We packed up, had one last breakfast with mum, dad and Angus and left the campsite at 8.30am. Saying goodbye to them always puts a little lump in my throat because I’m secretly a bit soft, particularly when we’d just spent such an amazing week together, so we hastened to plunge ourselves into the mountains for one last day of adventure. They were to drive home that day but we’d booked the following day off work, so the plan was to return to Napes Needle – the iconic rock pinnacle on Great Gable where we’d climbed a couple of days previously – this time to climb the classic trad route “Needle Ridge”, summit the mountain, hike across to tick off its neighbour Kirk Fell, then drive home that evening.
Hike up Great Gable (899m)
We drove deep into the dramatic Wasdale valley one last time and parked again at Wasdale Head. Great Gable loomed ahead in all its distinctive pyramidal glory, its dark, jagged upper reaches calling to us with the siren song unique to high and distant horizons. Loaded with rucksacks full of metal and rope, we hiked the easy, flat mile to its base, then started up its steep southwestern face.
Having already hiked up to Napes Needle, we were prepared for what was coming: a long, steady march up a steep grassy path to gain 450m of elevation in just one kilometre. Green fells surrounded us like towering, frozen, rolling waves, their sweeping, curved edges pitted with rocks, scrub and streams that cut across the surface like long scars. Kirk Fell loomed to the left beyond an impassably steep ravine of grass and scree, which actualised the scale of our undertaking – in terms of vertical elevation gain/loss our first 450m would be followed by a five pitch rock climb for another 350m to the summit of Great Gable, then a descent of 300m to a col between the mountains, then a climb of another 200m to summit Kirk Fell, then a loss of 700m to return to Wasdale. That’s a lot of up and down.
We reached the scree slopes two thirds of the way up the mountain after an hour’s walk, keeping a keen eye out for the practically non-existent path towards Napes Needle. We were eager to take a less treacherous route than we had done previously but I’m not sure if we actually found it. Paths can’t easily be spotted where they run across loose, steep, uneven rocks, changeable terrain where boots leave no mark, so our scrabble along the mountainside was no less perilous and awkward than before. Thankfully we were now vaguely familiar with the triangular pinnacles and seemingly endless grey rock faces of Great Gable’s southern face, so finding Napes Needle was more straightforward than last time and we breathed a sigh of relief as its distinctive form came into view.
NeedleRidge
We scrambled up to the base of the Needle, geared up and as is typical of fickle mountain weather, it started raining – that light but cold and deceptively wet kind of rain. It had been cloudy and dry until then, and we willed it to stop – climbing slippery rock is unpleasant at best. Deciding to push on before it got too wet, Ryan led the first pitch at his own request, which was probably the trickiest due to its polished, slabby nature and seeping rock. Thankfully the rain stopped as he clung to the marginally less slippery left hand side of the slab, struggling a little to find a good gear placement, then pulled through the crux to both our relief. While belaying I chatted to another couple of climbers who had turned up, then I followed up the first pitch, which was easy but admittedly a fairly bold lead due to the polished, damp surface.
The climb was graded a comfortable VDiff so we didn’t bother changing into climbing shoes – our comfy, grippy approach shoes were fine. Rather than belaying at the points shown in the climbing guide, we lengthened the pitches for the sake of speed and ease, choosing the ledges and flat sections (of which there were plenty) that seemed most sensible to us. This made the climbing more natural and allowed us to get way ahead of the other two climbers, reducing the risk of sending rocks tumbling towards them and ensuring we didn’t hold them up. I led the second pitch, an enjoyable venture up a steep crack followed by a scramble over blocky rock, and we continued in this way, alternating leads all the way up the ridge.
We absolutely love classic climbing routes due to their long, adventurous, committing nature, inspiring history, exciting exposure and exclusive views only attainable by those who love the mountains enough to truly immerse themselves. Wasdale sprawled below us, the far reaches of glassy Wast Water almost touching the horizon, and the rugged, hulking Scafell Pike range sat across the steep, deep valley of Lingmell Beck beyond the crinkly, green shoulders of Lingmell. We were so immersed in the landscape that we barely noticed the pitches going by, and before we knew it we were at what is described in the book as pitch 5, a 40m scramble along the final part of the ridge. This last section didn’t really involve any climbing so we de-harnessed, flagged the rope and effectively free soloed along a long, narrow stretch of rock and grass, moving quickly along the undulating ridgeline. It was easy but exposed, with a serious drop off either side, and lots of fun.
We pulled up onto Great Gable, whose summit is a sea of loose boulders, and walked a short way to the top, marked by a cairn and a plaque commemorating local mountaineers lost in the First World War. We sat and stared at the panoramic view of rolling fells, chatted to some hikers, then made our way down the mountain’s east side. The path was steep, awkward and almost indistinguishable among the litany of unhelpful rocks, and our knees were relieved when we reached the relatively flat col between Great Gable and Kirk Fell. We stopped here to talk to a 70+ year old solo hiker with an astoundingly long, difficult-sounding itinerary, passed the nearly-empty Beckhead Tarn, and started up the side of Kirk Fell.
Kirk Fell (802m)
It was a grassy, minimally rocky ascent up an easy but steep path to the top of Kirk Fell, a shapely mountain with smooth, regular slopes in comparison with its jagged neighbour. We made it up in about 30 minutes and stopped at the plateau on top to munch some Grasmere gingerbread, chat to a friendly northerner assessing a small mountain leader group and admire the breathtaking rolling landscape from our last summit of the trip. We looked down on the tiny buildings and patchwork fields of Wasdale Head directly below and reluctantly gathered ourselves for the final descent.
The path led us straight down the south face of the mountain in one sustained line and was long, very steep and at times quite awkward for our well-worked legs. It involved a combination of grassy “steps” and loose rocks, which required careful route-picking to avoid starting mini rockfalls, and was only a mile long but with over 700m elevation loss. Wasdale Head seemed not to get any bigger until the gradient eased slightly and the cricket-to-football-sized boulders were replaced by a sea of ferns split by a wide, grassy path – the home straight. We went through a gate at the bottom, trees rose up around us and suddenly we were back at the Wasdale Head Inn, where the babbling of an idyllic, picture-postcard stream signified the end of our time in the high fells.
We returned to the car feeling quite wistful and started for home about 4pm. It was a lovely drive out of the Lakes across the undulating eastern moors, followed by a brief stop at Broughton-in-Furness (won’t rush back) for fuel and a commiseratory McDonalds to mark the end of a wonderful trip. The drive home was mercifully uneventful once Scabbers (the beaten up old Yaris) stopped making dubious squealing noises, and we made it back in just over 7 hours.
A relatively big mountain day was the most fitting way to conclude a lovely holiday, which is something I struggle to do in words. We had such a good time exploring the Lake District with my family and managed to squeeze in a great mix of activities across the whole National Park, although as always we could have stayed there for a good deal longer – probably in perpetuity. Doubtless it won’t be too long before we’re back.
Lake District, June 2022 – 9/10 overall. Minus one for the fact we had to leave so soon.
The weather looked unreliable so we all decided to have a van-based day exploring the area. We had breakfast, piled in the van and headed off to Wasdale, Eskdale valley’s dead-end neighbour where Ryan and I had set off from to climb Napes Needle the previous day. We were keen for the others to experience the dramatic landscape of the drive along wild Wast Water and the remote quaintness of Wasdale Head hamlet.
Wasdale Head, St Olaf’s Church
Dad navigated the twisty roads and we arrived in the valley after a 20 minute drive. We stopped at a wide, grassy area of Wast Water’s western bank so Bosun could have a swim. He frolicked merrily, unconcerned by the chill of the dark, glassy water, while we hopped over rocks and took in the vastness of the rolling mountains all around us. The most iconic was Great Gable, stood majestically at the head of the valley, its triangular glory perfectly framed by steep, symmetrical fells on either side.
Damp dog in tow (it’s impossible to effectively towel dry a thick-coated labrador) we got back in the van and continued along the narrow road to Wasdale Head. We parked up and walked along a path between delightfully bucolic stone-walled fields to England’s smallest parish church, St Olaf’s, which sits in a little wooded churchyard in the midst of the fields and fells. It’s charmingly tiny, with a low tiled roof, pebbledash walls and simple rectangular shape, and the inside is wooden beamed, whitewashed and extremely cosy, with rustic décor, rows of wooden pews, a little stained glass window and a small altar backed by deep red, velvety curtains. Mum in particular was very taken, and as we waited for her outside we read stone memorials to the mountaineers lost in the hills.
We left the church and walked a short distance between more little fields to Wasdale Head, the hamlet that seems to revolve around the iconic Wasdale Head Inn, a long, three-storied building painted cream with thick black windowframes set beneath the hulking backdrop of Yewbarrow fell. Ryan and I had been there a couple of years before to use the landline to inform Ryan’s dad of our safe return from a six-mountain hike (the valley has zero phone signal), and the place had a pleasant, familiar feel. We pottered around the little shop adjacent to the pub before going back to the van and driving back to the banks of Wast Water.
Paddleboarding on Wast Water
As is convention I was desperate to squeeze as many adventurous activities out of the trip as possible, so I inflated the paddleboard borrowed from Ryan’s brother Tom (on a seemingly long-term basis), portentously informed everyone that there was no need for me to change as I had no intention of getting wet, and – avoiding the dog at all costs – made my way out onto the water. Being alone on the lake was isolating and wonderfully liberating, and I felt like I may as well have been the only person on Earth. My world was reduced to a 7x3ft plastic board, a tiny speck set deep between the steep sides of rolling, rugged mountains, and looking over to the opposite bank I faced an insurmountable wall that formed the northern face of Ilgill Head, whose 609m summit was shrouded in thick white cloud. Grey scree seemed to flow down from the cloud, forming channels like rivers which widened to deltas and estuaries before depositing into the lake. Rough scrub, grass and heather peppered the hillside wherever it could take hold, and there were no signs of human interference – it was too steep for a path.
Fighting the wind as it tried to push me towards the southern end of the lake, I crossed half a kilometre of cold, dark water to this intimidatingly lofty wall of scree, clambered awkwardly onto slippery rocks, cut my toe and waved excitedly across the lake at the others – who weren’t even watching – as if I’d discovered uncharted land. I retrieved a stick for the dog, returned to my tethered board and just paddled around for a while, ignoring the rain, countering the wind and relishing every moment in the immense, lonely wilderness. My hiking trousers were wet from kneeling on the board and being rained on, but I didn’t mind – thighs dry. Eventually I was waved in for lunch, so I returned to the western bank, beached the board slightly more gracefully on the pebbled beach, packed up and joined the others in the van for mum’s delicious bacon sandwiches.
Egremont and St Bees
The rain didn’t subside so after lunch we left Wasdale, stopped at the nearby Sawmill farm shop (nice but pricey) and drove west out of the Lakes to the town of Egremont. I’m sure it’s a nice place but the weather didn’t do it any favours – to me it seemed decidedly grey. We bought supplies from co-op, dashed back to the van and moved on to St Bees, a nearby village on the coast. We stopped in a large car park overlooking the foggy sea and I tentatively suggested a walk on the beach, which motion was unanimously rejected. We sat in the van for a while pondering what to do; it was claggy, grey and wet, so we agreed that rather than get soggy and miserable, we’d return to the campsite and relax like normal people do on holiday – a notion that was totally alien to me.
Back in Eskdale
Dad drove us back and to my surprise the relaxing was actually quite nice. Ryan and I watched Ammonite on my phone, a lovely film about the life of Dorset fossil hunter Mary Anning, as rain drove down on the tent, mum cooked dinner and we all ate in the awning. The weather started to clear in the evening and at 9.30pm Angus, Ryan and I decided to walk the dog up the hill behind the campsite.
We went past the waterfall we’d found a couple of days before, climbed up a track and emerged onto an open, rolling moorland plateau looking out toward the high fells around Scafell Pike. The sun set over the mountains, casting a stunning red glow across a mackerel sky, and with some minor resistance we managed to prevent Bosun – who was otherwise very well-behaved – launching himself into the smooth water of Eel Tarn. We navigated around some rugged, rocky outcrop and returned back the way we came, extremely pleased to have squeezed an very pleasant, scenic sunset walk into an otherwise wet, poor visibility day.
Our appetite for climbing had been whetted by the previous day’s excursion in the Eskdale Valley and the weather looked dry, so after breakfast and red squirrel watching at the campsite Ryan and I left the others for an attempt at a particularly special rock climbing route. Mum, dad and Angus would spend the day catching the train from Dalegarth, the cute station we’d walked to a couple of evenings before, to explore Ravenglass on the coast. Angus thought about coming with us but decided that he was happy to have hiked up Helvellyn and climbed already at Hare Crags, so he decided to commit some time to steam trains, historical places and other Angus-like stuff.
Napes Needle
Napes Needle is one of the UK’s most iconic climbing destinations. Set halfway up the south face of Great Gable at the end of dramatic Wasdale valley, the popular starting point for Scafell Pike, it is a distinctive, upright pinnacle of igneous rock about 18m high at an elevation of 680m. Ryan’s dad had been to see it in his mountaineering days and it was detailed in all of his old climbing books, so we felt obliged to go and stand on top of it – for me, classic routes of such rich historical calibre have a special kind of allure.
We bought lunch from a tiny shop in Eskdale village and drove along little roads to Wasdale. As we reached the banks of the wild, black Wast Water, the deepest of England’s lakes, we seemed to shrink into a landscape that grew upwards all around us all the way to Wasdale Head, the dead-end hamlet nestled in the heart of the long, three-sided valley. Each mountain merged into the next in a vast mass of green and grey, and I felt that spine-tingling anticipation that I only ever seem to encounter in wild, whispering places that seem as old as time.
Approach
The weather was cloudy but clear, and Great Gable – along with its nearly-as-gargantuan sister Kirk Fell – blocked the head of the valley like a sleeping guard dog. Named for its recognisable pyramidal outline when seen from Wasdale, its southern aspect has a distinctly serious look about it: loose, grey scree sweeps down into the valley, dominating over scrubby grass that grows patchily wherever it can take hold, for about three quarters of the way up its steep face until turning to huge, vertical blocks of grey rock that form cracked, triangular ridges all the way to the 899m summit. Although the walk-in is barely two miles as the crow flies, it involves hiking up about 650m of steep elevation gain on awkward terrain, as we would soon discover.
The first mile took us through a farm and along Lingmell Beck, a suspiciously flat, pleasant walk between the hulking sides of Lingmell and Wasdale Fell. Ryan decided that he felt unwell after crossing a little bridge just before the ascent began, so we sat down and he ate a pasty while I masked my concern that he might get ill on the mountain. He perked up a little and we began the climb up to the climb. It was an unforgivingly steep and direct route up a rocky, grassy path, and I kept an eye on Ryan while making a concerted effort not to go too far ahead. Luckily he seemed to recover just as the going got really tough, when we calculated (using an OS map) that it was time to turn off the path and seek the Needle high up on a steep scree slope spanning the face of the mountain.
There was no obvious path that branched off, so we found ourselves scrabbling sideways across tight clumps of grass and loose, slippery scree on the most-path like course, which wasn’t path-like at all. This continued for what felt like an age, and was really quite treacherous – most of the scree chunks qualified as small boulders, which we desperately didn’t want to send toppling down the side of the mountain, and neither did we want to go that way. As well as unstable the ground was very uneven, with boulders of all shapes, sizes and jaunty angles jabbing into legs and doing their best to roll ankles. We also had to keep our eyes peeled to the left, as Napes Needle was marked on the map (such is its significance) along the ridge of sheer grey, samey-looking cliffs and ridges that we’d seen from the car park.
TheNeedle
After a couple of false identifications, a lot of staring at seemingly identical pinnacles of grey rock and even more frustration at the ongoing struggle over tricky ground, we suddenly looked straight up at the unmistakeable Napes Needle. We approached up a deep, rocky, grassy gulley and, on seeing a couple of climbers already on it, scrambled up the rocks opposite and perched on a grassy ledge overlooking the Needle and its mind-blowing backdrop.
Seeing Napes Needle in person made me appreciate why it has its own name, position on the map and place in mountaineering history. Its undeniably phallic form stands independent from the rocky ridge behind it, a proud pinnacle watching over the valley beneath Great Gable. A skyward-pointing arrowhead forms its right hand side, split neatly into large triangles and diamonds by large, geometric cracks. The wildly undulating slopes of Lingmell rose up across the other side of the valley, looming over grassy Wasdale to the right, and just behind the Needle the immense form of Scafell Pike sat neatly between the rugged shoulders of Lingmell and Great End. To our left hulked the intimidating southern face of the top of Great Gable, a vertical maze of sheer ridges, slabs and gulleys, the blocky, brown-grey rock punctuated by grass wherever it could set root. There aren’t many climbs I’d queue for, but this is one of them.
One pair of climbers was on the second of the two pitches and another pair was gearing up ready to climb, so we sat across the gulley and watched. It was mild, sunny, still and clear, perfect conditions, and we happily ate snacks and photographed the other groups. Another pair scrambled up and onto Needle Ridge, the long route we’d complete in a few days time (and a later blog post) that began in the V between the Needle and the exciting-looking ridge behind it, so they were added to my “give me your email address and I’ll send you the photos” list, which I made by calling across the gulley.
The first pair abseiled off, which was helpful to see as we’d read mixed reviews of the abseil online, and later confirmed that the in-situ gear is good. We had to wait a while for the second pair to climb but we didn’t mind – we took photos and encouraged them from across the gulley. When they started abseiling down we crossed to the base of the Needle, geared up and discussed who would lead each of the two pitches of the classic 18m HS climb “Wasdale Crack”.
The first pitch was a 13m diagonal climb up the large crack between the arrowhead and the needle to the “shoulder”, a ledge just below the bulbous tip of the needle. The second was a short 5m up the back of the tip, but is famously polished and supposedly the crux move. We decided that I should lead the longer, crackier pitch due to Ryan’s injured toe (see previous post for an explanation) and he would do the short move to the top, so I chose some nuts and cams and started up the crack.
It was a straightforward, easy crack climb and the gear was solid, but its polished surfaces worn shiny by thousands of climbing shoes added a layer of uncertainty and excitement. I reached the belay without much difficulty, clipped into the five in-situ slings thrown around an overhang under the back of the rock, added a couple of nuts for extra protection and brought Ryan up from a very comfortable anchor. He tiptoed around the bulbous, exposed end of the “needle” and after some minor reluctance, pulled himself up and over the summit. He made an anchor by draping the rope under the overhanging rock and brought me up, at which point I understood his hesitation – the holds were polished, the moves were awkward and the position was extremely exposed.
Standing on top of that pinnacle was a surreal experience. We were on a tiny island just big enough for two people to squeeze onto, surrounded by a sheer 15-20m drop on all sides. The dramatic panorama I’ve already described stretched around us, the valleys seemingly even deeper, the mountains even wilder and the horizons even further than they had been before. It was isolated, extremely exposed and somehow serene.
After a long, quiet moment of appreciation, I downclimbed to my belay point and Ryan followed my instructions, boldly downclimbing while removing the gear he’d placed. He nearly failed to dislodge a nut, later joking that he could have been “that guy that placed the big silver nut in Napes Needle”, but managed to get it back and return safely to the ledge. We clipped into the five slings, noting that at least two looked new, and took it in turns to abseil down the first pitch. Back on the ground, we packed up our stuff, vowed to come back to do Needle Ridge, and scrabbled out of the gulley and away from the Needle.
Descent
We headed east along more treacherous scree for about a kilometre, following an extremely vague path through the rocky rubble. At one point I kicked a rock (thankfully I had my stiff approach shoes on so no further toes were injured), stumbled and nearly toppled sideways down the steep slope – I caught myself just in time and when I turned around, saw that Ryan had also grabbed my rucksack. By the time we reached the main path through Lingmell we were quite bored of the awkward ground, where every step necessitated precise planning and execution, and it was nice to be back in amongst the ferns.
We walked back to the car along the base of Great Gable’s intimidating southern face, surrounded by high, unforgiving fells and pleased with the day’s adventure. Back in the idyllic agriculture sliver that is Wasdale Head, a tiny green paradise wedged between the monstrous hills, we nosed around the miniscule St Olaf’s Church, but later returned with mum, dad and Angus so I’ll save writing about it until then. It had just gone 6pm and we were due to meet the others at the Woolpack Inn in Eskdale for dinner, so we shot back to the campsite, changed and walked the short distance along the road to the pub.
The Woolpack Inn
The Woolpack is a historic inn nestled deep in the Eskdale Valley, miles from any major town, let alone phone signal, yet somehow it always seems to have a nice, quiet buzz – I’d visited years before and we’d been in for a drink the previous day. Painted white with black-framed windows, high-ceilinged and timeless, it feels very welcoming after a day in the mountains. We sat out the front in the large, grassy garden and Angus and I argued for a while about something or other until it turned too political and dad issued a telling off – at least it had taken us until Thursday. I had a lovely stonebaked veggie pizza from the simple but varied menu and the others had various forms of pizza, pie and salad, then we walked back along the quiet, bucolic road and had Ovaltine in the awning. A relaxing end to an eventful day.
We’d hoped to finish the previous day’s epic hike in the Wasdale Head Inn, a classic climber/hiker’s pub at the end of Wasdale valley’s dead end road, but our late return thwarted this plan so it was first on Tuesday’s itinerary. We woke later than usual from our camping spot on the edge of Wast Water and enjoyed a pint in the lovely old pub, which is decorated with cool old mountainey pictures and maps. A sign states emphatically that there’s no wifi and that we should talk to each other instead, which I liked – although it would have been useful to let Ryan’s dad (who’d followed yesterday’s progress live until my phone died) know that we’re alive as there’s zero phone signal in the valley.
The most frog-like photo of me ever taken but it kind of shows the Wasdale Head Inn
We were suffering from mobility issues due to seized quadriceps and in Ryan’s case, potentially damaged knee ligaments/cartilage, so didn’t expect to do anything remarkable that day. We’d studied our climbing guidebooks in the pub at Wasdale and had decided to travel to the Borrowdale Valley to mess around at Raven crag and climb Corvus, a famous multipitch route graded Diff. The drive up the northwest side of the National Park felt a bit adminney in the middle of the day, but we’d planned well as in contrast to yesterday’s generally dry, clear weather, it was now wet and claggy.
Mountains, lakes and forests reappeared as we headed east through Buttermere, an area I’d never visited before. It was serene and beautiful, even under the grey sky. We went to Buttermere village for lunch and found the Bridge Hotel, a nice whitewashed, beamed, stone-floored bar, but it was eerily quiet and the whole facemasked waiter, disposable menu thing seemed a bit awkward. Ryan spotted a couple of big cherry trees out the window and we filled our pockets with juicy red snacky-snacks, then set off east to get closer to tomorrow’s climbing spot. The cherries didn’t make it to our next camping spot at Honister Pass.
Honister Pass is a winding road through a deep slate valley – the type you get on car adverts – which rises gradually as it runs parallel to a wide, shallow river, then steeply. After a brief stop to let the engine cool down (steep slopes set the overheating alarm off) we parked in a pull-in a couple of hundred metres down the road from Honister slate mine, high up at the head of the valley and overlooking the long road which snakes between its V-shaped sides. To my frustration we found a gash in the front passenger side tyre, probably caused by a sharp bit of slate. We changed the wheel and spent the evening admiring the sweeping, rock-strewn valley, drinking gin, cooking pasta, singing badly and looking down the picturesque road at a stunning, pink-orange sunset. Today had been quiet but we were happy knowing that tomorrow, we would climb.
This was one of those rare days that I know for certain I’ll never forget. It started innocuously enough, with Ryan cooking breakfast and me making sandwiches at our camping spot on the edge of Wast Water, overlooked by the rugged, imposing mountains and ridges of the Wasdale valley. We knew it’d be a long one as our route encompassed six summits, a lot of miles and a serious amount of elevation gain. Bags packed and bodies fuelled, we drove to the car park at Wasdale Head and set off at 10am.
Scafell Pike, 978m. Summited 11:55
The path began in the lowest point of the valley, just 80m above sea level. It crossed a wide, shallow river, Lingmell Beck, before climbing a little way up the side of a high, grassy ridge, Lingmell. It followed the contour of this ridge through scrubby sheep territory until we rounded the corner, at which point the sheer, dark west face of Scafell Pike emerged at the head of an immense valley. Lingmell Gill flowed high and fast on our right and we followed the path alongside it until the rocky crossing, which wasn’t particularly crossable due to the rainfall. A few hikers had gone quite a way upstream before crossing and heading back down to regain the path, but we didn’t go far before hopping across five or six sturdy-ish looking rocks in an ungainly (but dry) manner and continuing up the mountain.
The rocky path led the way clearly up Brown Tongue which, as well as the multitude of other hikers and my vague memory of the route, made the map redundant for the time being. We took the left fork and approached the summit from its northwest side, the slightly longer but more popular approach. From the fork, going as the crow flies to the summit would have necessitated a serious multipitch rock climb up its ominously sheer west face, which gives the mountain its wild, dangerous appearance.
Our legs were already feeling slightly sore from flying up and down the Old Man of Coniston (803m) the previous day, and I’d forgotten that although popular, the path up Scafell Pike is surprisingly long and steep. Shortly after taking the fork we were hit by a sudden heavy rainshower, which – as they always are, once you’ve committed to getting wet – was exhilarating. We pulled waterproofs on, snapped a couple of pictures and carried on, turning right up the steep, scree-covered path that leads to the summit. The clouds were stubborn but intermittent, and we had our fill of the stunning, rolling mountain scenery in glimpses as we made our way up.
The top section is pretty much a huge pile of jagged rocks, as if the tip of the mountain has been shattered into millions of pieces. At the summit is a trig point and a raised war memorial, and we delighted at being the highest two people on English soil for a minute before finding a sheltered spot for a sandwich. Although perfectly warm when we were moving, our sweaty backs got cold quite quickly in the bitter mountain wind so we took a compass bearing to ensure we were heading for Great End and descended the awkwardly boulder-strewn, loose northeast side of Scafell Pike.
Great End, 910m. Summited 13:06
The cloud subsided when we reached the trough of the col between Scafell Pike and Broad Crag, the mini-top just before Great End. The path to Great End was fairly steep and quite direct, although when it came to branching off the path towards Esk Pike for the actual summit Ryan took us an unecessarily awkward way over a series of rocks. We pulled out the Jetboil and had a brew at the wind shelter on the summit, wondered at the panoramic views and seemingly endless mountains and descended the proper way back to the main path.
Esk Pike, 885m. Summited 14:02
Esk Pike wasn’t easily discernible as the ground on the east of Scafell Pike is all quite high and the rocky ridges and summits seem to merge together. Experience has taught me to be wary of paths as they often look obvious on a map, but much less so on rocky ground where everything is the same colour, and it was around this point that I commented on how the path thus far was suspiciously clear and well-marked by plenty of cairns.
Bowfell, 902m. Summited 14:47
Next up was Bowfell, which had a more obvious summit as there was a group of people having lunch on it. For some reason I remember the scenery here being particularly unforgettable, even though we’d been fortunate enough to have a clear view of the surrounding mountains since before Great End.
The nearer peaks were rugged and olive green, and all had unique shapes with sides that occasionally fell away to reveal sheer, unvegetated rock faces. They weren’t jagged like the gargantuan mountains of Patagonia or the Himalayas – in fact they’re not even comparable – but they had their own wild, majestic kind of beauty. Rivers ran like tiny veins far below in the steep-sided valleys, some so perfectly U-shaped it was as if they were carved out with a giant ice cream scoop, and the mountains further away glowed in mysterious, hazy layers of grey-blue. This is perhaps what I love most about the Lake District: it’s the only place in England where I feel truly immersed in the mountains. I can’t imagine how incredible it must have been up here before hiking became popular and there were no paths scratched into the surface or bright down jackets pock-marking the wilderness.
Crinkle Crags, 859m. Summited 15:51
Crinkle Crags was a bit disheartening because gaining the summit would mean scrambling up a rocky path a kilometre long, starting at the unimaginatively named Three Tarns, only to scramble back down the same way and continue our route. Ry insisted that he wanted to do it despite his knee hurting a little, so we went up the now-elusive path-come-series of rocky scrambles and after what seemed like an age, arrived at the (also unimaginatively named) Pile of Stones marking the summit.
This is where the real fun started (English for where it all went wrong). We looked across two wide valleys towards Sca Fell and it looked terrifyingly far away, leering at us from the horizon. Ryan suggested that if we descend Crinkle Crags off-piste, we should hit the footpath we were aiming for low down in the first valley which would take us parallel to and then across a river, and we would then walk [a really long way] to the base of Sca Fell on flat terrain. This would remove the need to turn back along the annoyingly rocky and long path we’d just come along. He was correct and I agreed – indeed, we should have hit that footpath by the river.
The descent was pretty sketchy, super-steep and more of a downclimb in places via huge boulders, mini waterfalls and loose, scrubby bits of ground. We were careful not to disturb vegetation, rocks or sheep, and although I was inwardly questioning our decision, it was kind of thrilling to be off the beaten track. I was super happy to discover some bilberry bushes (bilberries are like small, sweet wild blueberries) as I’d always wanted to find some but never had before, so my fruity mid-descent snack perked me up.
The Trough, 350m ish
This section deserves its own sub-heading because it would unfair (on the mountain) to attribute it to a mountain. It was a trough in both senses of the word – the low bit between peaks, and a sustained dip in the extent to which the hike was going as planned. As they say, peaks and troughs.
After what seemed like an age we reached the bottom of the treacherous descent down Crinkle Crags, only to discover that the footpath we had hoped to join was untrodden to the point of non-existence. Instead we were met by soft, tufty, awkward ground covered in long, yellow grass. In the absence of a path and an obvious place to cross Lingcove Beck, we looked at the map and decided that the best course of action would be to walk south parallel to the river until we came to the fork, where we would join another path that runs alongside the other branch – the River Esk – to the base of Sca Fell. It would extend our route by a couple of long, slow miles over difficult terrain, but at least we’d be certain of where we are and that we could cross both rivers.
This was frustrating enough, so when my left foot punched through a hole in the ground and into over-the-top-of-my-boot deep muddy water, I became tetchy. After a couple of hundred metres of tramping with one wet foot through boggy ground in an exasperated sulk, it dawned on me that I’d only eaten half a sandwich, half a bag of mini cheddars, an apple, half a flapjack and a few bilberries. We wanted to press on but I self-diagnosed myself as hangry, so we stopped and munched a whole sandwich each. It tasted incredible and I perked up magnificently.
We maintained our course by keeping Lingcove Beck on our right hand side, which took a long time because of the awkward, soggy ground, occasionally picking up scraps of what looked like they could once have been path. Eventually we reached a stone bridge at the fork we were aiming for, glad to finally cross the river and start walking towards, rather than away from, Sca Fell. This time we kept the River Esk on our left, relieved that we were now following a clear path.
The first bit was steep, then it levelled out and we walked for a mile or so across a great, open plain in the belly of the valley between the towering ridges. The path was better than the previous one although ambiguous in places, so we kept a close eye on the map, noting the shape of the river, the contours around us and the bits of drystone wall marked down as boundaries. Unhelpfully, the path disappeared at the river crossing. We’d hoped for some rudimentary stepping stones, but there was nothing. The river was about eight paces wide and higher and faster than usual, and we followed it upstream in search of a way across for 20 minutes or so. Eventually we accepted that our feet were wet anyway and committed to a crossing place that was far from ideal but slightly less terrible than some other places and hopped across.
Sca Fell, 964m. Summited 20:17
We tramped across pathless ground to a long waterfall leading up Sca Fell, which was a mile away as the crow flies. The next section was a steep scramble up a dubiously labelled footpath, keeping the waterfall/river on our left. It was tough going but good to gain height as it made us feel closer to finishing the day. We got to a crossing place and stopped to make a decision. We could either cross the river and approach Sca Fell from the south, carry on along the clear path and approach it from the west – which would mean branching off left and going up and down the same way – or call it a day and continue on the same path, which would take us safely through the col between Sca Fell and Scafell Pike and back to the van, potentially with time for a drink in the pub.
We were tired, hungry and at risk of losing light, but stubbornness prevailed and we crossed the narrow, rushing river, hopeful of completing a circular route up and down the mountain. It looked as if there was a path on the other side, but this quickly disappeared and we were once again tramping through the wilderness. We knew the approximate direction of Sca Fell and we knew we had to do a lot more “up”, so we made a beeline for a high, steep scree slope on our right hand side.
This was one of the crippling low points of the day. The terrain was very rough (scrubby vegetation interspersed with loose rocks), we were exhausted, our phones were nearly dead, the summit was an uncertain, invisible concept beyond a serious amount of elevation gain on poor ground and there was a real risk that we’d lose daylight. We had everything we needed – headtorches, an emergency bivvy shelter, warm clothes, foil blankets and porridge – but we were damp, hungry and determined to get back to the van.
On either side of the scree slope were high rock faces and from a distance it looked as though a figure of a person was suspended from one of them. At first it looked like someone leaning back and taking a photo of something higher up, then it looked like a climber who had reached the top of a route, then it looked like someone hanging there eerily limp, as if they’d fallen and been caught by the rope. It’s funny how the mind plays tricks when you’re tired, as it turned out to be just a black, figure-shaped void between two slabs.
The scree slope took forever to reach, and once there it was even more terrible than we thought. I did something very unusual: I pulled out my last-resort snacks, an energy gel each, in a desperate attempt to boost us up the terrifyingly steep ascent. The scree was mostly saucer-to-dinnerplate sized reddish-grey rock, and I was careful not to climb above Ryan as I could have sent a rock tumbling down on him at any time. It took just about all our strength to reach the top, and I was almost too exhausted to feel relieved by the sight of the landscape opening out in front of me as I pulled over the brow.
We turned right and headed along the high ridge, relieved to be on more manageable terrain but uncertain exactly how far it was to the summit. Our phones pinged as we received signal for the first time in a few hours, but we were both on 1% so couldn’t faff around taking photos. The scenery either side of the ridge was beautiful, hazy in the fading light, but we didn’t appreciate it as much as usual. The ground got rockier and we finally came to the pile of stones and crude rock shelter that marks the summit of Sca Fell at 8.17pm. It was a huge relief to finally conquer this last peak, the bleakest and wildest of them all, after it had tormented us for the age that had passed since Crinkle Crags.
Return
It wasn’t over yet as we still needed to get on the path back before losing light. It’s common knowledge among mountaineers that most accidents happen on the way down, so we were careful not to get reckless. We descended down the path north east of the summit, which was once again ridiculously steep but this time marked by the odd cairn. It was a relief to be going down but our knees weren’t having a great time, and we half-slid down the loose slope. The path then bore left at the tiny Foxes Tarn and took us literally down a small river/waterfall, balancing on wet, slippery rock on whichever side of the water looked least treacherous.
Once we were at the bottom, miraculously intact, we munched our last snack bar and looked exasperatedly to our left at the next rocky slope we were required to climb to gain Mickledore, the col between Sca Fell and Scafell Pike. It was almost funny, and we just got on with the slow, awkward drag to the top, trying to keep on the vague, loose, steep, zig-zagging path. My concern was that the path over the col on this side of Scafell Pike wouldn’t be obvious (or even in existence) as I took this route the first time I climbed the mountain in 2014, and I remember scrabbling up a steep, scree-covered slope in claggy conditions following no obvious path and hoping for a cairn to appear through the fog. If this was the case, there was a risk that it’d get too dark to navigate and we’d have to bear a cold, damp, rocky night out.
At last we reached the top of the slope and spotted the emergency metal shelter on the ridge up to Scafell Pike. Its straight sided boxiness looked very strange against the rocky backdrop, having seen nothing but natural, jagged shapes all day. Then we experienced the best feeling in the world: pulling up over the lip of the col at Mickeldore. All of a sudden we could clearly see the path that would lead us back, and my concern evaporated. The world seemed to open out in front of us. We had Sca Fell on our left, Scafell Pike on our right, and in front was the vast valley that we’d hiked up eleven hours earlier. We could see the fork where our footpath met the path that we’d taken left up the other side of Scafell Pike that morning, the sun was low, and there wasn’t another person in sight.
We descended down the steep scree slope (see the pattern emerging?) that was the top of the footpath and gained slightly more level terrain, happy in the knowledge that there was no more up. The sun broke through the hazy clouds and glowed a magnificent, warm orange ahead of us, which illuminated the valley and accentuated the wild beauty of every rough, rocky, rugged corner. It felt like nature’s way of saying well done, you did it. I’ll never, ever forget that moment. The walk back along the strangely solid path was slow and unlike my vivid memories of earlier that day, I remember it vaguely as if it were a dream. We talked all the way back to the van, but I have no idea what we talked about.
We followed the path round to the right at the end of the valley, the same way we’d come up, through the steep sheep fields of Lingmell in dwindling light. We didn’t quite need to pull out the torches because the path was good, but it was dark by the time we reached the flat field and river at the bottom. We got back to the van at 10.30pm, equal parts exhausted, triumphant and famished, drove ten minutes to last night’s camping spot near Wast Water, and didn’t have the energy to cook stir fry so ate tinned soup, bread and cheese. Nothing has ever tasted so good.
curiousgnome 