Branstree and Selside Pike

Thursday 19th December 2019

There has been such bad weather during the autumn that I have hardly done any walking as the ground became increasingly saturated with water. Just before Christmas I usually spend a few days in the Lake District, however the days were not conveniently positioned this year to make this convenient, but I was determined to get away even if it was only for a couple of days. My plan for this short holiday was to walk up some of the fells on the far eastern edge of the Lakes and for this I would need my car as there is little accommodation in that area, so it was that I drove up the M6 coming off at junction 39 and driving through Shap and Bampton Grange I came down the road beside Haweswater Reservoir and parked at Mardale Head. Almost nine years earlier, to the day, I had walked up Harter Fell and the two fells named above on a snowy, but cloudless day and I had decided that on this walk I would do the same, but in reverse. However, when I was preparing to set off I changed my mind about the direction realising that I had never climbed the Gatescarth Pass before, and had descended only once, in 2005. Since I didn’t have time for Harter Fell and considering this is a better climb than the one planned I set off up the wide path under clouds while blue skies could be seen away from the fells to the east.

Snow decorated the fells where they could be seen below the clouds that were completely enveloping the highest fells, including the highest in the Far Eastern Fells, usually known as High Street. It was very windy and cold as I climbed the steep path thankful for my walking poles that I had not used since before the summer having forgotten to take them to Wales with me in August. As the winding path approached the top of Gatescarth Pass, snow began to make an appearance in small patches and by the time I reached the top I was completely surrounded by clouds. A signpost pointed back the way I had come, ahead along the path and right up a good path to Harter Fell, however I wanted the fourth option, to my left, which was not signposted, onto a faint path through mud and bog before climbing relentlessly beside a fence all the way up to Branstree. When I climbed this fell in 2010 there had been a full covering of snow on the ground, which, incidentally, I have not encountered at Christmas in the Lake District since then, but now I did come across some snow at the top of the fell, especially where it had blown against the south-eastern wall.

The summit of Branstree is a short distance away from where this wall meets the fence that traverses the fell and is marked by a small cairn and a round trigonometrical circle set into the ground. Moving away from the top I followed a path that soon led me to Artlecrag Pike where a tall, magnificent cairn has been erected amongst a small scattering of rock outcrops. After passing a second such cairn I seemed to lose the path in amongst the rocks at the top of a wide bank of snow. Carefully, I made my way across several of these snow banks as I slowly returned to the fence. Although I had lost the path in limited visibility I knew that there is a clear path beside the fence, which was not far away and soon I was back to the safety of the guardrail that is the fence. There is an old survey pillar on the other side of the fence not far away, but I didn’t cross over to visit it or the unnamed 673 metre top beyond and instead I kept to the fence crossing the northern slopes of the top dealing with the snow that was still barring my progress. Eventually I passed through Captain Whelter Bog and climbed the short rise to Selside Pike where a wide cairn has been fashioned into a shelter from the cold westerlies.

There the fence turns east and I headed out across the grassy fell down the north-east ridge of Selside End dropping below the cloud level once again to reveal the flat, featureless landscape between Haweswater and Swindale whose highest point is Hawe Shaw, but only a couple of metres higher than that of the broad upland ridge. Nevertheless I was enjoying myself as I sailed down the slender path and eventually reached the much clearer Old Corpse Road that crosses the ridge between Swindale and Mardale. Turning left onto this path I headed across to the top of Rowantree Beck where there is a stunning view down to the reservoir with the tree-covered Rigg at the foot of the long ridge that bends round to climb all the way up to High Street. The excellent path descends from this point in a series of bends neatly dropping steeply down to the road. Between the road and the shore of the reservoir is a footpath, but this was not worth taking except for the delightfully narrow bridge over Hopegill Beck.

I did not started this walk till noon, so I was unable to take much more than three hours before the setting sun forced a curtailment, but I really enjoyed the chance to get out onto the fells once more and walk over some of the lesser-known fells on the eastern fringe of the Lake District. It had been a long time since I’d done a good walk and I’d really missed it, but I’d also missed being in the Lake District having stayed away all year. Given half a chance I would spend all my time there, but it is perhaps better to ration my visits so they seem even more special and long anticipated, as was this one.