I settled for the clamber onto the prominent crags of Thornythwaite Fell, before travelling the ups and downs of the long Glaramara ridge, where a confusion of rocky knolls and tiny tarns succeeded in swaying me from the path.
It was a cruel twist of fate that sent Pete sprawling to the ground, landing on his back as helpless as an upturned tortoise in a school yard. “I think it’s broken” he grimaced, firmly clutching his lower leg. I helped him to his feet and he hobbled painfully towards the trig point, desperately lunging at it for support.
I love heading out onto the fells just as other walkers are heading back to their cars at the end of the day. The promise of having all those tarns and ridges and summits – normally so crowded – all to myself fills me with a child-like excitement each and every time.
Heavy dew saturated the grassy path that led me to the summit of Seat Sandal, where I sat among the rock-eating breakfast in a silent pre-dawn.
I’d walked the fells above Greendale on several occasions in the past, but I’d never visited Greendale Gill before. So on a gloriously sunny day I eschewed the delights of Middle Fell, despite the promise of a wonderful view of the mountains at the head of Wasdale, and headed for the confines of the ravine instead.
There’s a big bust up these days between Keswick, Fort William and Pitlochry – all three are placing claims as the Outdoor Adventure Capital.
Steer well clear of Aira Beck if you want to avoid the crowds in the North Lakes, right? Wrong! While Aira Force attracts swarms of tourists like the proverbial honey, just a couple of miles upstream is a pretty section of hanging valley that sees few visitors.
High in upper Eskdale rises the rocky summit of Pen, forever in the shadow of Scafell Pike, bound to its flanks like some unfortunate and less robust Siamese twin. Yet in certain weather conditions, when the tops are scarved in cloud, Pen comes into its own.
If you enjoy long striding on pathless uplands and the elemental joy of solitude, you will be at home in Blengdale. It’s never busy.
Helvellyn may dominate the landscape east of Thirlmere but after queueing to reach the summit of Scafell Pike the previous day – my mistake for going up on a bank holiday – I was eager to escape the highly populated peaks and find somewhere a little less crowded.
It’s a good feeling to sit on the top of Dale Head, feet dangling mid-air, contemplating the massive glacial valley below, carved out as snow and rock ground a path towards Skiddaw.
Carrock Fell deserves a better press, but it’s a victim of its position on the edge of Lakeland. The A66 whisks most potential visitors by to the honey pot of Keswick, and those that do pause are quickly seduced by the grander and testier slopes of Blencathra, whose skirt sweeps seductively up from the carriageway in a series of shapely ridges.
On an early spring day of welcome blue skies after weeks of rain and snow I started out from Grizebeck and headed up the lane past Ashlack Hall, with the chuckling Grize Beck, the “stream of the pigs”, close at hand.
I don’t think it’s illegal but I’ve developed a taste for something unusual recently and can’t keep off it. ‘It’ is Seat Sandal, that awkward formless-looking character which sits unloved on the edge of the Helvellyn range.
Winter means sunlight on the high blue ridges and firm snow where your crampons crunch into the ice with a sound like a holepuncher punching through stiff card. The air is cold in the nose, the ice axe swings as a happy extension of the arm, and the eye wanders across six golden ranges towards the setting sun and the sea.
Yewbarrow battles valiantly with eminent neighbours like Sca Fell and Great Gable to turn the attentions of the Wasdale following. You’d think, as with tortoise versus hare, she wouldn’t stand a chance. At only 627m size isn’t going to do it, but what’s lacking in bulk is recompensed in form.
The Old Man of Coniston offers manifold rewards in a comparatively short walk: there are sea views to the west, the Langdales and Scafell range to the north, and a side-on view of the Howgill Fells away to the east that gives them a folded, almost crumpled-up appearance.
The hidden corners of Swindale, tucked into the eastern fringes of the Lake District, are among my favourite places to get away from it all. You can park by the cattle grid below Bewbarrow Crag and head straight onto the tops, and probably won’t see another walker all day. What you do stand a good chance of seeing is wildlife.
When a chill northerly airstream brings hard frost and several inches of snow, what’s a walker to do? Well, a lot of walking, obviously. But also, with the hills smeared and sculpted in white like a freshly iced Christmas cake under the fairy lighting of a pink winter sun, a lot of photography.
Places like Buttermere, Wasdale and Eskdale, for me, have a different and more exotic appeal than the land in the east of the Lake District. Not better, just different, and in the main due to the fact that these valleys and fells are slightly more remote (from the motorway) than the eastern fells.
Devoke Water to Black Combe (or the other way) is one of those natural lines to walk along in the Lakes, but after nearly 40 years of bumbling about in the fells I’d never previously got round to crossing these mammoth prairies in one fell swoop.
I set out along a track slightly raised above the smooth, silky surface of Brothers Water where swallows hoover up hapless flies. Sunlight filters through an almost full canopy, which muffles the call of a persistent wood pigeon. I emerge from the wood to see two herons homing in on the water.
Sounds like a firm of cut-price solicitors doesn’t it? But just what do you do with those short December or January days when the white stuff is about? And what if things don’t quite work out the way you’d anticipated? These were some of the possibilities we were considering one morning last winter at Hartsop.
If you enjoyed Striding Edge, Swirral Edge and Sharp Edge then you will also like the easier, but still delightful, ridge linking Whiteside, Hopegill Head and Grisedale Pike.
For a small, compact group of hills the Howgill Fells pose a certain amount of cartographic confusion, being part of Cumbria but not part of the Lake District, as well as crossing into the Yorkshire Dales National Park, while not being part of Yorkshire!
A winter walk on the far western fells south of Ennerdale is normally a soggy affair, so when a decent snowfall meant I’d get to hear crunching beneath my boots rather than the usual ‘squidge’, I jumped at the chance.
I can’t quite fathom whether it’s me who’s the misfit or Longsleddale. Or maybe it’s the both of us. It is widely acknowledged that the Lake District is the walking capital of the world, and is swarming with walkers to such an extent that, at times, and in certain places, the goose has been well and truly burnt to a cinder.
Of the many so-called horseshoe walks with which the Lakes are blessed – Fairfield, Kentmere, Coledale et al – beautiful Martindale’s is one of the less frequented and quietest. No doubt this is largely due to its relative isolation – accessible by car only along a narrow no-through road from Pooley Bridge, with Ullswater forming a barrier to the north and west.
One glorious late spring morning I was bound for Buttermere with butterflies in the belly and that soaring in the soul you get when you just know that this is going to be one of those special days which will live with you for your remainder.
Even the blindest of those who hold faith in the fact that the Lake District is the most beautiful corner of paradise have to concede that it could do to be a bit bigger. And consequently, like anywhere else where we, the planetary pest, haven’t got quite enough room to rule the roost, there are some minor skirmishes over territory.
On this first snowy walk of the winter season I’d settled on a long ridge walk to the Langdales, partly because I hadn’t been that way since my teens, when my dad took me along what I can still remember as a long, broad ridge, confused with rocky outcrops, bothersome bogs and frustratingly false summits.
There are two stages in life when we deem it necessary to undertake pointless expeditions or exceptional feats of human endurance which prove nothing to anyone except yourself. These two vulnerable times are when y’r young enough to need to prove your worth, or old enough to want to show what you are still capable of.
“Watendlath is delightful and its qualities unique… a tiny cluster of white cottages and stone barns set at odd angles without pattern, a tarn, a stream and a bridge, all deeply inured amongst surrounding fells and hidden from outside gaze: here are all the attributes of a perfect picture, a scene to enrapture artist and photographers.”
A preacher, with a reputation for delivering “dry as dust” sermons, was carrying one of his scribbled homilies across the moor, when he was savagely attacked by a wild boar. Instinctively he drove the parchment deep into the boar’s gullet, and it promptly died of a terrible thirst (or perhaps a severe case of lack of interest). Don’t believe me?
I can never understand why the fells on Cumbria’s border with North Yorkshire aren’t crawling with people. Okay, things can get a bit damp underfoot at times, and walkers may need to consult their map and compass instead of simply following those ugly, scar-like paths that plague the National Parks, but these are gorgeous hills, full of atmosphere and mystery.
Buttermere is gorgeous. Everything about the place has me coming over all weepy and romantic – and poetic too, whenever my willowy thoughts wander that way.
I had never heard of the Whitehaven Fells until last October when I went off to the western Lake District for a few days intent on pursuing my annual failure to stumble across every fell surrounding Ennerdale.
The jagged edge of Crinkle Crags is sustained by brawny buttresses that defy the elements, leaving an elevated amble with a fantastic prospect over the graceful, glacial Langdale, a stage for viewing England’s highest mountain scenery, and an outlook over wild moorland dotted with brilliant blue tarns.
