The
Howgills had long been a target of mine after countless trips past them to the
northern Lake District and Scotland and with John and Anne Nuttall describing a
route to tick all seven Nuttalls, I decided to make an attempt to complete all
seven summits in one day and also to tick one of my #trail7summits objectives – The Calf.
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| Cautley Spout |
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| Moonrise |
Paths
from the Cross Keys Hotel ease their way to higher ground with good views of Cautley
Spout ahead if you. The cliffs of Cautley Crag provide a
contrasting landscape to rolling hills of the high tops and ridges that will
come to dominate the day. A faint path
to Yarlside from Bowderdale Head was the first significant climb of the day
leading to a vista of endless rounded summits.
The descent towards Kensgriff was a knee-jarring prelude to some easy
promenading before the climb to the next Nuttall summit of Randygill Top.
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| Yarlside summit |
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| Kensgriff and Yarlside |
The
path down to Bowderdale gave me a good view of the next ascent on the route –
over Hazelgill Knott – and I didn’t fancy it at all as it was just a
“short-cut” before another descent to gain the start of the walk up to Fell
Head. At the beck I got the map out to
gauge my options and decided to walk up the bridleway leading up to the plateau
of The Calf and leave the two Nuttalls of Fell Head and Bush Howe to another
day, probably starting from the Howgill side of the fells.
The
steady path reached a pool on the plateau and I spied some walkers heading for
The Calf from the north-west and noticed that Bush Howe might be an easy tick,
so I skirted the plateau and the path led directly to the nondescript summit of
Bush Howe and its pitiful cairn. The
path to the TRAIL 100 summit of The Calf was an easy walk and I carried on
towards Bram Rigg Top, making a beeline across the heather slopes to find the
cairn – even less significant than the one topping Bush Howe. Finding it amongst the grass was a bit of a
challenge and in poor visibility it would be very hard to trace. Bram Rigg Top has got to be one of the
poorest summits I’ve ever reached.
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| The Calf summit |
Calders, the day’s day’s Nuttall, was quickly ticked
and I turned to traverse the edge of the Great Dummacks plateau before taking a
direct aim over Lattera towards Cautley Beck.
The Nuttall’s route down takes in Cautley Spout but I wanted the
shortest way back to the car, even though my knees didn’t thank me for it !
