SHAP FELLS CONTINUED

Sunday 11th. April 2010. Up reasonably early and with no reason to linger on a good morning by 8.15am I had packed up and was tackling the climb up onto the Bannisdale Fell ridge, only a few hundred feet above my campsite just below Lord's Seat. The sun is out and the outlook for the day looks very inviting with lots of tops to reach before the end of the day. The first of which is Long Crag on Bannisdale Fell. From here a fine long and easy ridge runs south-east over the trig-point summit of White How and on for about a couple of miles to drop down to the slopes of Lamb Pasture. Route finding is dead-easy, just follow the wall which deteriorates into a fence by the time it reaches the high point of Lamb Pasture, here the fence needs to be crossed to reach the small cairn marking the top of the fell and a grand point to look into and across Bannisdale and the other side of the valley where the route continues. I made a direct descent over the Bannisdale edge of the fell and picked my way steeply down between the crags and a small patch of stunted woodland obviously suffering from exposure at this relatively high altitude. Down in the bottom approaching Dryhowe Bridge the backward view of the descent looks like an impressively steep descent but it is ot to bad in the doing of it. The sun is very hot now and this is probably the warmest day of our year so far (limited competition for the title though) so I take a break and strip of a bit to coold down before the next climb up onto the western ridge of Bannisdale and the first cairned top of Whiteside Pike. From here there are good views on all sides and over to east are the quiet hills of Kentdale with the village of Staveley where I briefly lived in digs for a few months in 1971, a long time ago. Now I am working my way north or a little west of it keeping to the ridge to take in succession the tops of Todd Fell, Capplebarrow and Ancrow Brow, all an easy walk along the summit ridge with Bannisdale and Borrowdale on my right and the tapering heights of the western Shap fells running down to the Cumbrian coast. I had a lunch break on Ancrow Brow, where the summit cairn is unobligingly three feet on the wrong side of the fencing. Next the route trurns round the head of the Bannisdale valley before I strike north passing the inviting Mere Crags to flog up to the ridge just east of the summit of Harrop Crag, where I turn east to follow the fence line to reach yesterdays early top of Great Yarlside, then I took a direct line over fell and bog to reach the shelter of a strange walled enclosure on the banks of Tongurigg Beck where it meets Sleddale Beck. Sun still shining for England and at 5pm I am pitching my tent and getting a leisurely brew organised. I have had a good couple of days walking of about 25 miles and managed to tick another 18 Birkett tops off my list.