Skiddaw and the Edge

Wednesday 2nd June 2021

The weather during the second week of my holiday in the Lake District was really good, which was just amazing as I have seen bad weather so many times. I was very fortunate. However, the wind that had been negligible over the weekend had now picked up into a brisk, strong wind on the high tops. First, I dealt with the lack of power in my phone by leaving the campsite where I had been staying very early, without having breakfast, and headed into Keswick to the youth hostel where I had my breakfast. It was great to be back in the Keswick Youth Hostel and I enjoyed a full English breakfast while my phone was on charge. After eating I walked to the bus station where I caught a bus to Bassenthwaite and walked along quiet roads including a short section through the wooded gorge of Chapel Beck. Coming off the road, I took a bridleway that climbs steeply beside grassy fields to the fell wall while the hill of Cockup dominated my view. I am very familiar with cockups having done Great Cockup in 2015, which is the fell the other side of the Dash Valley, but I had never done this cockup before. Beyond the fell wall I took the obvious path that climbs up the grassy hillside to the col at the top of Cockup Gill.

The top of Cockup was bypassed as my eyes were on Bakestall, a northern top of Skiddaw that I had previously visited just once before on a descent from Skiddaw, in 2008. After crossing Dead Beck the terrain changed with grass now being replaced by heather all the way up to a prominent cairn, however, after turning right and heading towards Skiddaw, I soon reached another, less significant, cairn beside a fence corner, which is the highest point on the fell, but the Wainwright summit of Bakestall is the prominent cairn where there are great views over the Dash Valley. Climbing the ridge towards Skiddaw, I now had a severe crosswind to handle as well as loose stones underfoot on the path. I had been up Skiddaw three times in the last ten years, but another visit of this Munro-sized mountain would not hurt and I was rewarded for my effort with stunning views across the Lake District, though they were increasingly hazy with distance as they had been since the weekend. I feel as if the weather is often poor, for me, on Skiddaw with snow on several occasions and on this occasion I had a strong wind to contend with, which I was easily able to shelter from on the western slopes looking over the Edge to Bassenthwaite Lake where I had an early lunch before pressing on down steep, stony slopes to Carlside col.

I was mindful of what I had recently read about the potential damage that walking poles can do to hills and realised that the poles were forcing me to stand unnaturally for such a descent. They force you to stand upright whereas it would be better to bend your knees bringing your centre of balance down as low of possible, so I tried to minimise using my poles during my descent of the screes. When I eventually reached the bottom beside Carlside Tarn, I ignored Carl Side, taking the path that heads towards the Edge. I had climbed Carl Side in 2018 so I felt justified in bypassing it on my way to the Edge. My first traverse of the Edge was in 2004 when I descended along the ridge and now I was echoing that walk that starts on the narrowing ridge of Longside Edge to the highest point, dubbed Long Side by Wainwright, where a grand promenade proceeds along the narrow ridge with fabulous views towards the northern plains of Cumbria. Longside Edge ends far too soon at the summit of Ullock Pike beyond which the ridge widens as it descends along the Edge undulating along an interesting ridge that was a joy to traverse where the terrain was not so steep.

Before the final rise on the ridge up to Watches, a clear path veers off to the left and I took this down to a fence that led me into the woodland near the Ravenstone Hotel. Although it was still very early, I had a long walk back to my campsite and I was happy with an early finish after several long days recently. Yellow-topped posts marked a path through the wood that brought me to the Dodd Wood car park where I found a sign for a permissive path to Keswick, but this eventually brought me onto the busy road with no further sign of a path. Therefore, after a short walk beside the road, I branched off onto the minor road through Millbeck and Applethwaite where I took a path across grassy fields back into Keswick where I needed to buy some more food. This was a great walk in stunning weather, particularly when out of the strong winds that were in force on the top of Skiddaw. I enjoyed the sunshine during the long walk back to Keswick and eventually the campsite, but I also appreciated the opportunity to revisit some fells that I had not done in over ten years including the fabulous ridges of Longside Edge and the Edge.

High Pike and Carrock Fell

Tuesday 1st June 2021

Nothing ever seems to go smoothly. Over the weekend my biggest problem had been sore spots on my feet, but with that problem fading away another takes its place: power for my phone. The campsite I stayed in during the first week of my holiday didn’t have a facility for charging phones so I had used the power pack that I’d brought with me, however the campsite I was now using in the second week also didn’t have a facility for charging my phone, and my power bank was now empty. This is a big problem as I was using my phone for everything in order to save weight. It is my camera, MP3 player, Ordnance Survey map, GPS, and Kindle. Therefore, first thing in the morning, instead of going for a walk onto the fells, I headed down into Keswick and walked into Costa where I had a cup of tea while charging my phone and power pack. However, when I had finished my cup of tea, twenty minutes later, my phone was still not charged, so while wandering around Keswick I wondered where I could also charge my phone, until passing the entrance to the youth hostel I saw a sign that promised tea and cake for £3.95. Thinking I could charge my phone there I went in and had a teacake as well as another cup of tea. With a generous amount of power in my phone I felt I could now go out for a walk even though it was quite late in the morning, so what I really needed was a short walk that wouldn’t take me too long.

Instead, I walked all the way over to the far side of the Northern Fells doing a walk that would eventually take over eight hours and I didn’t return to the campsite until almost eight o’clock in the evening. Leaving the Keswick Youth Hostel I passed the site of the old railway station and turned onto Spooneygreen Lane climbing steeply around the side of Latrigg sweating profusely as I enjoyed every moment of the familiar path on the route of the Cumbria Way up to the car park at the end of Gale Road. Turning off the Skiddaw path I went around the slopes of Lonscale Fell on a path that I have taken so times in the last ten years it almost feels too familiar and I regretted having to go over it again, but I still enjoyed it, especially on the rocky section below Lonscale Crags. Beyond that point the walk dragged on and on, over the watershed and up to Skiddaw House where I turned right down to the River Caldew. Mile after mile I kept walking through remote countryside in bright sunshine along a footpath that became a wide track after I passed Burbell Gill until eventually civilisation intruded upon the tranquil scenes with the sight of many cars ahead of me. An unfenced road heads into the valley from Mosedale to the junction of the Caldew with Grainsgill Beck and the good weather (and half term) had brought out the crowds.

I turned up beside Grainsgill Beck, still following the Cumbria Way, into a valley I had never walked in before and initially I found much of interest with the remains of Carrock Mine, but beyond the old tungsten mine the path disintegrated  so that what had been a lovely walk beside a pretty stream eventually became impractical. When I gave up following the stream I climbed the boggy heather fellside until I reached the clear path that heads north towards High Pike past Lingy Hut. Apparently a good path leaves the stream early to climb directly up to Lingy Hut and that would have been much easier, though perhaps not as pretty. My difficulty beside Grainsgill Beck was soon forgotten as I sailed along the clear path past Lingy Hut up to Hare Stones through scenery that was both vast and open as I continued up to the top of High Pike. I had climbed this fell twice before, both in 2008, and both with a thin covering of snow. With no such weather now I made my way back down the broad, grassy slopes and turned above Drygill Beck onto a broad ridge on an excellent, dry path that took me over Milton Hill, but then deteriorates into a bog as the vegetation suddenly changes from grass to heather and I was left to find my own route through the boggy ground until the terrain finally improved as I climbed through increasingly rocky ground to the summit of Carrock Fell.

I wasn’t sure of my route off the pleasingly craggy felltop having, on the only time I had previously been to this fell, in 2008, climbed the broad, southern slopes from Mosedale in poor weather. Wainwright wrote that descent from Carrock Fell is tricky so I took his advice taking the clearest path that follows the natural fall of the land to the top of the dry gully into which Further Gill Sike enters, but I found the path in the gully to be just a river of loose dry stones where it was impossible to keep a grip. It was horrible to walk on and I felt like it would be my death. With hindsight I wish I’d tried to take a less steep descent that kept off the loose stones, but somehow I managed to get onto Rake Trod that was slightly less steep and eventually I came off the stones and down to the unfenced road. I now had to walk for many bleak miles along the road through Mosedale, Bowscale and into Mungrisdale where I had a choice of whether to take the track beside the River Glenderamackin, climb over the top of Souther Fell or stay on the road around the fell. Initially I took the narrow road out of Mungrisdale, but only until I could start to climb the steep, grassy slopes of Souther Fell, which is a fell that I’d previously climbed just once before, in 2008. There is a good, usually dry, path that climbs diagonally up the side of the fell before depositing me onto the summit ridge between the two tops.

Turning back north I headed along the top of the ridge to the summit of Souther Fell where I turned around and headed back along the ridge and was distressed to see the poor state of the east ridge of Bannerdale Crags on the far side of the valley. This is crumbling into oblivion similarly to the gully that I had descended off Carrock Fell and made me reflect on the general deterioration of the fells that I had seen in many places on this holiday. I was even more distressed when I later read reports that blamed walking poles for the deterioration and led me to regret the way I had used my poles in the gully above Rake Trod. Steep, crumbly paths such as these should probably only be ascended as that is less destructive than a descent, or maybe they should be avoided completely until repair work can be carried out. Continuing along the ridge I passed the striking cairn at the south top and on into Mousthwaite Comb where I descended all the way down to the road and slowly made my way through the village of Threlkeld heading wearily back to the campsite. Over the weekend, when I had been wild camping, it had been necessarily for me to do twelve hour walks and I hoped that now I was staying in a campsite that wouldn’t be required, but this day had also been very long, so by the time I eventually collapsed into the campsite I was once again very tired.