Mardale Ill Bell and Kentmere Pike

Wednesday 24th December 2014

The weather forecast for my final day in the Lakes was pleasantly better than the endless rain I had endured for the previous couple of days as the temperature began to drop. With the best weather forecast in the east of the National Park I took this as a hint to go to the Far Eastern Fells and do a walk, with a minor alteration, that I’d originally planned to do last autumn until the pressures of work prevented me from finding the time. It was still a rather gloomy day, but it was fantastic to finally be able to go up to the top of a mountain after rain had kept me off the tops earlier in the week, and especially after a year away from the Lake District. After driving around to Mardale Head I crossed the Mardale Beck and walked on a good path that gave me an early moment of enjoyment on this walk. However, this path soon deteriorated into a muddy trail that led me all the way up to Blea Water, described by Wainwright as one of the finest tarns in Lakeland, set amongst crags in wild and romantic surroundings.

Although I’d never been to the shore of this small lake before, I didn't linger and gingerly crossed the outlet before making my way up the grassy ridge that led me to the north ridge of Mardale Ill Bell. I found this to be an interesting route with a few outcrops on what Wainwright described as a rock rib that required some scrambling. From a distance the ridge didn’t look particularly easy, but once I was on it I found it to be a very enjoyable climb that provided me with just the sort of Lakeland walking that I had been missing all year. At the top of the ridge, on Piot Crag, the terrain levelled off slightly to make the going easier and enable me to have an enjoyable walk all the way up to the summit of Mardale Ill Bell. The weather tried to interrupt my enjoyment with hail and snow that hammered into my face curtesy of strong winds, but I was enjoying myself too much.

After touching the summit cairn I turned towards Nan Bield Pass and followed a wide path across the gloriously rock-covered terrain. This is just this sort of path that the Lake District abounds in and yet is always thrilling and enjoyable to walk upon, especially as there is nowhere else in England with rugged mountain paths such as these. This fabulous path leads to Nan Bield, described by Wainwright as the finest of Lakeland passes, and there I turned right onto a glorious path that zigzags steeply down the hillside into the Kent Valley that I have only once previously visited, in 2004 when I did a round of the valley. Once I had descended the zigzags this walk deteriorated with the path as I slowly dropped into the sodden valley.

The light was too dull and the length of the walk down the valley was too long for me to really enjoy this section of the walk. As the gradient levelled and merged into farmland the ground became saturated after all the rain that had fallen over the previous days, so I got rather wet feet as I made my way slowly down the valley until eventually, finally, I reached civilisation at Overend. At the second collection of houses, Hallow Bank, I turned left and climbed the steep hillside behind. The initial section of this climb was fun as the ground was varied with scattered small outcrops, bracken and trees, but once I reached a wall everything fell apart. My Wainwright guide had recommended going through the second, higher gap in the wall, but there wasn’t a path to this gap, and hardly a path beyond either gap. Beyond the wall the ground was considerably less interesting as if sheep had free reign in this area, and with no sign of any paths I struggled up the dreary grassy slopes.

When the gradient finally eased I found a slender path and followed that up the tedious hillside. All memory of the rocks that cover the top of Mardale Ill Bell were now gone in this typically English landscape of smooth grassy hillsides. The long trudge took me all the way up to the top of the ridge where the bitingly strong winds with passing hail and snow showers that had failed to bother me on Mardale Ill Bell now had their revenge. As I passed over the top of Kentmere Pike I wrapped myself up against the worst that the weather could throw at me and kept my head down while ploughing on along the undulating ridge all the way to Harter Fell. This didn’t feel like a Lakeland walk as I made my way along the boggy, snow-dusted ridge, so I was relieved to finally reach the distinctive cairn made up of rock and discarded metal fence-posts that sits at the summit of Harter Fell.

Harter Fell is a great mountain, but I had just approached it from its most tedious side so with haste I turned towards its best approach: that via Nan Bield Pass. This is a fabulous path in any weather, and I have been on it in all of them. I enthused over the path that leads down to Nan Bield from Mardale Ill Bell earlier in this walk, but this path from Harter Fell to Nan Bield is so much better in its abundance of rock and in the splendour of its view towards Mardale Ill Bell and High Street. What makes Nan Bield the finest pass in the Lake District is the magnificence of the four paths that lead up to it and on this walk I was able to enjoy all of them by turning right when I reached the pass. The path down to Small Water from Nan Bield is also fabulous with rock scattered everywhere and tremendous views over the tarn to Haweswater. As I passed Small Water the light was beginning to diminish so I didn’t  linger on this fabulous path amongst stunning mountains.

There were moments on this walk that weren’t particularly great, but whenever I was anywhere near Nan Bield Pass the walk was absolutely top-rank and showed me exactly what I had been missing all year. My last mountain walk of 2014 was a good one in an amazing place with some great moments on two fabulous mountains separated by a mountain pass that must rank as not only one of the finest in the Lake District but possibly anywhere.

A circuit of Derwent Water

Tuesday 23rd December 2014

At the end of my previous day's walk I drove to Keswick and down the Borrowdale Road on my way to the Borrowdale Youth Hostel, where I was booked to stay. It was still raining and the valley was beginning to flood, so I began to question the wisdom of proceeding, though I actually managed to get a long way down the valley and reached the far side of Rosthwaite before I stopped. I was not far from the hostel and could have quite easily driven through the floods between the village and the hostel, but I was afraid of being trapped in Borrowdale and unable to get home for Christmas. Erring on the side of caution I turned around and returned back along the Borrowdale Road and had my booking transferred to the hostel in Keswick. With hindsight if I’d stayed in Borrowdale then my options for a walk this day would have been few due to the flooding in the valley and high winds on the fells. The walk that I came up with after this change of location was to walk around the picturesque lake of Derwent Water with my main reason for doing so being to look at the floods.

With high winds forecast I decided to stay off the tops of the fells and headed out of Keswick on a now very familiar route that I have taken many times across fields to the west of Keswick that must act as a floodplain, but since they weren’t flooded at this time then despite my fears there was nothing extraordinary about the rainfall. After crossing the River Derwent I passed through the village of Portinscale and along the road on the boring bit of this familiar route. On reaching Fawe Park I usually take a narrow path that climbs steeply over a low hill before descending back down to the main path. On this occasion, in view of the wet weather, and in the hope of getting a view over the lake, I went around the low hill on a wide track past Nichol End. I didn’t get a view of the lake and the track was no match for the path over the low hill, but once the routes combined, and despite the poor weather, I had an enjoyable walk through the dark woodland of Overside Wood eventually arriving at the northern tip of Cat Bells.

I repeated the route I had taken both on New Year’s Day 2013 and at Easter the same year following the excellent path that skirts the eastern slopes of Cat Bells above Brandelhow Park. This gorgeous footpath soon revealed fantastic, though misty views across Derwent Water while I enjoyed a glorious promenade on the terrace below Cat Bells. Just before reaching the path that comes down from Hause Gate I saw a National Trust sign indicating a permitted cycle route through woodland. There were no cyclists about so I thought I’d have a bit of fun by walking down this path that zigzags steeply to the road. This path took me down to the road not far from Manesty, where the terrace route and the path from Hause Gate also exits. A short distance along the road is a footpath that not only heads through Manesty Park, but also goes all the way across the fields at the southern end of Derwent Water. I have taken this route in summertime, in 2002, but I didn’t think I’d be able to now.

Instead I headed off along the road through small, shallow floods to the village of Grange where I was able to cross the flooded River Derwent. There was a lot of road walking at this point of the walk, which wasn’t particularly exciting, but on the far side of the valley, while walking beside the Borrowdale Road, I saw amazing views of the extensive flooding on the river. The lake itself had extended as far south as the Borrowdale Hotel, near High Lodore, so when I reached the eastern end of the footpath from Manesty I saw the peculiar sight of a footpath sign pointing straight into the middle of the lake. At the Lodore Falls Hotel I finally came off the road and headed steeply up the hillside to the waterfall, which I had visited in 2002 on my first ever visit to the Lake District and had never been back. Of course I was now seeing it at its best with torrents of water pouring over the cascade and thundering past me.

It was an amazing sight, but after only a couple of pictures my camera decided that it had gotten too wet and stopped working. Eventually I left the waterfall and rather than following a rough path that keeps beside the river I took to a great path that climbs diagonally across the wooded hillside below Gowder Crag. After climbing past the crag the path became a little vague and I had difficulty deciding on the correct route to take, but in the end I decided to follow the river upstream until eventually I reached a clear path that I recognized from a previous walk I did at this time of the year. I turned left along this excellent path through woodland that eventually brought me onto the Watendlath Road not far from Surprise View, but the surprise for me was that there was no view. A sudden opening beside the road gives an extensive view across Derwent Water, but in the poor weather all I could see was rain and mist. At Ashness Bridge (no view there either) I came off the road onto a path that soon led to a gate.

Beyond the gate the path splits with the higher path going up to Walla Crag, which is the route I took five years ago in the snow and momentarily I considered taking this path now, but in the end I took the lower path that I had never been on before. This was a delightful path that keep to a level through bracken before entering a young natural wood filled with all sorts of plants that must make it a wonderful place to walk in the spring when wild flowers are in abundance. The imposing sight of Falcon Crag looming above me added to the pleasure on this path that must now be a target for a return visit before too long. Eventually I reached Cat Gill on the edge of Great Wood, but on entering the wood I found it to be poor in comparison to the scenery below Falcon Crag, and even dare I say having a whiff of the plantation.

After a short descent the path split with a barrier and a muddy track on one side and a better track that climbed steeply up the hillside to the right. Unsure of the correct route to take I took the better track steeply up the hillside below Walla Crag, so it wasn’t long until I was thoroughly cooked in my waterproofs but when the path had levelled I realised that I had taken the right route through Great Wood. Eventually I reached the far side a narrow path took me out of the wood and to the side of Brockle Beck onto the usual route from Keswick to Walla Crag. This water-filled path brought me steeply down to the edge of Keswick by mid-afternoon, which would normally have been annoyingly early, but in this weather I wasn’t bothered. This was a curiously satisfying walk despite the fact that I never went up to the top of any hill or fell during the course of the walk, which is testament to the fact that even when the weather is bad in the Lake District there are so many great paths you don’t need to climb a fell to have a great walk.

Raven Crag and Great How

Monday 22nd December 2014

During the autumn I was too busy at work to do any walking and as November merged into December I dreamily thought of the Lake District. I hadn’t been there all year, and this was the first year that that had ever happened since I’d started going there in 2002, so even though I hadn’t originally planned to go away at Christmas I had become so fed up with the never-ending stream of work I eventually realised that I desperately needed to go to the Lake District. I had planned on going on a short trip to the Lake District in the autumn but a busy work schedule prevented me, so it wasn't until the Christmas orders were all complete that I was finally unleashed and able to go to the place that I love. At the earliest possible opportunity I drove all the way to the Lake District only to find abysmal weather. It was really windy and persistent rain resulted in flooding in some of the valleys so my planned walk had to take account of the weather.

My plan was to walk up Raven Crag, which is a hill that I had climbed only once before, on New Year’s Day, 2009. Although this was a similar time of the year the weather then was completely different with clear blue skies and icy conditions underfoot, whereas now I had rain and mud underfoot. After four hours spent trundling up the M6 I parked at a small car park at the western end of the dam for Thirlmere Reservoir and once I had all my waterproofs on I set out, but was already frustrated at not being able to find a glove. One glove is useless without the other and though I had a spare pair of gloves these were not ideal as they were warmer and more suited to much colder temperatures. Nevertheless I put these on complete with a woolly hat and set off up the path that steeply climbs the tree-covered slopes.

Wainwright described this climb as ‘having no resemblance to fellwalking except in the matter of upward progression’ and it wasn’t long before I was sweating in my waterproofs and taking my hat and gloves off. When I visited Raven Crag on that New Year’s Day I had come from the opposite direction down to Thirlmere on this path so this was my first ascent in this direction, and in these conditions the wet path was very slippery with streams running down the path. On reaching a forest road I suddenly had my first view of Raven Crag looming over me in the mist and was an awesome sight that was perhaps better than I actually got from the mist-enveloped summit. The final climb through an area of felled and fallen trees brought me to the top of the ridge where I turned left and headed along a good, but very muddy path that slowly brought me to the summit.

There were no views from the top so I turned around and headed back down the way I’d come to the top of the ridge where a signpost directed me towards Castle Crag, the site of an old hill fort, that I had not visited the last time I was in the area. A well-made path brought me to the foot of a small rock mound on the far side of the ridge where a stunning view could be seen of the rarely visited Shoulthwaite Gill. A small scramble was required to get to the top of Castle Crag but it was so windy at the top I got straight back down the way I’d come, and only then did I discover a much easier route up (or down) on the other side. My attention was directed towards a distinctive top that could be clearly seen from Castle Crag, so on returning to the top of the ridge I made my way north along the ridge, initially on a forest road, but soon on a faint path that maintained the top of the ridge.

This path weaved a cunning course around the trees until finally climbing a short, steep slope to the top of the Benn. The heather covered top gave me a hint of what the terrain would have been like before trees had taken over, but once again the views were poor in the mist, however in good weather they must surely be good as they looked north towards Skiddaw and Blencathra. Continuing north from the top I soon joined a muddy forest track that, turning left, brought me down the hill while the track gradually improved with the scenery. The forest road eventually started to afford me with awe-inspiring views of the crags that line Shoulthwaite Gill and I finally found that the four hour drive had been worthwhile after all. The rain had briefly stopped at this point which made for a thoroughly pleasurable walk as I slowly descended along the forest road parallel to Shoulthwaite Gill.

Eventually I reached a gate that led me to a bridge from where I could stand in awe of stunning views up the narrow ravine past the craggy walls of Shoulthwaite Gill. I have used this bridge several times before, when in Shoulthwaite Gill, but it was not actually on my route for this walk so I returned over the bridge back into the wood and made my way along forestry roads past the tranquil Shoulthwaite Moss to Bridge End Farm. Ahead of me was Great How, a wooded hill that Wainwright failed to pay much attention to, so despite the rain that was pouring down again I thought I’d take this opportunity to visit it. A wide forest track leads to the southern end of the hill where a narrowing and steepening path led me all the way up to the top. The dull path got better as I neared the top, but the rain was making the path very wet and slippery until eventually I got to a recently cleared area around the summit. The trunks and wood on the ground made navigation around the top tricky, but a clear path led me to a seat that must have tremendous views across the reservoir when the weather is good, but not on this walk.

Eventually I reached the summit where the views were dreary in this weather and across the felled ground, so I made my way back down to the southern end of the hill where after a moment of confusion I found a narrow path that drops steeply to the shore of the lake. This was a delightful path that was sadly far too short as just as I was beginning to enjoy it the dam loomed into view and the path came to an end. This may have been a short walk, but I think it was the best I could have done in the poor weather. The walk was saved by the views of the crags in Shoulthwaite Gill that were exactly what I had been missing, not only all autumn, but all year. Those moments when the rain had briefly stopped, while beside Shoulthwaite Gill, made the whole trip worthwhile, and fortunately I would not be going home for another two days.

High Street

Saturday 17th April 2004

This was the last day of my holiday in 2004 and I felt rather sad about it as I walked over the fells for the last time on this holiday literally walking out of the Lake District. Even though this was only my third ever trip to the Lake District I had already developed such a love for the Lakes that I regretted having to leave. I had a deadline on this walk because of a bus I had to catch at the end of the day that I mustn't miss, so on parts of the walk I went very quickly to ensure I wasn’t stranded. I left Patterdale as early as I could and after heading over the river I walked south along the eastern side of the valley until eventually I reached Hartsop. From the car park on the far side of Hartsop I made a hard slog up the north ridge of Hartsop Dodd, but was rewarded with tremendous views of the surrounding hills and after passing over the top I had a rather uneventful, but relaxing, walk beside a wall across the broadening ridge that led me onto Caudale Moor and the summit of Stony Cove Pike.

Turning left I enjoyed a fun scramble down the rocks to Threshthwaite Mouth and then climbed up the scree slope beyond to the prominent beacon on Thornthwaite Crag. The area around Threshwaite Mouth is fabulous with shattered rock in abundance in an area that is otherwise sparse on scrambly ground. From Thornthwaite Crag I descended slightly to join the bridlepath that heads north following the course of an old Roman road called High Street. This heads gently uphill onto a broad grassy ridge keeping to the western slopes, so in order to reach the top of the hill I veered away from the path aiming for the summit of Racecourse Hill. The name of this fell is usually given by the Roman road that has its highest point on the fell and after lunch at the summit I headed north from High Street down the narrowing ridge to the Straits of Riggindale. Bearing right just after the col I followed the Roman road, High Street, up to Rampsgill Head and around the top of the valley to High Raise.

After a pause at the summit cairn of High Raise I headed in what I assumed was the right direction, but when I saw another ridge on the left I realised that I should have been on that one! Maybe sometimes a compass should be used even in clear weather! On reaching the correct path I followed it at a quickening pace over easy ground with the bus times ever in my mind while the tops of Raven Howe, Red Crag, Wether Hill and Loadpot Hill passed beneath my feet. These are not very interesting hills as the terrain has gradually changed on this far eastern edge of the Lake District from the rugged Borrowdale Volcanic Group, so typical of Lakeland, to the Carboniferous Limestone of the Pennines. Fortunately the good weather that I had enjoyed the day before this walk continued and I remember a thoroughly enjoyable walk in warm sunshine along the ridge all the way to Loadpot Hill.

From Loadpot Hill I continued to follow the route of High Street as it makes its hilltop way towards the fort of Brocavum at Brougham, near Penrith, downhill all the way bypassing the two Wainwrights of Bonscale Pike and Arthur’s Pike to cross Moor Divock. By this point Lakeland geology had been left behind and shake holes, typical of limestone country, started to appear across the flat moorland. High Street is very indistinct at this point and on the ground it was even more chaotic with many paths seemingly going in all directions but many going nowhere. The map indicates that there is a clear path straight across Moor Divock, but this was not the case on the ground. With time quickly passing before my bus soon arrived in Askham, and potentially left without me, I frantically tried to determine where my destination was using my map & compass and desperately headed in that general direction. Once again I found that a compass is necessary even in clear weather.

I made it to Askham in plenty of time for the bus and so I was able to begin my journey home. As I settled onto the train from Penrith I felt very satisfied with my week in the Lake District. I felt that I had come of age on this holiday as I had finally been able to overcome my problems with inadequate equipment and lack of experience to walk in any weather that I encountered, including torrential rain when I successfully walked all the way from Ennerdale to Grasmere. I felt that I would now be able to move on to bigger and more challenging country. Just as two years earlier I had graduated from the Brecon Beacons to the Lake District, and now later in this year I graduated to the Highlands of Scotland. However, I never wanted to abandon the Lake District and I remember thinking that I would be happy to keep coming back to the Lake District every Easter, and more often than not that is what I’ve done.