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.