Sunsets

One of the great marvels of creation happens every day whether we are able to see it or not. Often in Britain our view of it is blocked by clouds, so when we are afforded on opportunity to see the sunset it is all the more special. When a sunset is partially obscured by clouds a display of truly breath-taking proportions can result that is all the more precious for its brevity. Last week I mentioned that I had seen the sun set while at the top of Fairfield in the Lake District in 2006. That remains the only time I have been at the top of a mountain and seen the sun set, and it was only because I’d terribly under-anticipated how long the walk would take. The picture below was taken after eight o’clock in the evening, a time when everyone else would have left the fells long ago. The only other time I have been at the top of a Lakeland Fell at sunset is last summer when I camped at the top of Harter Fell, but it was too cloudy to see the sunset, which is a pity as being at the top of a mountain when the sun is setting is a fantastic feeling. Below the diverse colours of the sunset is range upon range of hills silhouetted against the cloud-obscured sunset.

Even better than seeing a sunset from the top of a mountain is seeing the sun set above the sea. Later that year I was at the seaside port of Oban to see the sun set at a quarter to ten at night. This time I was not alone as the western tip of Oban was crowded with people eager to see the spectacle. Slowly the sun crept towards the horizon with the sky gradually becoming a deeper shade of red as the light from the sun reflected off the high clouds and filled the sky from end to end. Eventually and disappointingly, the great display ended as the sun disappeared behind the Morvern Peninsula and out of our sight. This is one of the best sunsets I have ever seen, however those around me were saying that it wasn’t as good as the sunset from Oban the day before. How I wish that I’d seen that!

I have a better chance of seeing a sunset while walking in the winter as the sun sets so much earlier. This next picture was taken at 4.35 on 29th December in 2012 at the end of a long wet day in the Lake District. It is all the more special because it was the only time during the whole week in the Lake District that I saw the sun and even then I just missed it as it disappeared behind the fells north of Coniston. It is not as stunning as the other pictures as the sky-filling reds are absent but what makes this picture special is the way the sun brightly lights some of the clouds while the retreating rain clouds were still dark and ominous. Great sunsets often owe more to the clouds that they do the sun as it is the light reflecting off the clouds that produce the best effects.

I was prompted to write this article after seeing some stunning sunsets at home over Christmas, but when I set out to try and photograph some of them I was always left disappointed. Sunsets are by their nature fleeting and, unless you are in the right place at the right time with a good camera in your hand, you will be disappointed. I often went out with my camera onto the country lanes near my house but I was always too late to get a satisfying picture. Early in the New Year, however, I was finally able to get a picture that I was happy with, from the top of a low hill overlooking the south-west Leicestershire countryside. It shows that sunsets are very generous as you can see them wherever you are; you don’t need to be in the Lake District or the west coast of Scotland to see a wonderful sight.

St Sunday Crag and Fairfield

Friday 25th July 2003

For the final walk of my holiday I headed back down Glenridding before climbing out of the valley to Lanty’s Tarn, a small natural lake that was extended in the nineteenth century with the construction of a small dam. In practice, and particularly when I was walking, in July, the water now doesn’t even reach the dam so I would imagine Lanty’s Tarn is now not much bigger than it was before the dam was constructed. Leaving these thoughts behind I descended into Grisedale where I realised that the weather seemed to be improving so I decided to walk up the fell opposite and onto the ridge between Birks and St Sunday Crag. That path out of Glenridding is a steep climb and I remember not climbing all the way to the top of Birks, but instead after passing Thornhow End I stayed on the clear path that crosses the northern slopes of the fell.

The clouds were still quite low on this walk and I plunged into mist again long before I reached the top of St Sunday Crag. Before this holiday I had little experience of walking in poor weather or even just in thick cloud, but I was beginning to gain some of that much needed experience on this holiday, and that would continue the following Easter in the Lake District when I would experience much more and finally gain the confidence to walk in bad weather. The broad ridge of St Sunday Crag brought me down to Deepdale Hause before climbing along the gloriously narrow ridge of Cofa Pike and up to the top of Fairfield. This is a confusing place in mist as I embarrassingly found just last September when I spent ages walking around the flat top trying to find my way off the fell. In 2003 I was already becoming practiced at using a compass and was soon able to find the summit where I had my lunch in the clouds before safely finding the right direction off the fell.

When I was at the top of Fairfield at sunset on Good Friday in 2006 I remember thinking then that that was the first time I’d been at the summit with a view since on all my previous occasions, including this one being described and my first visit the year before, had been when low cloud obstructed my view. The previous time I’d been at the top of Fairfield I had descended along the western arm of the Fairfield Horseshoe, over Great Rigg and Heron Pike. I have still never done the Fairfield Horseshoe as a single walk, but by my second visit to the Lake District I had covered all sections of the walk by descending from Fairfields over Hart Crag, Dove Crag and High Pike. The tops of Hart Crag and Dove Crag required a bit of guesswork to find as the mist obscured the summit features, but soon after leaving the top of Dove Crag I left the clouds behind and beheld glorious views down the length of the ridge towards Windermere.

I now had a thoroughly enjoyable walk while slowly descending the long ridge over High Pike and Low Pike all the way down into Ambleside and left me thinking that this had been a good walk and the first one where I had stayed dry all week. I was able to catch a bus in Ambleside to the railway station and thence a train home while thinking that this was a satisfying end to a good holiday. I had used my experiences in the Lake District the year before to improve my equipment, but I still lacked experience of the hills in bad weather. My bad weather education would continue later in the year when I climbed Snowdon for the first time, but this holiday was not just about bad weather. In the first week of the holiday I had some really hot weather that was a completely different challenge, but also an opportunity to learn.

Great Dodd and Sheffield Pike

Thursday 24th July 2003

After several days of poor weather I finally had a break on this walk and enjoyed better conditions, so despite a little rain in the morning and strong winds with low cloud, I thought it had been a good day. I was staying at the Helvellyn Youth Hostel in Glenridding and walked up the valley from the hostel taking the old pony-track that zigzags up the southern slopes of Raise. This soon took me into the clouds and eventually brought me onto the ridge that comes down from Helvellyn, near White Side, which is little more than a grassy mound. Since it was not far away I nipped up to the summit of White Side before turning around and headed north along the top of the ridge.

Despite the low cloud and occasional rain this was an easy walk with little gradient except for the descent and climb out of Sticks Pass that I had crossed the day before. Before reaching the Sticks Pass I visited the top of Raise, and beyond the pass more fells would come and go: Stybarrow Dodd, Watson’s Dodd and Great Dodd. These are the peaks that I’d planned on walking over the day before when bad weather had forced me to take a low level route. Great Dodd is the highest point on the range north of the Sticks Pass and I stopped there for lunch and pondered where to go next. I had run out of high fells, and with a gradually descending slope north of me I had no choice but to retrace my steps.

I remember the wind being very strong at the top of Great Dodd and it pulled at my map case, which was really annoying me. I pulled the case off and threw it upon the ground. The case must have been constructed from such a hard plastic that in the cold temperatures the case was brittle enough to shatter on the corner that took the shock of the fall. This taught me the fragility of map cases and how useless they are in strong winds. More recently I have used cases that, although they may be less waterproof, are smaller and made from a softer plastic. Once I had returned to Stybarrow Dodd I headed east over a ridge that I thought of at the time as White Stones (since that is how it appears on the map), but which Wainwright says is Green Side, and lends its name to the nearby disused lead mines.

Whatever it’s called, I continued east until I reached the top of  Glencoyne Head where I turned right descending steeply past open, disused quarries down the slope to Nick Head. From there I ascended the much smaller fell of Sheffield Pike, which being a smaller fell was below the cloud level and gave me tremendous views across Ullswater and to all the higher fells all around me. After the high grassy fells of the Dodds, Sheffield Pike was a delight with heather and crags littering the top of an enthralling fell and was a highlight of the walk.  I had enormous fun descending over Heron Pike and along the narrow south-east ridge before dropping steeply down the hillside into Glenridding. I reached the village just in time to see two coach-loads of old women swarm around the souvenir shops, so I quickly turned around and headed back up the valley to the hostel. Despite the weather, I enjoyed this walk, though mainly at the top of Sheffield Pike once I’d descended out of the clouds.

Given how much I enjoyed Sheffield Pike on this walk it is astonishing that I have returned there only once, just after the New Year in 2009. On that occasion I corrected an oversight on this walk in missing out Glenridding Dodd, which is a small top at the eastern end of Sheffield Pike’s south-eastern ridge. When I did this walk I still hadn’t read any of the Wainwrights, so I didn’t know that Glenridding Dodd had been given its own chapter in the Pictorial Guides. I corrected that in 2009, but in failing light, and I have never climbed Glenridding Dodd or Sheffield Pike from Glencoyne, an ascent that Wainwright describes as being one of the pleasantest short climbs in Lakeland. One of the attractions of the Lake District is that even if you have been there many times there are still many attractive and interesting places left to visit. I must go back.

St John’s in the Vale and the Sticks Pass

Wednesday 23rd July 2003

The weather on this holiday was continuing to get worse with, on this day, some of the worst conditions I had ever walked in with strong wind and heavy rain. Up to this point I had not had much experience of walking at the top of a mountain in bad weather, but I was beginning to gain that experience on this holiday. The walk started by going back down the Keswick Railway Footpath, which I had used for the first time two days before,  and followed it all the way to the end in the village of Threlkeld. That was where I had to make my decision. Do I climb Clough Head and walk along the top of the fells or do I take the low-level route through St John’s in the Vale? There wasn’t really much choice as the weather had turned really bad: the cloud level was 1,500 feet and it was raining heavily.

Eventually I made my decision, for the second day running, that a high level walk was out of the question, so doubling back on myself a bit I headed down St. John’s in the Vale across the fields to Legburthwaite. It was still raining. There weren’t really any redeeming qualities about this walk and with hindsight it would have been better if I’d walked over the top of the low fell on the western side of the valley, High Rigg. The highest point is 357 metres, which is lower than the 1,500 feet cloud level and wouldn’t have taken me much longer. As it was I walked through muddy fields at the foot of the eastern slopes of High Rigg all the way to the southern tip of the fell near Legburthwaite where I had a quick lunch. Until a couple of years before this walk there had been a youth hostel at Legburthwaite and was still marked on the map I was using, so I thought I’d look for it, but what I found, actually the old school, was little more than a wooden shack. I wasn't surprised it had closed!

Not far from the former Thirlmere Youth Hostel is Stanah and the start of the path over the Sticks Pass. To get to Glenridding, where I was spending the night, I had to get over the long line of fells that has its top on Helvellyn. Between Grisedale Pass and the Old Coach Road below Clough Head is an unbroken chain of fells consistently more than 2,500 feet high except for the depression of Sticks Pass, which is slightly below. At 2,420 feet it is the highest pass in Lakeland crossed by a path in common use, but it is the lowest point in that long line of fells. Slowly I began my ascent and it seemed all right to begin with, but as I got higher the wind really began to blow and the rain started to lash into my face. It was terrible conditions, but I was loving it! There is something curiously exhilarating about being at the top of a hill when the weather is really bad, especially if your waterproofs are keeping you warm and dry while all around you is blowing a gale.

When the weather is good in the Lake District you’re never alone, as it won’t be too long before you pass someone coming the other way, such is the popularity of the area. But when the weather is bad you suddenly have the fells all to yourself and you are able to enjoy the wide, empty spaces on your own. Unfortunately as I struggled up the pass one part of me was getting wetter and wetter from a leak in the Gore-Tex lining of my right boot and soon I had a very sodden foot. Apart from that, the rain wasn’t really a problem for me and I could have continued to walk in the rain much longer than I did, which is exactly what good waterproofs should enable you to do. The previous year I had abandoned a low-level walk in the rain around Borrowdale after getting soaked, so I had gone out and bought myself a new waterproof cagoule and here it was performing perfectly. I walked all the way over the pass and down the other side, past the remains of Greenside mine and to the youth hostel in Glenridding. This was an interesting walk, but it was just a pity that the weather was so bad. I was hopeful that the weather would improve the next day, but it didn’t seem likely.