Some Western Wainwrights

Despite poor weather leading up to, and forecast for, the last weekend in June, 13 members of my mountaineering club converged on Beckstones, in the Duddon Valley, for a weekend of hillwalking, cycling, bouldering, rock-climbing, road-running and fell-running.  Although the range of activities was diverse, my sole aim was to bag a few more Wainwrights and inch nearer to next year’s planned completion.

Friday afternoon saw me on the far west of the national park, starting from Coldfell Gate and walking up to the summit of Cold Fell.  It’s a rather unremarkable lump, wet underfoot for a significant amount of the walk and having a rather nondescript summit.  It’s a hill to bag just because it’s on a ticklist with little else to give it any hillwalking merit.  But at least the rain held off!

A drive over to the Birker Fell road led to a more enjoyable walk.  At first glance Great Worm Crag doesn’t appear to offer much to inspire, but the walk was surprisingly pleasant and the summit offered good views of the bigger fells to the north, despite the cloud covering the high tops.  This is one to visit again in better weather.

Green Crag from Great Worm Crag

Saturday’s objective was the Mosedale horseshoe and thankfully Wasdale wasn’t too full with 3 Peaks challengers, allowing us to find a parking space quite quickly.  The path was good up to Gatherstone Head but we decided against following it to the Black Sail pass and made a bee-line for Looking Stead, finding a reasonable path slightly higher up the fellside.  With Looking Stead bagged and lunch eaten, it was time to ascend into the gloom which hid the summit of Pillar.

Rougher ground took us up the ridge to the summit shelter and trig point with a strong breeze blowing and no views to see.  One unusual thing I noticed was that the trig point didn’t have an Ordnance Survey benchmark plate and there wasn’t any sign of it ever having had one!

As conditions weren’t ideal we decided to cut short the route and after reaching Wind Gap, we descended the screes.  As this lesser route had sacrificed 3 Wainwrights I had a close look at our descent route to see how suitable it would be for an ascent for a future walk.  A word of warning – DON’T!  The screes are long and unstable and although possible, it would be a nightmare to gain the ridge by this route.  I’ll be finding another way to bag the rest of the horseshoe.

Mosedale from the screes

Once we had dropped out of the cloud, a bonus was being able to see all of the route still to do – including the pub.  Walking seems so much easier when you know there’s a pint waiting for you at the end.  Ritson’s Bar didn’t disappoint and neither did the Yewbarrow dark mild – I’d thoroughly recommended it!

Although Sunday had the best forecast, it didn’t really turn out to be any better than the previous two days – it was still breezy and the clouds were even lower.  Muncaster Castle was the start of our circular walk on Muncaster Fell, following Wainwright’s Outlying Fells route.  The walk was leisurely and the bogs and mud didn’t exactly add to the enjoyment but I’m sure that it would be a super walk after a dry spell and on a sunny day.  Having said that, the view to the west was superb with the Isle of Man standing out very clearly on the horizon.

A word of warning though – on the main road is a house that had a handsome Airedale terrier who obviously regards the garden as its territory.  Don’t try and make friends with it – it bites!