Patterdale Area • 1
Page One • Page Two
Angle Tarn
On this trip I climbed some of the fells around Patterdale, an area covered by Wainwright in his first two books (The Eastern Fells and The Far Eastern Fells). The first three nights were spent on campsites so that I could have a long day on the fells without carrying too much weight, and I wild camped the last two nights. I didn't make any real route plans for this trip, I just followed my nose, so any line of my route will look a little haphazard. Who said walking is about being organised?
DAY 1 HIGH STREET AREA
I'd spent the night at Sykeside campsite near Brotherswater. It's not a bad site - it's got a good shop and it's own pub. I like to occasionally stay on an official campsite for the amenities. After breakfast I packed a small daysack and decided to bag several of the fells that surround the Hayeswater reservoir. The first of these was Rest Dodd, a relatively undistinguished hill which nonetheless was tough going (the first hill of the day always is). The second hill of the day was to be the Nab. I was a little reticent about this one as the Wainwright book mentioned it as being private land, but there was a gap in the wall at one end with no indications on the ground of it actually being private, so I took my chances and hurried the half mile to the summit, half expecting to meet a game keeper with a shotgun. For some reason, visions of Robert Hanay in 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' came to mind. However, I didn't see a soul, just a herd of about twenty red deer grazing far below in Martindale.
After the Nab, I had to reascend Rest Dodd to continue on to the next fell, the Knott. It's always a drag when one of the hills you want to climb juts out off the beaten track entailing a reascent, but the topography of the mountains was not designed with peakbaggers in mind. The only way around it is to plan as much as possible beforehand with a map, trying to find the most efficient route, (maybe someone could design a computer programme that could do this?), whilst accepting that there'll be many times you'll have to retrace your steps. (I'll often dump my rucksack somewhere when I have to go off on such a tangent so that I can travel a bit faster and lighter).
From Rest Dodd, it's just a matter of following a wall south to the summit of the Knott, which was useful as the mist had come down, and for the rest of the day I was in the clouds. At the col between the two hills I was passed by two mountain bikers, the last people I saw on the fells that day. Whilst resting on the summit of the Knott, a foxhound appeared from out of the mist. It hung around for a minutes or two, eying me suspiciously as I rummaged through my daysack to find it something to eat, then dashed off in the direction I had come from. I presumed it had got separated from a fox hunt.
After the Knott I ascended to the broad summit of Rampsgill Head on a compass bearing, aware that there were crags to my left, and from here took another bearing which took me to the summit of Kidsty Pike, not much more than five minutes away. It was another couple of years before I returned in clear weather to see just how fine a summit the pike is, but today I was just faintly aware of standing over a bottomless abyss.
A compass bearing finally got me onto the Roman Road which bypasses the summit of High Street, where I stopped for a lunch break in the small windshelter. I was quite pleased to see some fell ponies come out of the mist. They are quite common on the Far Eastern Fells, even on the summits (which are usually quite broad anyway). Unlike the foxhound, they were more than pleased to share a spot of lunch.
Fell ponies on High Street summit
Much of my walk from here would be following walls. Though my map and compass navigation is reasonably good, in bad weather it's still a lot less hassle following a 'handrail' feature such as a wall or a stream than wiping rain of a wet map case.
I followed the Roman Road south and soon arrived at the depression between High Street and Thornthwaite Crag, one of the most distinctive summits in the district; again, it was a simple matter of following a wall west to arrive at the 14 foot beacon, probably the finest cairn on the fells.
Continuing west, the deep col of Threshthwaite Mouth took me briefly below cloud level and up onto the plateau of Caudale Moor. The summit itself is called Stoney Cove Pike, but the plateau continues west for half a mile or so to a another cairn at 2477'. From this cairn there is a good path down to Brotherswater, but I still had a half hour of daylight left so I walked back towards the summit of Stoney Cove Pike and the followed the wall north along the ridge to the summit of Hartsop Dodd.
DAY 2 - SHEFFIELD PIKE
A bit of a lazy day today. In the morning I took a bus into Penrith to go the cash machine and get a few supplies. They say the difference between a town and a village is whether there is a cash machine, in which case there are only three towns in the National Park - Keswick, Ambleside and Coniston.
Rather than go straight back to the tent, I decided to get off the bus in Glenridding and climb two fells I'd never been on, Sheffield Pike and Glenridding Dodd. Being a round trip, I didn't see the point in carrying my daysack full of shopping up there, so I hid it in some bracken on the lower slopes and with just a bottle of water, I climbed up the zigzag path to the old lead mine, from where I ran to the summit of Sheffield Pike. Though I wouldn't class myself as a fell runner, when I'm carrying nothing and the weather is cool I can run fair distances on the fells. However, there was no path from here to the top and it was pretty tough going on the heather.
The summit of Sheffield Pike with Ullswater beyond.
I stopped briefly in the shelter below the cairn, then ran on eastward towards Glenridding Dodd passing over the rocky minor top of Heron Pike. After retrieving my daysack, I headed back to the tent and then finished the night off in the pub.
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