous mountain scenery and along some great paths, even though I got awfully wet. When I got to the hostel I found that my rucksack, an Osprey Talon 33, had failed to keep anything inside it dry. This rucksack had been bought last Christmas, but the only time it had previously been used was last Easter when it had failed to rain all week so this was the first time that the rucksack had been exposed to persistent rain. It is a good rucksack and I’m considering buying another Osprey pack, but it is not waterproof and my Osprey Talon was not the only one in the hostel drying room that evening. Whether that is a reflection of its popularity or its ineffectiveness in the wet I don’t know, but I will have to remember to make better use of waterproof linings in the future. This may have been a wet day that left me and everything in my rucksack soaked, but it was a good walk through tricky conditions.

Seathwaite Fell and Pillar

Thursday 5th September 2013

After the tremendous weather on the day before this walk, it was disappointing to now have weather that was very poor. It hadn’t started too badly as I walked towards the small farm of Seathwaite, a gateway from Borrowdale onto the glorious fells that culminate in the highest of them all: Scafell Pike. Beyond Seathwaite I continued along the heavily manufactured bridlepath to Sty Head even though I rarely go this way as my preferred path is the much rougher route on the opposite side of Taylorgill Force. On the few occasions that I have used the bridlepath it has always been in descent, the last time being the reverse of the climb I was about to do. On New Year’s Eve 2008, after a fantastic walk above a temperature inversion, I descended into the cold valley from Seathwaite Fell, and now I reversed my steps of that walk to climb Seathwaite Fell, for the first time. Seathwaite Fell dominates the view from the valley below even though it is tiny compared with the greater fells beyond like Great End and Great Gable.

Wainwright describes two routes up Seathwaite Fell, straight up the northern face or further round the western side of the fell. Previously I used the latter, easier route for my descent and had planned to take the former, steeper route in ascent, but with the clouds dropping in worsening weather conditions I chickened out and stayed on the main path until the gradient levelled out before striking out up pathless grassy slopes following a stream up the steep fellside. By the time I reached the felltop the clouds had inevitably encompassed me, but a fleeting glimpse of the summit before clouds smothered the view was sufficient to enable me to find my way to the cairn at the top of the fell. Low clouds are not an uncommon occurrence in the Lakes so you do have to be able to cope with it. It wasn’t easy to get across the small fell onto the busy bridlepath that marks the southern edge as there are no clear paths. I had to make a bearing and follow that direction across the undulating fell until I reached the unmistakable Sprinkling Tarn and the clear path beyond that I had walked along only the day before, but in better weather.

As then, I walked down the path to Sty Head and this time turned right towards Sty Head Tarn. Rain started to fall before I reached the foot of Aaron Slack, but stopped soon after I started the excruciatingly long climb. It’s a long time since I was last on the Aaron Slack and I had forgotten how long it takes to reach Windy Gap at the top. The clouds prevented me from seeing how far I had to go as I climbed up, first on stone pitching, then on loose stones, then back onto stone pitching until finally back onto loose stones for a long, long haul up to the top. I was relieved to finally reach Windy Gap where at this point I wanted to take a thin path that runs along the foot of Gable Crag, which is the North Traverse of Great Gable, the smaller cousin of the South Traverse that I had taken the day before. I had never been on it before, but wasn’t really able to appreciate it now as I wasn’t seeing it at its best, nevertheless it was a great little path and tricky, especially as the ground was quite wet due to the recent rain.

Before too long the traverse joined the path that comes off the top of Great Gable and down scree to Beck Head where I had contemplated continuing up and over Kirk Fell, but eventually due to the poor weather I decided to take the traverse route around the northern slopes of the fell. I have taken this path several times in the past most often on my way to Black Sail Youth Hostel, and always remember the route with affection. It is a great little path that I probably used several times on my first couple of visits to the Lakes, but never since. After a dramatic crossing of Sail Beck, I climbed up to the top of Black Sail Pass and was met by a parting of the clouds and a glimpse into Mosedale. I was hopeful for better weather in the afternoon so I stopped there for lunch, but by the time I’d sat down the clouds had already descended again. After resuming my walk along the path I came to the junction with the High Level Route, a terrace path across the steep slopes of Pillar to Robinson’s Cairn that I have harboured a desire to do for many years and been unable due to bad weather so I felt frustrated that I to be thwarted once again.

When I reached the junction I did obstinately turn onto the High Level Route, despite the poor weather and maybe hoping for better, but immediately found problems. Wainwright describes the start as originally being awkward, but that a new variation avoids the difficulty. From what I saw, the new variation is now just as awkward (although I may have missed the new variation) as I struggled to get down a steep, slippery, muddy gully onto the path, and it didn’t improve. The path had been poor in 2006 when I did the route from the other direction and eventually the wet, slippery path finally convinced me to turn back and climb back up to the top of the ridge. I am still eager to do the High Level Route, but this tricky path is going to need to be done in good weather. The zigzags above the junction were an interesting diversion from my disappointment before continuing along easier grassier slopes as I slowly made my way up to the top of Pillar while the clouds briefly broke to let the sun to come out. A joyous view, pictured below, into Mosedale was unfortunately just as fleeting as before and the clouds descended once more.

I had an enjoyable walk up to the top of Pillar despite the clouds refusing to part again and I had forgotten how good this eastern ridge of Pillar is, possibly because it might be a long time since I was last on the ridge. From the top of Pillar I headed down a stony path to the narrow Wind Gap before climbing up to the top of the tragically ignored top of Black Crag. After a bit of confusion coming off Black Crag I made my way up to the top of Scoat Fell and eventually found the bizarre summit cairn that is carefully balanced on top of the dry stone wall that runs over the fell. While coming down the southern slopes I was astonished to find the clouds finally lifting and Red Pike was revealed before me. I visited this fell in 2011, but had failed to locate the famous cairn known as the Chair, so this time I made an effort to find it, aided by the lifting clouds. It was great to sit on the Chair and look across the brightening lands all the way to the sea in the distance and to the still gloomy fells behind me. Despite poor weather this was a fun, challenging walk that finally ended with a long, glorious walk down the grassy, southern slopes of Red Pike in good weather all the way down to Over Beck and the road.