Monday 21st July 2003
This was rather a disastrous day in one respect: I lost my wallet, including my YHA card, debit card and £30. I have no idea where it was. I looked all around and asked at the hostel and the bank, but there was no sign of it. I don’t even know where I lost it; all I know is that I had it at the start of the day and I didn’t have it when I got back to the hostel. The walk started from Mungrisdale on the eastern edge of the Northern Fells so I caught a bus from Keswick that took me to that small idyllic village. Out of the four routes of ascent to Bowscale Fell that Wainwright listed I took ‘Route 4’, which Wainwright described as being the best of all. I can’t have known this at the time so why did I take this route? In later years I always based my routes on what I’d found in the Wainwrights, but this can’t have been the case on my earliest walks in the Lakes, so what was driving my decisions? I can’t remember, aside from a desire to climb the highest fells.
However I came up with the route, I climbed up onto the east ridge through gorse and bracken from the northern tip of the village of Mungrisdale to the top of the ridge where I had a pleasant walk across the heather moor to the top of Bowscale Fell. I remember stopping for a while crouched down behind the stone shelter at the summit, sheltering from the strong wind and I have always wondered whether that was the place where I’d lost my wallet, but, wherever it was, I proceeded from there south-south-west towards Blencathra. I wouldn’t have visited Bannerdale Crags on the way since I wasn’t aiming at visiting all the Wainwrights at that time and wouldn’t have considered it worth visiting as it does not have a noticeable rise. The notes I made at the time make no mention of it, but I would have thought I’d have at least walked over to the edge of the crags to have a look down into Bannerdale, but I can’t remember. I also have no idea whether I walked up to the edge of Tarn Crags overlooking Bowscale Tarn. I have never gotten a closer look at the tarn than from the top of these crags, but I doubt I even got that close on this occasion.
My next target was Blencathra for which I was heading straight towards, avoiding the perilous Sharp Edge while making excuses to myself that it was damp and very windy, but ultimately it was because I was a coward. When I eventually did climb Sharp Edge it was just before Christmas 2006 when the weather was no better, if not worse. Instead I climbed the northern slopes of the fell over Blue Screes to the top of Atkinson Pike. This took me above the cloud line and so with no views I walked past the white crosses that lie on the ground between Atkinson Pike and Blencathra before climbing up the fellside to Hallsfell Top and the summit of Blencathra. Unfortunately there was no view to see but I was sure that it would have been spectacular, as subsequent visits to the top of Blencathra have shown; the view down St John’s in the Vale is superb.
From the top of Blencathra I passed along the top of the ridge to the western end and steeply descended the long grassy slopes of Blease Fell to the Blencathra Centre. I then took a clever little route through fields following footpath signs past Derwentfolds and Brundholme down to the Keswick Railway Footpath, but I have no idea how I knew about this route, though it may have been something I had read on the internet. The Keswick Railway Footpath is an excellent way to get back to Keswick through lovely woodland at the bottom of the Greta Valley along a magnificent old railway bed. I got back to the hostel at 2.15, which was very early, but as it turned out I needed the time. It was while I was on the walk that I discovered I didn’t have my wallet, so when I got back into the hostel I had a good look around for it, but I couldn’t find it, so I had to go to the bank and report my card lost and ironically get some money from the same branch that I had gotten money without any identification from the year before.
This was all really rather annoying, and I was beginning to think I was jinxed in the Lake District. The year before, the first time I had been to the Lake District, I left my wallet at home so I had to survive without it all fortnight. Now on my second visit I lost my wallet and would once again have to manage without. Thankfully I haven’t lost my wallet again since this occasion. Unfortunately this incident detracted from what should have been a great walk over one of the best fells in the Lake District. Blencathra is a stunning mountain that attracts the eye whenever you see it, and is the first fell seen when entering the Lake District from Penrith. I have climbed Blencathra many times since, often when the summit is covered in snow (as it was last Easter on my most recent visit), and each time it has been a delight and a joy.
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