Touching Distance

Not words that describe the proximity of this trip’s fells to home, but something rather less tangible – the fact my remaining Wainwrights and Outlying Fells could be completed in 2 days, if I chose to do so.

Today’s objectives were those fells furthest away from home, in the far west of Cumbria – one of them so far west it lies outside the national park !  The end of Nannycatch Lane was the starting point for Flat Fell and Dent; dent being the fell lying outside the national park.  Cool and overcast conditions didn’t detract from the relaxed walking.  The true summit of Dent is rather uninspiring but the lower Wainwright summit is adorned by an impressive cairn.

Dent - the Wainwright summit

Wellington was the start of my walk up Blengdale to the Outlying Fell Ponsonby Fell – which “is very nearly in this category” of “fells not worth climbing” – according to Wainwright.  It’s not the best fell I’ve been to the top of, but its views and isolation lend it some value.  The stroll to Swainson Knott afforded views towards some of the most western of Wainwright’s 214 fells and the walk back to car on the forestry tracks rounded off a pleasant excursion.

Muncaster Fell was the final top of the day, which although climbed previously, I couldn’t be wholly sure that I had reached the actual summit which is listed as a rocky knoll near to the trig point.  From the summit I could see my final Wainwright – Seatallan – looming above a smaller fell which, after checking the map, I found to be my final Outlying Fell – Irton Pike.  This took me by surprise but seemed appropriate that the end of my Wainwright ticking odyssey was in sight, both figuratively and visually.

Muncaster Fell trig pillar

So, my final 4 Outlying Fells are Green Quarter Fell, Hollow Moor, Boat How and Irton Pike – my final 3 Wainwrights are Buckbarrow, Middle Fell and Seatallan.  I’ll be ticking these off, as well as the remainder of the FRCC 244 and Fellrangers, over the next few months with the finish on Seatallan to complete 4 lists on the same day.

I hope the sun will be shining !

Viewpoints

Each time I drive over Shap summit on the M6 I glance to the side to look for the small pyramidal summit of Kidsty Pike.  It’s a striking view amongst the rounded summits of the far-eastern fells and one that’s not overly familiar to those bagging the Wainwrights.

My goal for the day was to tick the Outlying Fells of the Seat Robert and Howes chapters in Wainwright’s book 8, and possibly the Nuttall of Branstree NE top.  It was yet another excursion into the Shap fells but probably my last for quite some time.

Seat Robert summit

The walk was one of solitude although the summits thereabouts are easily won and are pleasant places to be, despite the boggy nature of the terrain.  Seat Robert is a place to linger, with superb views of Cross Fell to the east and the High Street fells to the west.  Fewling Stones is an equally relaxing spot.  And both have a good view of the outstanding Kidsty Pike.

Haskew Tarn

Haskew Tarn was a worthwhile distraction from the summits, although as it was a day following a recent cold spell, the ground was easier to walk on than I suspect it would be once it had thawed.

Brunt Tongue

I descended to Mosedale Beck bridge where I rested for a while and enjoyed the view of the Brunt Tongue ridge, before taking in the ascent to the Howes ridge.  The walk had taken longer than expected so I was in two minds about ticking the Branstree top, but as it was the only Nuttall in the far-eastern fells that I hadn’t ticked, I decided to go for it as I didn’t want to return just for that summit.  There was quite a bit more snow at this height, but a fellrunner had left some convenient footprints for me to follow, making the walk just a bit easier.

High Street

There was an excellent view of the east face of High Street from the small summit cairn, but there wasn’t much else to recommend staying here for any longer.  I retraced my steps and easily reached the top of Howes before descending some well-consolidated neve on the way to Nabs Moor.  This afforded a nice view of Swindale before heading for home via the Mosedale Beck bridge and the boggy track back towards Tailbert.

This 10-hour day allowed me to tick 7 Outlying Fells, leaving only 7 to do.  Unfortunately, they’re spread out over the national park from far west to south-east but I’m sure that one or two will surprise me with some unusual views.

A New English Mountain

While browsing on Twitter this morning I came across a tweet posted by Grough announcing a “new” mountain had been found in England – Thack Moor.

Of course, the summit in question has always been there and its height has been constant – no tectonic upheaval has caused the mountain to rise – but recent surveys have determined that its summit height exceeded the 2000 feet required for “mountain” status.  And the margin by which it exceeded the benchmark height ?  2 centimetres !

By all accounts Thack Moor is one of a number of otherwise unremarkable northern Pennine moorland summits with its appeal being the quiet afforded by its relatively remote location – just north of the Hartside Pass summit on the A686.

The article on Grough’s website has significance for those hillwalkers who bag either HEWITTS or Nuttalls as Thack Moor has now been added to both of these hill lists.

There are usually grumblings within the bagging community when a mountain is promoted with some debate about whether those who have previously completed a list need to visit the “new” summit.  I take the view that if somebody has completed a list as it stood on the date of completion, they can retain “completer” status.  But I’d head out and tick it if I hadn’t already done so !

As many hill lists are specifically defined by summit height and prominence, I welcome these surveys as I am always keen to see accurate data – it’s a characteristic of my job !  Some say that the lists should be left alone – a view taken by many Munro enthusiasts – but I disagree.  If a definition is based only on measurable criteria then the classification will always be subject to change resulting from increasingly accurate surveys.

The Nuttalls is a list that I’m slowly working my way through so Thack Moor has now been added to my “To Do” list – I’m looking forward to visiting an area of the country that I’ve not been to before.

G & J Surveys (a team whose members are Graham Jackson, John Barnard and Myrddyn Phillips) carried out the survey with the results being confirmed by the Ordnance Survey.  This is the team whose previous surveys have resulted in the “demotion” of a Munro or two over the past couple of years.  I’m sure they’ll provide a few more reclassifications in months and years to come !

Deer Country

A sabbatical of 4 months had seriously impacted my plan to complete the Wainwrights and Outlying Fells this year.  So, to feel as if I was making some progress, I chose a route with a significant number of previously unticked summits that could be completed within the slowly growing hours of daylight.  Also, due to the recent cold spell, usually boggy terrain would most likely be frozen so this opportunity should not be ignored.  Shap was the obvious choice.

Parking in a large layby at the summit of the A6 at Shap, I headed downhill towards Hause Foot Farm at the bottom of, as Wainwright described, the loneliest valley within the national park.  It was quite easy to reach the ridge of the Crookdale Horseshoe and the first summit of High House Bank.  The broad ridge led easily to Robin Hood and then to Lord’s Seat, at which point I thought that I was not going to see any other walkers during the day. But a chap had walked up from Crookdale and after a brief conversation, he headed east along the ridge I had just walked, as I set off over varied ground towards the Nuttall of Harrop Pike.  I took advantage of a quick photo stop and headed towards more isolated country and Ulthwaite Rigg.

Despite a couple of days of above zero temperatures, the ground underfoot was quite firm.  Although the top inch or two had thawed, there was a permafrost-like layer underneath, strong enough to prevent my boots sinking into the peat.  Cold spells are definitely the best conditions to journey on to the fells west of Shap.

Descending towards Ulthwaite Rigg I spotted what I first thought were a number of fell ponies.  Once I’d looked through my monocular I clearly saw that they were a herd of 16 or 17 deer.  I got to within about 400 metres before they turned tail and headed down towards Sleddale Beck.  I saw them again as I traversed towards Great Saddle Crag but my viewpoint soon changed to leave them out of sight.  I saw another three as I climbed up the final slopes and two of them headed towards the previous herd and the third ran off towards the east.  This summit was the most defined of today’s Outlying Fells and offered welcome rocks upon which to rest.

Deer on Ulthwaite Rigg

On the next traverse to Sleddale Pike  I saw another, larger, herd of deer; this time about 50 in number which the previously seen third deer had joined.  Like the previous herd, they made their way down towards Sleddale once they realised I was heading in their direction.  The isolation of the Shap moors suits deer far more than humans, as proved by the numbers seen.

From the tiny cairn on the summit of Sleddale Pike the large granite erratic of Gray Bull is easily seen.  When I reached it I was tempted to climb it but didn’t want to risk a less than straightforward downclimb in winter boots.

Grey Bull - a Shap erratic

I crossed the slopes of Wasdale Pike, disturbing another herd of 20 or so deer, before dropping down in to Wasdale to cross Wasdale Beck and then head up to the top of the plantation.  From there, the walk to the car was the final easy stage of the walk, one which had seen the ticking of one Nuttall and six Outlying Fells.

Loweswater Fells

“The lesser heights and foothills of Lakeland, especially those on the fringe, are too much neglected in favour of the greater mountains, yet many of these unsought and unfashionable little hills are completely charming.”

I have walked over and stood on many of these “lesser heights and foothills” in the past few years and Alfred Wainwright’s introduction to Low Fell describes them perfectly.  The terrain is generally quite benign but the views, stood apart from the clustered higher fells, are often superb.

Easy lanes led to the slopes of Darling Fell followed by the crossing of Crabtree Beck to the Wainwright summit of Low Fell.  The cairned viewpoint a short way to the south leads the eye past water and mere to the heart of the high western fells.

Buttermere valley from Low Fell

Low Fell is one of those fells of which Wainwright’s summit differs from the true highpoint.  He obviously picks a point that he thinks has more merit due to view or terrain, and I wonder how many walkers miss their tick because of an alternate summit.  Mellbreak and Whiteside are two more examples.

This ridge’s second Wainwright of Fellbarrow is easily reached by strolling over the Birkett tops of Sourfoot Fell and Smithy Fell.  The descent off Mosser Fell needs care to avoid a mauling by the gorse and lower down has some boggier ground to negotiate.

Knock Murton is another fell, neither a Wainwright nor an Outlying Fell, which offers an easy walk with superb views as a reward.  Such was the clarity of the air, details could be picked out on Criffel over the Solway and individual tops on the Isle of Man’s North Barrule ridge could be picked out.

Isle of Man from Knock Murton

Three Chairs

I’ve long been a fan of Andy Goldsworthy.  His sculptures are masterpieces in the use of natural materials set in natural landscapes with his use of rock being excellent.

I stumbled upon the existence of “The Three Chairs” when researching a walk up to Clougha Pike, a TRAIL 100 summit on the edge of the Forest of Bowland that overlooks the Fylde peninsula and Lancaster.  It took a bit of digging to establish exactly where the sculpture was situated, but I stumbled across a GPS track that gave me a very good idea of where to look.

The Victoria Monument on the Quernmore-Abbeystead road has a spacious car park from where I set off.  The fence follows a straight line over some boggy ground to Grit Fell and then the hunt for the chairs was on.  Walking north-west over some very populated grouse moorland, the chairs soon came into view.

The Three Chairs

There is some debate as to the true name of the work with the internet suggesting “Clougha Pike” and “Clougha Pike Chambers”.  They look like three tissue boxes stood on their ends and can easily shelter one or two (or maybe three) people each.  They offer a superb photo-opportunity and I took full advantage of this.  They were the clear highlight of the walk.

Ingleborough

Like many lower hills, Clougha Pike has some good views too.  Ingleborough is the most prominent summit seen although the view to Lakeland was obscured by low lying cloud.  Blackpool Tower was clearly in view; its dark framework structure contrasting nicely with the brighter sky below the cloud level.

a distant Blackpool Tower

The summit of Clougha Pike is adorned with three shelters and a trig point and would be a pleasant spot to relax in good weather although the changeable conditions for this visit weren’t too bad.  But I am sure that it is not one of the UK’s best 100 hills, as deemed by its inclusion in Trail magazine’s list.

But if you want some art on your travails amongst the hills, there can’t be many better places with such a notable artist’s work featured.

Loweswater Fell

Loweswater Fell is an area of high land marked on Landranger 89 to the south of Loweswater.  My interest in it was due to there being five Wainwrights near to each other that I hadn’t previously climbed.  And as I only had ten left to tick, the prospect of knocking half of them off in one walk was too good to turn down.

This particular group of hills is bounded by Loweswater in the north, Floutern Pass in the south, Crummock Water in the east and the national park boundary in the west.  None of it reaches 1900 feet, let alone 2000 feet, so it should lend itself to an easy day out but don’t let that seemingly innocuous statistic lull you into a false sense of security.

Easy tracks led to the screes of Mellbreak’s Raven Crag which petered out on the edge of an impressive precipice, dropping away into an other-worldly gully.  Further up on Dropping Crag were some super viewpoints looking up to the head of the Buttermere valley.

Fleetwith Pike and Buttermere

Two distinct cairns crowned the north top of Mellbreak but which marks was the true summit is open to debate.  Whichever it is, neither is the actual summit of the fell, that honour resting with a rather nondescript flat spot over half a mile away.  Although a little hazy, the views were good and hills as far away as Merrick could be seen across the Solway Firth.



Criffel



I dropped into Mosedale, reluctantly losing the height already gained and rested at the Mosedale Holly Tree – the only tree in the Lake District named on an OS map.  It flourishes in the midst of some very boggy terrain.  I soon gained the bridleway and crossed the footbridge leading towards Floutern Pass but it was hard to take even a single step on dry ground, with the morass being home to common lizards of which I disturbed a couple.  The next dry ground was found only on the south ridge of Hen Comb.  Dropping from the summit, again losing hard-won height, soon found me battling boggy ground again, this time on Whiteoak Moss which was the wettest ground of the day.  Another ascent, although smaller this time, led to the top of Gavel Fell.  At least the boggy ground was behind me now and only a little more ascent was needed as I traversed the tops of Blake Fell (the day’s highpoint), Carling Knott (not a Wainwright but on the FRCC 244 list) and finally Burnbank Fell.  The views were clearer in the early evening sunshine with Criffel defining the horizon.



Loweswater - Millennium Sculpture



Grasmoor



  The descent to Holme Wood and Loweswater

  gave good views of the west “face” of Grasmoor

  and the final plodding kilometre of roadwalking

  was only interrupted by a short diversion to the

  discretely impressive Millennium sculpture at

  Loweswater village hall.