Over Fairfield and Helvellyn • 2
Page One • Page Two
Grisedale Tarn from the Cofa Pike ridge
At Grisedale Tarn I stopped for about an hour and had lunch. I had to decide whether to climb Dollywagon Pike and reach Hard Tarn from the Helvellyn ridge, or descend to Ruthwaite Lodge and climb directly into Ruthwaite Cove. A few quick sums showed that either route would involve a few hundred feet of descent and a thousand feet of reascent. In the end I chose the latter as the map contours showed it to be the least steep (is there an antonym for steep?) and I thought it may be more shaded as the afternoon approached.
I was wrong on the last point and the climb into Ruthwaite Cove was one of quite a slog. It was all worthwhile, however, as Hard Tarn turned out to be an idyllic spot, perched on a rocky ledge with enough dry level ground for a dozen tents. Though tarns are popular camp spots, this one is literally right off the beaten track. It's unlikely someone would pass it on the way to somewhere else as the valley is for all practical purposes a dead end. The tarn has no inlet or outlet, but there was a beck about five minutes away.
Hard Tarn
I got to the tarn at about 3.00pm and didn't see anyone else for the rest of the day, except for the distant walkers high up on the surrounding ridges, silhouetted against the sky. I rarely camp this early so once the tent was up I had a short nap in the shade. It was another still evening, but the cove reverberated to the sound of sheep and birdsong.
Hard Tarn, with St Sunday Crag beyond
Sunday, 14th May, 2000
The morning was hot, but a thick haze hung over the valley. Today I wanted to get up onto the main ridge, continue over Helvellyn towards the Sticks Pass, then descend into the Thirlmere valley were I had arranged to meet my brother get a lift home, (he'd also been in the hills for a couple of days training for an ascent of Kilimanjaro during the summer). The cove is mainly crags, though there is a narrow grassy section leading right up to the col between Dollywagon Pike and Nethermost Pike. Though very steep and pathless, it looks just about possible that a walker travelling light could climb it, but I didn't fancy doing it with a full backpack. Instead I opted to contour north west to a ridge which comes directly down from the summit of Nethermost Pike, a pathless route across boulders, but quite straightforward. The ridge to the summit is quite steep and it narrows towards the top - a short section of it is not dissimilar to Striding Edge, which can be seen across Nethermost Cove. It was still very quiet and I didn't meet anyone until I was on the summit.
Looking back along the east ridge of Nethermost Pike
From Nethermost Pike a heavily cairned path leads up a gentle slope to the summit of Helvellyn. This is probably the busiest summit in Lakeland, and today was no exception. There was no room to sit at the cross-shaped shelter, so I sat at the cairn and had lunch, trying to ignore the mobile phone conversations that were going on around me.
Helvellyn from Nethermost Pike with Catstycam beyond
I continued along the ridge past the trig column and over the subsidiary top of Helvellyn Lower Man, from where the main path turns north towards White Side and Raise, where I stopped for a while amongst the unusually gnarled rocks of the summit. Raise is the last summit on the Helvellyn ridge, and it is separated from the next range, the Dodds, by the Sticks Pass. It would have been nice to continue over the Dodds, for they're very quiet hills in comparison to the more well-known fells to the south, but it was time for me to go. I went down to the pass and followed the path down towards Thirlmere, which I found much harder than any of the ascents, (which is often the case when carrying a full rucksack) .
I'd planned to meet my brother by the phone box in Legburthwaite at 3.00pm, but I arrived thirty seconds late and while searching for some coins in my rucksack, his Landrover came down the road at about 3.01pm. I really have got to try to plan these trips more efficiently.
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