Saturday 10th. April 2010. Now that spring seems to have sprung and with a forecast for at least a week's dry weather courtesy of genial atlantic high pressure I have set off for The Lakes travelling over by bus on Friday (yesterday). And what a journey that was setting a new personal best for misfortune on this journey. My third bus of the day, en-route from Newcastle to Carlisle broke down at Hexham and we had an hour's wait for the next service, with relief we boarded and set off but bugger me a few miles out of Hexham the bus was stopped by police who informed our driver that the road ahead was blocked due to an accident! The alternative route was along the way of the Hadrian's Wall bus route but as several passengers were due to disembark before Carlisle in villages that the bus could not now service on that diversion, we had to return to Hexham to drop these unfortunates off and then set off for a direct but much longer run to Carlisle where I arrived about an hour after the last bus for Keswick had gone (4pm). A 45 minute wait and I boarded a service to Penrith which left on time but stopped about a mile away from the bus station where the driver announced that he "could not drive the bus to Penrith" and that we would have to wait here for another driver! As he would not answer a direct question about "why not"? I surmise that it was the end of his shift and he wanted to go home! Asked why we had stopped here he was honest enough to tell us that stationery buses clog up the bus station so we are shunted out to wait for better things, which, took about 30 minutes, but when the replacement driver turned up we got to Penrith and from there I got the last connection to Keswick arriving at Burnside Park about 7pm a total journey time of nearly ten hours, phew, hope to have nothing like that again.After a night at Burnside Park I got a morning bus back to Penrith and from there a local service down to Shap where I got off at the Wet Sleddale Reservior Road End for the two mile walk in to the public car park on the south side of the reservoir. My objective is to finish off all the unclimbed fell tops which reach over the minimum height of 1,000' - and that will be 18 in total. In Bill Birkett's book "The Complete Lakeland Fells" which covers all the 25 Shap Fells, reaching the qualifing height in a series of five walks I have done two and now plan to walk the final three in a single continuous round rather than as three separate walks, which because of the distances between the start points would be very hard, or rather, take a lot of time, as they are quite far apart in an area with virtually no public transport services.
I walked down the Shap to Wet Sleddale road end at 11.15am reached the dam at the reservoir and then struck uphill to head for the first top, that of Sleddale Pike, this is a rather insignificant hump among the moorland with a couple of stones serving as a cairn. I had some company on the top and so got a photo arms akimbo on the summit. From here I parted with my company and never spoke to another person for the rest of the weekend. I yomped across the moors south to the top of Wasdale Pike and then west to Great Saddle Crags, I stashed my ruc-sac in some of the rockfall and carried on down to the top of Ulthwaite Rigg which overlooks Mosedale. Retracing my steps back to Great Saddle Crags to retrieve my ruc-sac and then headed south and downhill before climbing up to reach the ridge of Great Yarlside, (my picture shows Great Yarlside from the south from near the top of the Little Yarlside fell, love the wall), this at just under 2,000' is the highest point on the entire walk and so the high point of the 18 tops on my list. The sun shines strong and my old bald head is feeling the heat but this is fine, so on down to the lower end of Great Yarlside, named quite sensibly Little Yarlside, continuing along the ridge and gently downhill in a south-west direction to the top of What Shaw and then steeply down into the valley bottom crossing the Crookdale Beck at Crookdale Bridge Farm. Took a break at the bridge and filled up my water bottles from the fast flowing stream, water would be a bit of a problem if you are not prepared to chance the free stuff. From the bridge it was a stiff climb up to the shoulder of High House Bank (I must be a bit tired as I found the climb quite taxing), to reach the southern ridge of Crookdale where I will be heading north-west on the opposite side of the valley - and in exactly the opposite direction from the earlier part of the walk. From here it is about two miles over the top of the engagingly named Robin Hood summit to reach Lord's Seat. On reaching Lord's Seat I picked out a likely camping spot down into Borrowdale by the beck immediately below Bannisdale Crag (not that there were many options), which will be the first of the eight tops scheduled to be completed tomorrow. And so to bed, ten tops topped about a dozen miles walked and a few thousands of feet of ascent climbed. I shall sleep well by the Borrow Beck.
I walked down the Shap to Wet Sleddale road end at 11.15am reached the dam at the reservoir and then struck uphill to head for the first top, that of Sleddale Pike, this is a rather insignificant hump among the moorland with a couple of stones serving as a cairn. I had some company on the top and so got a photo arms akimbo on the summit. From here I parted with my company and never spoke to another person for the rest of the weekend. I yomped across the moors south to the top of Wasdale Pike and then west to Great Saddle Crags, I stashed my ruc-sac in some of the rockfall and carried on down to the top of Ulthwaite Rigg which overlooks Mosedale. Retracing my steps back to Great Saddle Crags to retrieve my ruc-sac and then headed south and downhill before climbing up to reach the ridge of Great Yarlside, (my picture shows Great Yarlside from the south from near the top of the Little Yarlside fell, love the wall), this at just under 2,000' is the highest point on the entire walk and so the high point of the 18 tops on my list. The sun shines strong and my old bald head is feeling the heat but this is fine, so on down to the lower end of Great Yarlside, named quite sensibly Little Yarlside, continuing along the ridge and gently downhill in a south-west direction to the top of What Shaw and then steeply down into the valley bottom crossing the Crookdale Beck at Crookdale Bridge Farm. Took a break at the bridge and filled up my water bottles from the fast flowing stream, water would be a bit of a problem if you are not prepared to chance the free stuff. From the bridge it was a stiff climb up to the shoulder of High House Bank (I must be a bit tired as I found the climb quite taxing), to reach the southern ridge of Crookdale where I will be heading north-west on the opposite side of the valley - and in exactly the opposite direction from the earlier part of the walk. From here it is about two miles over the top of the engagingly named Robin Hood summit to reach Lord's Seat. On reaching Lord's Seat I picked out a likely camping spot down into Borrowdale by the beck immediately below Bannisdale Crag (not that there were many options), which will be the first of the eight tops scheduled to be completed tomorrow. And so to bed, ten tops topped about a dozen miles walked and a few thousands of feet of ascent climbed. I shall sleep well by the Borrow Beck.
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