Glaramara and another dark way home

We'd never quite made it to Glaramara, doing both ends of this ridge but never joining them up, so we headed down to the car park at Seathwaite to do this loop.

Difficulty: 7.2

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Evie (14), Poppy (12), Piper

10:34, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (122)

13:06, 6.0km 2h32 672m, Allen Crags (785, Hewitt, Wainwright)

14:00, 7.7km 3h25 775m, Red Beck Top (Glaramara South Top) (Lincomb Head-Glaramara) (721, Hewitt)

14:37, 9.0km 4h02 897m, Glaramara (783, Hewitt, Wainwright)

16:02, 11.7km 5h27 1047m, Dovenest Top (Dovenest Crag) (Stonethwaite Fell) (632, Hewitt)

16:56, 13.7km 6h21 1179m, Rosthwaite Fell (551, Wainwright)

19:00, 20.5km 8h25 1224m, End (93)

The way up the valley.

Allen Crags, and time for treats

Poppy at Red Beck Top, one of the two extra Hewitts that we also picked up along this ridge.

Finally the main objective of this walk: Glaramara.  You wonder why we never made it here before...

And our second bonus Hewitt, Dovenest Top.

At this point we lost Evie for a bit. She did turn up, and thankfully it wasn't that cloudy at the time, but there is a downside to encouraging independence!

Piper at Rosthwate Fell

Poppy taking on Piper on the way back down

And finally we got to the valley floor as the light fell.  We tried to find a path, but turned off the road too early, so headed back and did the rest along the road. Headtorches are great!

Scafell Pike

So we had the weather on our side, the daylight was long, and we were staying close enough to get a decent car parking space.  Time for Scafell Pike.

Difficulty: 8
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Grace (12), Evie (9), Poppy (6 1/2)
9:17, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (102)
13:59, 9.5km 4h41 1027m, Scafell Pike (978, Wainwright, Hewitt)
14:35, 10.1km 5h17 1071m, Broad Crag (934, Hewitt)
15:07, 10.9km 5h49 1107m, Ill Crag (935, Hewitt)
15:54, 12.2km 6h36 1166m, Great End (910, Wainwright, Hewitt)
16:42, 14.1km 7h24 1223m, Allen Crags (785, Wainwright, Hewitt)
17:51, 16.4km 8h33 1312m, Rossett Pike (651, Wainwright, Hewitt)
19:40, 22.0km 10h22 1329m, End (102)

We parked at the National Trust car park at Old Dungeon Ghyll, there were just a couple of spaces left at 9.15am when we go there.  You could tell there were lots of people heading the same way as us, but it wasn't actually too bad until the top.  We met a couple of groups several times, leapfrogging them on the water stops.  Exchanging more than a few words was great, one three-generation group taking their grandfather up to the top.

Up to Angle Tarn, with Esk Pike overlooking on the left.

After the hot climb up we decided to stop for lunch before getting to the summit, so got some peace and quiet before we hit the crowds...  There were several boulder fields to cross, which always slows things down.

Made it to the top, Poppy looking proud.  We got quite a few comments praising her for making it, although we never really had any doubts - she certainly is a star walker with years of practice. There were a load of people at the top - lots of people stopping to soak up the sunshine and recover.

Across to Ill Crag (having crossed more boulder fields via Broad Crag), with great views across to Scafell Pike.  We decided to try and catch a bunch of extra peaks on the way back, not surprisingly the crowds disappeared straight away on these diversions! 

Across to Great End, and met another couple at the summit who offered to take a rare family picture.

Along to Allen Crags.  We'd made sure we had plenty of water, unlike a couple of days earlier when we had run out in the sunshine.

Back to Esk Hause, looking down towards home.

We stopped for a while by Angle Tarn to finish off our last food supplies (maltloaf, appropriately for this blog).

And finally to Rossett Pike, for a last panorama of the growing shadows.