Orrest Head and Wansfell

Monday 19th December 2016

As Christmas approached I eagerly anticipated the coming holiday as I would have another opportunity to go to the Lake District, but when my train finally arrived in Windermere it was to a grey and murky day with low cloud, however it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t windy and this made all the difference. When I was in the Lake District the previous Christmas, I had left on Christmas Eve by walking from Ambleside to the Windermere railway station and now at the start of this holiday I reversed that walk, but this time I did the fells that I maybe should have done the previous year. My first target was Orrest Head, a relatively small hill that overlooks the lake of Windermere, but a significant one as it is the first hill that Wainwright climbed in the Lake District and it was from the top of this hill that he gained his “first sight of mountains in tumultuous array across glittering waters, (his) awakening to beauty”. I first climbed Orrest Head more than ten years ago, Easter 2006, in good weather taking the recommended route that initially climbs up an tarmac track.

I decided that on this occasion I would take a different route this time on public footpaths rather than the permissive path favoured by Wainwright and I found that this was a delightful way on the sort of craggy paths that the Lake District has in abundance, but I sorely miss when away. Anywhere else in the country would love to have a path like this, but in the Lake District it is found on a less favoured route up a tiny hill. The path passes through gorgeous woodland and after turning right at a junction slowly climbs the hillside to the far side of the wood eventually joining the more popular route before passing through a gate dedicated to the benefactor who gave the hill to the people of Windermere. The cloud-covered summit of Orrest Head was only a short distance away where a view indicator shows what fells could be seen from the top if the clouds weren’t so low. It was disappointing to not have a view from the top of Orrest Head, but this wasn’t getting me down as I still enjoyed being back in the Lake District.

Picking a path that heads north, I descended to a stile, but rather than continuing on Wainwright’s recommended descent route, I turned left through a gate and down to the small, but delightful, St Catherine’s Wood. Although there was low cloud there was also no wind, which made the walking really enjoyable. There is a guy at work who often says to me: “Good walking weather!” even if it’s still dark outside, and on this walk, despite the low cloud, I would say that this was good walking weather because it wasn’t very windy. On reaching a quiet road I took a farmer's track from Crosses Farm, through Far Orrest to the Trout Beck Valley. I now had a bit of a view below the clouds along the valley and it looked splendid, even though it was still not as good as it could or should have been. After a short walk along the main road I came across a path that crosses the valley and was marked with a notice saying “Path damaged”. With this in mind I cautiously descended and when I reached the river at the bottom of the valley I found that the bridge had been almost washed away by the floods in December 2015. After considering wading across the river I eventually decided that I could make it across the remains of the bridge, which was lying on its side.

It was quite exciting getting across that bridge, because it was a little dangerous, but I managed to get across and climbed up the hillside to Town End and from there on bridlepaths up to Robin Lane. I had walked along this lane last year on my way from Ambleside to Windermere, but this time I didn’t take the turning towards Ambleside and rather stayed on the lane into Hundreds Road following it to where the track turns sharply, and headed off onto the pathless slopes of Wansfell. I had seen this route on the map a few years ago and thought it would make an interesting route up, but I seem to have immediately, in the misty conditions, lost the path that Wainwright’s guide claims is there. Initially I followed a series of trees that seemed to be marking a route, but these soon faded and I had to make my own way through the pathless, mist-covered landscape until I reached Nanny Lane. Just before I reached the lane the view ahead cleared to reveal a stunning panorama of the Troutbeck Valley with fog remaining in the valley and clouds clear of the summit ahead. It wasn’t a perfect thermal inversion and the scene was still dull, but at least I now had a view while walking up Nanny Lane.

This had been the route that I’d taken in descent from Wansfell when I climbed it in 2010 and I remembered then that the lane was very boggy, which is how it was now. At the end of the lane I took a path that veers away from the wall weaving a cunning and interesting route through the outcrops up the fell straight towards the summit of Wansfell. The Ordnance Survey map indicates a higher point further north, but this doesn’t look higher and it certainly didn’t seem higher when I stood at it, so I turned around and headed back to the recognized summit proceeding along the ridge towards Wansfell Pike at the western end of the fell. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I took my time enjoying myself as I slowly made my way along the ridge nipping up every little rise and enjoying the great views due to the temperature inversion. The sun was struggling to break through the clouds overhead and this managed to add a little colour to the surroundings when I finally reached the top of Wansfell Pike.

There is a route down the south-western slopes of Wansfell that isn’t marked on maps and wasn’t described in Wainwright’s guide until the most recent Walker's Edition. That describes this as the best approach for beauty, seclusion and a seldom-seen side of Wansfell, and in descent I really enjoyed it despite the fading light and mist below a certain point. It passes through landscape strewn with dead bracken, past a large cairn that overlooks Ambleside and the remains of an aqueduct observatory until finally plunging into Skelghyll Wood. The abundance of leaves on the ground made following the path through the wood difficult until I reached the main path near the top of Jenkin Crag, where I followed the bridlepath that gradually descends to the southern end of Ambleside. This was a surprisingly satisfying walk, and it was great to be back in the Lake District. Despite poor weather, a lack of wind and a view upon Wansfell had made this into a good walk in what turned out to be good walking weather.

Langdale, Uldale and Simon’s Seat

Saturday 10th September 2016

While travelling to Scotland for my holiday last September I had stopped off at a section of the Lake District that had only just been incorporated into the National Park, and while coming back I likewise stopped off in a new section of another National Park: the Yorkshire Dales. The Howgill Fells were savagely cut in half when the National Park was created with the northern fells being missed out. On first August this year the National Park was enlarged by twenty-four percent and now included the whole of the Howgill Fells in the Yorkshire Dales. I came off the motorway at Tebay and after a tiny distance stopped off in the little farming community of Longdale. Although the weather was very good with the sun shining under blue skies, it was quite clear that there had been just as much rain there as I had endured in Scotland and soon encountered paths that were thick with mud. I was following Wainwright’s direction as given in walk fifteen of his guide to Walks on the Howgill Fells, which directed me across the beck and up through a lovely wooded area into a field full of sheep.

Once I reached a track on the other side of the field I had a long, dreary walk slowly gaining height towards the heart of the Howgill Fells ahead of me. After almost two weeks of poor weather in Scotland the sun had finally come out and I had driven down under clear skies but as the day progressed it become cloudier with hazy sunshine, although this was still a welcome change after the poor weather that I had endured in Scotland. The path was initially very good, but after coming across a deep pool of water that blocked the way, the track dwindled away and I dropped onto a tiny path that climbs through the valley of Uldale. This path was very muddy being little more than a sheep trod that made this an arduous trudge as I made my way up the valley. The path never improved all the way up the valley until eventually I reached the top of the pass at Blakethwaite Bottom where the dramatic Carlin Gill snakes down from the other side of the pass. The top of the pass is marked by the Blakethwaite Stone, which doesn’t look significant, but on a map it is vitally important.

The old county boundary for Yorkshire used to follow the Carlingill Beck up to the Blakethwaite Stone and at that point turns uphill to reach the eastern ridge. The boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, until recently, followed this old boundary line since it was thought that the Yorkshire Dales should be wholly within Yorkshire. However in 1974 the counties in England were radically changed and the county boundary moved so that the whole of the Howgill Fells now lies in Cumbria. For many years this old county line marked the boundary between the protected and the relatively unprotected, but now the whole of the Howgill Fells are within the protection of the National Park and I turned to climb the steep, grassy ridge following this now obsolete boundary. At the top of the ridge, on Docker Knott, I was so exhausted from the effort of the climb that I stopped and had my lunch. The walk didn’t get any easier after eating as I descended steeply into Churn Gill only to climb all the way up the even steeper bank on the other side.

Steep sided valleys and grassy ridges are the hallmark of the Howgill Fells and this walk was treating me to a clear demonstration of these steep grassy ridges. When I eventually, exhaustedly, reached the top of Simon’s Seat I could finally relax as the walk was now downhill all the way. I was on the highest peak in the newly incorporated section of the Howgill Fells and the heart of these fabulous hills could be seen clearly rising up to The Calf, the highest point in the range. That was behind me as I headed back north along the ridge that drops gradually and narrows slightly before rising to the Ordnance Survey pillar atop Middleton. The view ahead of me as I slowly descended was quite striking and I stopped several times to take in the far reaching vista and enjoy the sunshine that I had seen so little of in Scotland. At the bottom of the valley is a beautiful old footbridge made of stone that crosses a stream with an oddly familiar name: Langdale Beck.

I was now in the valley of Langdale, which is not to be confused with the Langdale in the heart of the Lake District. At the start of this holiday I walked through a Borrowdale that is not the well-known valley in the Lake District and at the end of this holiday I walked through Langdale, but not the one the tourists flock to. This Langdale is a pretty little valley with a lovely beck running through it and a smattering of trees to add to the charm. However the ground underfoot was exceptionally muddy in places which caused me quite a few difficulties, and added to all the other muddy paths that I encountered on this walk it rather soured my impression of the whole thing. The mud was worse than anything that I had seen in Scotland and really put me off the walk, which would have benefited enormously from being carried out in drier weather. The walk ended by passing through farmer’s fields back to the misappropriately named hamlet of Longdale.

Glen Ogle and Creag MacRànaich

Friday 9th September 2016

Due to another poor weather forecast I decided that my original option for this day, to climb Ben Vorlich repeating a walk that I did in 2007, would have to be abandoned. Not far from Ben Vorlich is a disused railway line through the valley of Glen Ogle that used to be an unusually pretty section of the railway. I spent a lot of time the previous evening studying a map of the area and I realised that it is possible to do a circular route through Glen Ogle and even, if the weather is kind, to bag a Corbett at the same time. When I got to the Glen Ogle car park, at Glenoglehead, it was throwing it down with rain and as I set off into Glen Ogle I started thinking about alternative plans that stayed at the bottom of the valley. It wasn’t long, however, before the rain stopped and as the sides of the valley steepened while the railway hugs tightly to the side of the hill, the weather starting turning out good. There were stunning views down the valley on this dramatic railway and I was enthralled by the railway architecture loving every moment, but Glen Ogle is only three miles long and even at a slow stroll I was at the southern end overlooking Loch Earn within an hour and a half.

At this point in the walk the weather was looking very promising and as I passed through a more overgrown section of the disused railway the sun was actually shining so I had no hesitation in reverting to the circular walk that I had planned the evening before. I came off the railway and started climbing into Glen Kendrum soon noticing signs for construction traffic: another hydroelectric scheme was being built in the Highlands. Behind me Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’ Chroin were struggling to shake off the low cloud and made me wonder what might have been. The Munros were looking quite accessible and I was almost regretting my decision to abandon my walk up these mountains. The weather the day before had been terrible and I had been expecting similar conditions for this walk, but after the rain at the start of the day I was enjoying some surprisingly good weather, however I knew that bad weather was forecast for later in the day.

The track up Glen Kendrum has been improved to allow access for the construction vehicles and this made things easier for me as I slowly made my way up the valley. The weather worsened as I climbed and inevitably, before I reached the top of the pass, it had started raining again. This didn’t put me off from trying to bag a Corbett so just before reaching the top of the pass I came off the path and made my own way up the steep slopes towards Creag MacRànaich. The hillside was very craggy and required a lot of care and thought to get up to the flatter summit ridge where a faint path appeared that I followed north through the clouds, past a cairn, and after a small descent up to another cairn that I believe is the summit of Creag MacRànaich. Sheltering behind a crag near the summit I had occasional views across the moor northwards to Killin where the sun was shining. However, at the top of this Corbett the weather was becoming very rough with strong cold winds and low clouds that soon forced me to abandon my lunch and immediately head back down onto the track.

This was not an easy descent as there is quite a distance between the summit and the track and in between there are some steep crags. When I reached the top of these crags I had no idea how I was going to get down until after making my way north for a while through the strong winds I eventually found a small break in the crags where steep grassy slopes safely led me all the way down to the track. I was very thankful to be back on this track where I was finally able to finish my lunch. With the Corbett bagged, my last peak in Scotland this year, and the weather worsening I made my way down the track following the increasingly tumultuous Ardchyle Burn down Gleann Dubh until I reached the point where the track crosses the river. By this point the burn was so full of water that I never had any thought of attempting to cross it and elected instead to stay on the right bank following a path into a conifer plantation. But my problems continued as it was soon obvious that this wood had recently been felled, which could restrict access. Carefully I made my way through the tangled branches and tree stumps keeping a look out for any active tree-felling.

I couldn’t see any sign of forestry operations so I continued to follow the burn down until I eventually reached the track of the disused railway in Glen Dochart. There were a few abandoned forestry machines beside the railway but no sign of anyone so I turned right and headed along the course of the old railway veering right at Killin Junction. Soon after passing the site of the old station I started to be able to hear the unmistakable sounds of tree-felling being carried out further up the line, therefore to avoid the forestry operations I turned around and took the lower path of the old branch line to Killin, however this diversion meant that when I reached the main A85 trunk road I had to turn right and walk beside the road for a couple of miles in pouring rain up to Glenoglehead. The heavy rain that had been promised had finally arrived and I now had to endure it until I finally reached the car park at the top of the pass. This was an astonishing walk with a fabulous start through the spectacular Glen Ogle in surprisingly good weather. Nipping up to the top of the Corbett was very challenging in the worsening weather and then more difficulties had to be overcome to avoid the tree-felling operations. This was not the best walk to finish my holiday in Scotland, but it is typical of the weather that I had enjoyed during the holiday.

The Hidden Valley of Glen Coe

Thursday 8th September 2016

Just as on the previous day I was once again unsure what walk I was going to do on this holiday where I was so often plagued with bad weather. The weather was now even worse than it had been the day before, and this time it never improved with rain falling for most of the day. After spending an hour moping around Fort William, I drove south to Glen Coe stopping off in the National Trust for Scotland visitor centre. I wasn’t impressed with what I saw so I soon left and drove a short distance up the valley to a car park for the National Trust for Scotland property of An Torr Woodland and Signal Rock. The signal rock was the site where, historically, the head of the Glencoe MacDonalds would address his clan, and according to legend was also the place where the signal was given to the Campbells to begin the Glencoe Massacre. While it continued to rain I walked across the River Coe and along a way-marked path through the An Torr woodland eventually reaching a lump of rock that is now nothing special and since it is also now surrounded by trees there are no views.

When I came into Glen Coe I had been hopeful that the weather would lift as it had done the previous days this week, and it had actually looked like the clouds were lifting above the mountains, but as the morning dragged on the rain came and went, and the clouds rose and fell in corresponding fashion. With misty views of the valley I followed a black marked trail through An Torr wood soon returning back to my car. With no sign of a lifting of the weather I drove further up the valley stopping opposite the Three Sisters, the mighty bastions of Glen Coe that guard the entrance to the hidden valley. Ten years ago I did a walk into the lost valley of Glen Coe going all the way up to the top of Bidean nam Bian, the highest point in the area. This walk had been done in low cloud and it had originally been my intention to repeat that walk now so I could actually see the hidden valley.

Despite the rain, I decided it would still be worth trying to walk up to Coire Gabhail and see if I could get a view this time. Therefore I donned all my waterproofs and headed down to the river crossing the rushing waters of the narrow gorge and up a very steep and rocky path. On the day before I had been through the Nevis gorge on a path that some have described as the best in the country, but I think this one should also have a valid claim to that honour. I loved this path that is rougher and therefore more fun, especially in the wet conditions which made things more challenging. The highlight of the path is the scenery in the closed-in valley that is really lush with moisture-loving vegetation. The stream is also spectacular with many small waterfalls and cascades that were a delight to look at while slowly walking up the steep valley. The bad weather was doing nothing to spoil my enjoyment of this walk, but I would love to have been there in good weather.

At a boulder I turned right and scrambled above it on a path that was becoming more challenging and eventually came to the foot of a scree slope. Part way up the slope I thought that something wasn’t right so I got out my map and discovered that I should have crossed the river at the boulder. The path that I was on must lead to the 692 metre top at the end of Geàrr Aonach, the middle ridge of the Three Sisters. Hastily I made my way back down the scree and scrambled back down to the foot of the boulder where I saw some people trepidatiously attempting to cross the swollen stream. I had no hesitation in immediately crossing the stream in my waterproof footwear and on the other side found a well-made path that continues to climb up the valley until I suddenly came onto a rocky ledge that overlooks the awesome sight of the Lost Valley of Glen Coe, Coire Gabhail, where the MacDonalds of Glen Coe used to hide their cattle, and the cattle of others.

Ten years ago I hadn’t seen this sight as the clouds had been too low, but despite the rain I now had a clear view across the level plain with the towering crags that soar above the valley floor. This was an amazing sight even in such bad weather and despite getting wet with the weather at this point throwing everything at me, I was enthralled at all that I was seeing. I wandered into the centre of the hidden valley, gazing around at the misty crags towering above me until eventually I turned around and headed back down the path. The weather was still showing no sign of improvement, but it had been great fun walking up and down that fabulous path. I had done very little in the morning while hoping for the weather to improve, but once I had finally decided to go for a walk I went to an awesome location on a truly great path. I must come back to Glen Coe soon and do the whole walk that I’d originally intended for this day, but in good weather.