Words & Photos Andy Stothert

November 01 2009

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.

And I succeeded too, if failure be the measure of success. After numerous capitulations on the Ennerdale Round because of fluid deficiency, energy deficiency, joint lubricant deficiency and the ever-present mental deficit, I came up with a new excuse this time – light expiration. In truth I thought I’d done alright getting as far as Gable from Bowness Knott, and the following day the dreaded aching thighs didn’t materialise, so I thought I may as well go and have a look at some of the other fells around Ennerdale which I’ve ignominiously failed to arrive on in recent years.

Where was I before the sweet sniff of failure intruded? Yes, the Whitehaven Fells. While the rest of us don’t walk very often on these furthest flung fells on the southern side of Ennerdale – for the simple reason that they are so inaccessible from the main roads – apparently the folk from Whitehaven spend half their lives crawling all over them. Well that’s what one lone Whitehavenian tried to tell me on Haycock. “Ay” he says, “these’re t’ Whoitehaven Fails.” So for me, henceforward, that’s what they are.

What I did was leave Bowness Knott on a gloriously deteriorating morning, amble up the Ennerdale track until the lake expired, crossed to the southern side of the valley, then strolled along the forest track until the point where Low Beck joins the River Liza. I’m sure the path up alongside the beck used to be better marked, and I can’t remember it disappearing completely on the flanks of Steeple’s soaring south ridge, but it did. However, this matters not here because you just follow the ridge uphill until it arrives on Steeple’s exposed stony little top, where the view is truly astounding. It is also worth wasting a few minutes pointlessly wandering around Mirk Cove peering down all the gullies.

The way forward, heading the way of Whitehaven folk, is to turn right to follow the wall west, humming something Pink Floyd as you go, but wondering how much money is being wasted on restoring this monumental strip of useless masonry. When I visited, there was even a worker’s cabin littering the fell just beyond Little Gowder Crag, but the tight sods’d locked it, so the kettle was agonisingly out of reach. All you do then is follow The Great Wall over Iron Crag, carry straight on through the trees onto Crag Fell, then find the path which heads west and down to Bleach Green Cottages, where Whitehaven steals its water from Ennerdale.

Distance: 14 miles/22km Ascent: 3640ft/1110m Time: 7-9 hours Start/finish: Bowness Knott car park (GR: NY 110154) Maps: Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer sheet OL4 (The English Lakes – North Western area); OS 1:50,000 Landranger sheet 89 (West Cumbria); Harvey 1:25,000 Superwalker, Lakeland West; BMC 1:40,000 British Mountain Maps, Lake District Information: Keswick TIC, 01768 772645 or see www.golakes.co.uk Travel: 217 bus runs to Ennerdale Bridge Monday to Saturday; Traveline: 0871 200 2233, www.traveline.info

Technical Spec
Lakeside track E to track S and 1st Bridge across River Liza, E on forest track, ascend S next to Low Beck and ridge onto Steeple. Follow wall W from Great Scoat Fell over Haycock, Little Gowder Crag, and (still with wall) NNW over Iron Crag, to depression and trees. Follow boggy path through woods (crossing but not following bridleway) NW onto Crag Fell. Descend W valley, the follow paths round lake to start.