Maiden Moor and Cat Bells

Tuesday 1st January 2013

At midnight before this walk I was standing in the centre of Keswick with several hundred other people watching the New Year clock on the side of the Skiddaw Hotel countdown to zero so that we could welcome in the New Year. I have never welcomed in the New Year with so many people before and it was a fabulous experience. My walk the following morning, starting later than usual, was through the glorious scenery west of the most beautiful lake in the Lake District, Derwent Water, with weather that was the best that I was to enjoy in the whole of this holiday: clear views in all directions and even occasionally flashes of sunlight. I started on a great route that I have taken many times before from Keswick through the village of Portinscale and Fawe Park to the northern tip of Cat Bells. I’ve walked around the western slopes of Cat Bells several times before but never taken the wide track on the Derwent Water side of the fell, so rather than climb this popular fell I joined this and found an excellent path that was a pleasure to stroll along.

This thoroughly relaxing path is well-graded and well-laid with stunning views across Derwent Water towards Bleaberry Fell and through the Jaws of Borrowdale, and took me all the way down to the road at Manesty where the path south deteriorated. With hindsight it would have been best to have walked along the road as far as the Borrowdale Gates Hotel and then taken the path through Peace How. Instead I took a rough, muddy path around Manesty and above a small wood to Ellers Beck. My plan for this walk was to climb Maiden Moor using Wainwright’s ‘Ascent from Grange via Peace How,’ because in the past I’d always walked along the ridge from High Spy to Maiden Moor and never climbed just this fell. However I got a bit sidetracked by an excellent path that climbs High Spy on a drove road between High and Low White Rakes. While climbing the steep grassy slopes beside Ellers Beck the crags to my left kept attracting my attention including the path that climbs between these formidable barriers.

Spurning the tiring trudge up the grassy slopes to Maiden Moor, I climbed the path to the foot of High White Rake and walked along the thrilling drove road that crosses the foot of the crags to the top of Low White Rake. This is a fabulous path high above the fellside with excellent views across Derwent Water; it is just the sort of path that I absolutely adore. Some years ago I tried to take this path from Castle Crag but I was coming from the wrong direction and ended up climbing through Nitting Haws. The drove road had brought me to the bottom of a vast and wild upland area east of the top of High Spy, filled with heather, bracken and moss set amongst rocks, and is a long way away from the popular path that runs along the top of the fell. When I reached this natural amphitheatre it started to rain as the good weather of the morning failed to last very long, and it continued to rain while I had my lunch and while I battled all the way up to the top of the ridge through the wind and rain.

My target was still Maiden Moor, however I was at Blea Crag on the northern edge of High Spy, and actually higher than the top of Maiden Moor. I’m not sure if this counts as an ascent of Maiden Moor even though I never actually visited the summit of High Spy. I had to battle against unbelievably strong winds, hail and rain while on the exposed ridge over to the top of Maiden Moor. The main path across the fell doesn’t go to the summit but actually descends the eastern slopes and would have sheltered me from the winds, but since I was trying to climb Maiden Moor I had to take the exposed path to the summit. The weather eased after I passed over the top of Maiden Moor and from there I descended the craggy path down the broad northern slopes of the fell to Hause Gate and from there up to Cat Bells. Cat Bells is always a pleasure to climb as it is like a miniature version of the big fells. Half their height but with everything the bigger fells have got except for height. It is a real family favourite. The excellent northern ridge of Cat Bells took me back onto my outward route through Fawe Park and Portinscale in dwindling daylight to Keswick. This was not a long walk since there I had started late and a long approach had been necessary at the start and end from Keswick, but it was a good walk on a great day through fabulous scenery and with some enjoyable weather in the morning. It was a great way to start the year.

Greenup Pass

Monday 31st December 2012

The weather forecast for this walk did not look good. The rain that had started the day before had continued all through the night and was forecast to continue throughout the morning. The ‘F’ word was even mentioned in the forecast which made me rather nervous as I was attempting a walk that I had started, in the opposite direction, at Easter in 2010. On that occasion it had rained heavily all night and was still raining as I started to walk from Borrowdale through Stonethwaite up the Greenup valley, but it wasn’t long before my way was blocked by a raging torrent that forced me to turn back and find an alternative route over the hills via Blea Tarn. However, despite the weather forecast warning of flooding, when I got up for this walk it wasn’t raining so my fears were eased slightly and I decided to attempt the climb over the pass of Greenup Edge, which is something I’d never succeeded in doing before.

Leaving Grasmere I walked up the lane and into Far Easedale. The lane was very wet with deep pools of water littering the lane that would have been trouble for me if I wasn’t wearing the SealSkinz Trekking Socks that I had been using for the first time on this holiday. Despite the flooded lane my feet stayed dry thanks to my waterproof socks. This lane is a fantastic walk, whether wet or dry, and leads to Stythwaite Steps where a wet and muddy climb started up Far Easedale under grim weather. The promised rain soon began to fall and the wind blew strong but I battled on nevertheless. The weather wasn’t making this a pleasant walk, but the surroundings were just as awesome as ever with high crags either side of a valley that would have been a delight to explore, if the weather was good. Far Easedale is a fantastic valley, but this was actually only the second time that I’d walked along its length, with the first time being back in 2004, also in poor weather. In good weather the ridge between Calf Crag and Helm Crag proves too strong a temptation.

The bad weather encouraged me to just put my head down and plough on up the valley until I reached the top of Far Easedale where I had a rest at the top before crossing the upper end of the notoriously boggy Wythburn valley. This is a horribly wet place, particularly with the weather that I had to cope with as the path had deteriorated into a muddy slime and then disappeared to leave me with a boggy traverse of the valley until I reached higher ground on the other side where the path re-appeared. This was not a nice place to be in this weather, but I would have worse to come. Despite the weather, I resolutely climbed the path battling against the wind and rain until finally I reached Greenup Edge, the misnomer that is actually a wide boggy plain between the fells of High Raise and Ullscarf. I had never walked over Greenup Pass before and based on my horrifying experience on this walk I’ll not be in a hurry to repeat the experience.

The Coast to Coast Path crosses Greenup Pass, but that hasn’t made the path any clearer as all I found was a faint path marked by cairns crossing the bogs, and all the time it was raining and very windy. This was a truly horrible place to be in these weather conditions and not somewhere that I wanted to linger. Finally I reached the top of Lining Crag where I found myself on the edge of an astonishing cove with steep sides all around; if there is an actual edge at Greenup then surely this was it, even if it is only one-sided. Retreating slightly from the edge of the cliff-face I took a path that crosses the top of Greenup Gill and carefully made my way down a steep, manufactured path following the stream all the way into the bowl, continuing on this interesting path that I had attempted to walk up in 2010 and found impassable. With the rain continuing to fall I grew apprehensive about the raging torrent that had blocked my path almost three years earlier.

When I eventually reached the torrent that had blocked my passage in 2010 I found a gently flowing stream that was easy to ford. The Greenup path has an astonishing number of fords to cross and that was my undoing in 2010, but now, despite the prolonged rain, the river levels were not as high as then. I think that is because the Lake District is used to prolonged rainfall and has a vast network of rivers and streams to remove that water. For the Lake District to flood, recently most notably in November 2009 (and my experience was not long after that compounded by snow melt), requires enormous amounts of rain to fall in an astonishingly short space of time. This wasn’t the case now and I was able to continue along the water-logged path with no trouble all the way into Borrowdale. One of the reasons why I was able to complete this walk, despite the horrendous weather, was because I had gear that was able to keep me warm and dry. I remember as a child being told by an experienced walker that so long as you can stay warm and dry then you will be able to walk in any weather.

Once in Borrowdale I walked along the road through the Jaws of Borrowdale and then took a track on the right that climbed up to the Bowder Stone, which is a huge rock that appears to have fallen from Bowder Crag uncounted years ago. I had never visited this popular tourist attraction before and since there was no one else around I was easily able to climb the ladder to the top and enjoy the vertiginous views. My original plan for the end of this walk had been to walk through Borrowdale all the way to Derwent Water and then along the western shore to Keswick, but I quickly realized that it would be dark long before I reached Keswick. A walk through woodland brought me back down to the road and thence to the village of Grange where I caught a bus to Keswick, which was a much more prudent idea than attempting to walk to Keswick. This was an interesting walk in challenging weather that I found strangely satisfying in my adventure over Greenup Pass. I never saw anyone else going over the pass and I’m not surprised for the weather was truly awful.