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.

Dodd

Tuesday 22nd July 2003

After the hot weather that I had enjoyed at the beginning of this holiday it was now beginning to look like the weather would continue to get worse with my worst weather yet on this walk. On this day I had planned to walk up Skiddaw, the sprawling Munro sized mountain that towers over the town of Keswick, but I never got there. I started by walking beside the River Derwent following the rarely walked, though clearly marked on OS Maps, Allerdale Ramble across the fields between Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite Lake. The terrain is flat farmland without any redeeming features, but it wasn’t too long before I reached the edge of Dodd Wood where the terrain changed completely. Near Dancing Gate I entered the wood and climbed steeply up the hillside until I got to a forest road. With the tiring climb over I now had a relaxing walk along the broad track, past flowering foxgloves, following the contours around the hillside into the deeply carved valley of Skill Beck.

Easy-graded forest tracks brought me all the way through the wood till I came out of the trees near the Ravenstone Hotel at the foot of “The Edge”. At this point it was raining, it was windy and the cloud level was about a thousand feet, not far above where I now stood beside the fell wall. I had planned on walking up the Edge towards Skiddaw, but the prospect of this didn’t strike me as being fun in the poor weather conditions. If I had someone with me who was willing to go up I would probably have done it, but in the end I returned to the wood. This was still very early in my hill-walking career and at the time I had little experience of being at the top of a mountain in poor weather. I wasn’t confident in my ability to navigate in bad weather (I didn’t have any GPS devices on me), and I wasn’t sure my waterproofs would keep me dry. Since this occasion I have been up to the top of Skiddaw when it’s been blowing a gale and when it’s been snowing heavily. In fact I can remember going up three times and on all but the first time the weather was really poor with snow being a common feature of both subsequent occasions.

Even now I think I would be reluctant to go up to the top of Skiddaw in the conditions that I had in 2003 and could easily have taken the same decision again, not despite the ten years’ experience I have gained since that walk but because of it. Last year I abandoned a walk up Ben Venue in Scotland because of weather conditions similar to those encountered on this walk and my thinking was the same: it wouldn’t have been fun. There are many good places to go for a walk in the Lake District that don’t involve standing at the top of a Munro sized mountain in bad weather (although, been there, done that!). Quite rightly I turned around and headed back into the wood descending to the main car park for Dodd Wood, near Mirehouse.  There I consulted the map beside the car park for any way-marked walks in the wood that I could do and two things struck me as worth looking at: an osprey watch and Dodd summit.

The viewing platform for the Osprey Watch is not far from the car park, and the website for Dodd Wood suggests that “all visitors should make their way there first,” so that was where I went to have a look through telescopes at the ospreys that had first bred in the Lake District just two years previously. From the Osprey Watch I dropped back down to Skill Beck and followed the stream up to the top of the valley past what Wainwright describes as ‘unexpected cliffs’ (called Long Doors) where a right turn took me onto a recently constructed path that took me to the summit of Dodd. A standing stone at the top declares that this is ‘Dodd Summit 1612 feet,’ which isn’t very high, but I was fortunate that just the year before all the trees had been cleared from the summit which afforded me with some good views thanks to the rising cloud level so I was able to see along the length of Bassenthwaite and past Keswick to Derwent Water.

With the weather improving slightly I considered having another attempt of going up Skiddaw, taking a clear path from the Long Doors col up to Carl Side. In the end I decided against it and descended the wood alongside Scalebeck Gill coming out near Millbeck where it was now a simple matter to follow road and path along the route of the Allerdale Ramble back to Keswick. In the event the day had provided me with an enjoyable walk despite the weather. I would eventually gain that experience I needed of being at the top of a mountain in poor weather, but until then this walk showed me that I didn’t need good weather in order to have a good walk.