Ennerdale to Grasmere in bad weather

Thursday 15th April 2004

The weather for this walk was the worst I encountered all week with strong winds and rain almost all day, in fact it was probably the worst weather I’d ever found in the Lake District, or on any walk up to this point. Until this walk I had always been rather afraid of being out on the fells in bad weather, and I had every reason to be as the scare stories I’d heard were not wrong. Despite the dreadful weather forecast I had little choice about my options for this day as I had been staying at the Black Sail Youth Hostel in Ennerdale and was booked to stay in a hostel in Grasmere the following night. The safest plan (short of catching several buses once I’d reached the nearest road, near Buttermere) would be to climb up Loft Beck and over Honister Hause into Borrowdale, on a reverse of the end of the previous day's walk, and then climb over Greenup Edge into Far Easedale. That is still quite a trek in bad weather, but is still the easiest route to walk despite reaching a maximum height of about two thousand feet at the top of Greenup Edge, while the route that I did take took a more direct, much higher and more exposed route.

I walked away from the Black Sail Hut towards the head of the valley on a gently rising grassy crest between the infant River Liza and Tongue Beck. As I climbed the Tongue I could see that the rain that had so far held off during my ascent was rapidly advancing up the valley and would overtake me before I reached the Windy Gap at the head of the valley. A young woman, who had also been staying at the youth hostel, caught up with me just as I reached the top and we passed through the deservedly named Windy Gap together and stumbled down Aaron Slack. With the rain now pouring down we made our way past St Head (for my fourth time in three days) and climbed the stony bridlepath that led us past Sprinkling Tarn and towards Esk Hause. I remember at this point reaching a junction of paths where a large group of people were crowded around a map trying to determine the correct route in the poor visibility.

I was able to confidently inform them that the left path heads to Angle Tarn while the right path goes to Esk Hause. I have always imagined that my female companion was deeply impressed by my amazing sense of direction, but in fact I had been at this junction just two days previously and remembered it distinctly. My companion followed me as far as the shelter at the top of the path and then headed north over Allen Crags towards Glaramara on her way to Buttermere. I have never seen her since and I don’t even remember her name. Once I reached Angle Tarn I took a second waterproof out of my rucksack and put it on over my now saturated cagoule. In weather that was worse than I had ever encountered before I was finding that my waterproofs were not up to the job of keeping me dry.

After passing Angle Tarn I left the bridlepath and took a rougher path that was often indistinct and not only very wet but it was very windy as I skirted around the side of Rossett Pike and descended to the broad and exposed Stake Pass. This was the toughest part of the day as I battled against the strong winds blowing through the pass and over the boggy ground. I think it was around here that I met a small group of people who were coming the other way and one of them quizzed me on where I was going. This must have been concern for a lone walker in terrible weather making his way across an exposed mountain pass. It is good that fellwalkers look out for each other like this and my answers must have convinced him that I was okay as he wished me well and left me to head up the grassy hill on the other side of the pass.

The most direct route to Grasmere from this point would have been to follow the path to the Langdale Pikes and then descend into Easedale from below Sergeant Man. Instead I climbed long grassy, occasionally boulder-strewn slopes up to the top of High Raise. I was following the route of a right-of-way that is marked on maps, but there was no path on the ground, so I had to somehow try to find my own way up the rough, never ending slopes to eventually reach the summit of High Raise. I have never been more thankful for the stone shelters that are built on many Lakeland summits than when I collapsed at the top of this fell. After a long rest I got up again to battle the strong winds and make my way down the other side of the hill to Greenup Edge where I turned right onto the path that leads into Far Easedale.

It would be a long time before I walked along this valley again, New Year’s Eve 2012, when the weather was once again very poor as on all the other occasions that I have walked from Greenup Edge to Grasmere (or vice versa) I have always taken the ridge route that is much more enjoyable in good weather between Calf Crag and Helm Crag. My abiding memory of Far Easedale on this occasion was of the valley being very wet underfoot and of my gloves being saturated. I seemed to find it immensely amusing that whenever I clenched my fist streams of water poured out of my gloves. I think this is a reflection of my light-hearted satisfaction with this walk. I had successfully crossed high, exposed land in weather worse than I had ever encountered on any other walk before this, and now that I knew I could cope with bad weather at the top of a mountain I would never be the same again. This is the walk that I look back on as signifying that my education in hillwalking had crossed a significant milestone. I may still have had a lot to learn, but now I would be able to advance confident in my abilities in bad weather, thanks to this walk.

Around the Mountain Passes

Wednesday 14th April 2004

I felt the weather for this walk was not conducive to being at the top of the fells where strong winds and rain were threatened, so I abandoned my planned walk over Pillar, Scoat Fell, Haycock and Red Pike in favour of a walk that explored the mountain passes in the area. With hindsight this was not as good an idea as I thought at the time. Winds tend to be funnelled up valleys so that the top of the valley, the mountain passes, are often the windiest place to be. I have sometimes felt little wind actually at the summit of a high mountain, but been buffeted by really strong winds at the top of the nearby pass, so in fact most of the windiest places that I have ever been are at or near the top of a pass. There are very good reasons for staying away from high mountain summits when it is very windy, but high mountain passes are not a reasonable alternative, as I have learnt several times over the years.

Due to the poor weather I was not in a hurry to leave Black Sail Hut, but when I eventually left I headed up and over the Black Sail Pass. There is a good path up from Ennerdale with some fun, though brief moments on rock before reaching the top of the pass where a rusting gate sits in the middle, but with no fence either side of it, and as Wainwright said: “Only a fanatical purist would think of using it.” I had never been on the path on the other side of the pass before and I was surprised to find it badly eroded in places with deep channels, while other paths in the Lake District are well-constructed. I have never been back to this path since to see whether these channels have been filled in and a more hard-wearing path with better drainage constructed. I would imagine that this is exactly the sort of thing that the interested parties should be trying to fix.

The dale I was descending into was Mosedale, one of several dales with that name in the Lake District, but this is the most famous and I found it to be a quiet and nondescript valley, and in the low cloud it had a secluded feeling as if it was far from the hustle and bustle that was actually just around the corner at Wasdale Head. Before me was the Dorehead Screes, an infamous scree run that, from where I was descending, looked to be a vertical drop. Although I have walked past the top of the screes several times, I have still never climbed or descended the Dorehead Screes so I have no idea how anyone can walk either up or down them. In fact, this walk is the only time that I have ever been in Mosedale and that must surely be reason enough to make a return visit in order to explore this delightful little valley.

Mosedale leads into Wasdale Head, a familiar starting point for many walkers, particularly those preparing to climb Scafell Pike, but at this time it was a place that I had never been to before due to the absence of a Youth Hostel at this northern end of Wasdale. From Wasdale Head I proceeded along the bridlepath to what is undoubtedly the most frequently visited mountain pass in the Lake District: Sty Head. There are three paths up to Sty Head Pass marked on the Ordnance Survey map, but on the ground there is only two, an easy, direct route across the slopes of Great Gable and a valley route. I was expecting well-constructed paths up to Sty Head, but after missing the turning onto the easier route the path I was on seemed to deteriorate to become barely perceptible along the valley bottom over and beside many streams.

Wainwright was very complementary of this little path that follows a leisurely course snaking up the valley as it follows Lingmell Beck and Spouthead Gill up the valley before finally zigzagging steeply to the top of the pass. When I descended on this route in 2011 I loved it, but in 2004 I thought it was very difficult and wished that I had taken the easier route, however when I did take that path the year after I found it too easy and wished that I had taken the valley route again. I passed through Sty Head twice on the day before this walk and it was fun now walking past the same places, but in much poorer weather because now there wasn’t a single person around. When I had been descending to Sty Head from Great Gable the day before there had been loads of people milling around the top of the pass, but now it was deserted. From Sty Head I took the well-used bridlepath that follows the stream past Taylorgill Force to Seathwaite.

With the weather worsening and time advancing I rushed along the road between Seathwaite and Seatoller and then hurried up the old toll road to Honister Hause. Since a road goes over this pass it holds less interest for me and besides, I was still climbing. From Honister I followed a disused tramway to an old Drum House where I turned left to continue to climb until just before reaching the two thousand feet mark, and the highest point on the walk, where I branched right onto the path that took me down to the top of Loft Beck. Having successfully braved the poor weather on the northern slopes of Grey Knotts and Brandreth I descended steeply into Ennerdale beside Loft Beck and proceeded along the valley the short distance back to Black Sail Youth Hostel. Despite the poor weather this had been an interesting walk on routes that I had not taken before, and in places not taken since. The passes were not as windy as they could have been and instead I was able to build up my experience and consequently my confidence in my ability to walk over the fells in bad weather.