Pillar

Jo and Dave sat out this walk, so we took Lilly around with us.  After clearing up extra Wainwrights a couple of days earlier, we had two peaks left in this area - Pillar and Black Crag.  I had thoughts of heading up the steep path between them, but after the previous day was in no mind to take risks, so we headed up the longer route to Black Sail Pass and then along the ridge.  I had hoped to get up Kirk Fell or Great Gable in the sunshine, but sadly that wasn't to be.

Difficulty: 6
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (16), Grace (14), Evie (11), Poppy (8)
10:41, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (77)
14:34, 7.8km 3h53 916m, Black Crag (828, Hewitt)
15:16, 8.8km 4h34 1050m, Pillar (892, Wainwright, Hewitt)
18:04, 15.6km 7h23 1117m, End (77)

We parked at Wasdale Head car park, leaving our NT membership card visible in the windscreen, but it wasn't clear this was needed.

Isabelle posing by the bridge - the path was on this side of the stream, but it makes a good picture.  In the distance you can see Black Crag at the left and Pillar in the middle of the far ridge.

On the route up to Pillar, looking back at the Black Sail Pass and Kirk Fell beyond.

Quite a spectacular spot for lunch.  The view was very hazy looking towards the lake and Scafell.

Pillar from the side isn't quite as gentle as you might think.

Top of Pillar, more awesome views.

At this point I wanted to get to Black Crag - it's a Hewitt rather than a Wainwright, but as it's marked on my map I'd like to tick it off.  It meant going down from Pillar, past the top of the screen path that we avoided taking, and then back up to Black Crag. 

Isabelle at Black Crag, looking over towards Ennerdale.

From Black Crag, looking towards Yewbarrow and Wastwater.

Panorama shot from the ridge, Kirk Fell on the left and Yewbarrow on the right going up to Red Pike just out of shot on the far right.  Scafell and Scafell Pike in the middle.

On getting back down to Black Sail Pass, we saw some a bunch of cyclists with very different levels of enthusiasm (one offered to sell us their bike, one was encouraging the others with some great flowery language).  Caroline was determined to do Kirk Fell as well, so had headed up the path, but the children stopped by this cairn and refused to go further.  

We had a delightful standoff for about 20min, before we eventually headed back down the path.

Finally at the valley floor again.  A pity not to do more peaks, although with Scafell Pike on the cards for tomorrow it was perhaps better to conserve a little more energy.

Sadly not around Wastwater

We were determined to have a shorter easier walk, and with a little rain forecast we decided to stay a little lower.  I'd planned this walk, but clearly should have spent more time looking at the map...

Difficulty: 5
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (16), Grace (14), Evie (11), Poppy (8)
11:38, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (74)
13:32, 3.6km 1h54 533m, Illgill Head (609, Wainwright)
14:22, 6.1km 2h43 589m, Whin Rigg (535, Wainwright)
19:24, 15.2km 7h45 797m, End (74)

We parked at the large National Trust car park at the top of Wasdale, but instead of heading the well trod path to Scafell Pike, we turned right and up the ridge to Illgill Head.

Looking back towards the head of Wasdale and Scafell.

Poppy at Illgill Head. It's one of the ones where you really can't guess which set of rocks are the official Wainwright without a really good memory or a gps unit.

Walking across to Whin Rigg.  Evie was clearly inspired by Grace's exercise class earlier, and with the ideal sprung surface had taken her boots off and was doing a gymnastics master class.  We had somersaults, cartwheels, running forward rolls, and all sorts.  

Evie at Whin Rigg.

We headed down the hillside, as the light rain came and went.

And finally Grace got a chance to get her boots soaking wet by wading out.  It was quite amazing that she'd lasted this long with the inside of her boots dry.

And so the flaw in my route was exposed.  A very long stretch of slippery wet rocks approached, and whilst Evie and Grace were absolutely fine, and Poppy just persevered, Caroline and Jo struggled a little.  

Isabelle gets an honourable mention for helping them out, whilst the rest of us waited for them to catch up.  As we waited Evie, high from fruit pastilles, treated us to a singing & dancing demonstration - making up lyrics & dance moves to match (when she could keep a straight face).

Finally the view opposite Bowerdale, after a long time.  Around this point we noticed that Grace was nowhere to be seen, we thought she was ahead but wasn't visible and couldn't hear us shouting.  I couldn't quite believe that she'd gone so far in front, and was mentally rehearsing how much daylight we had left to go back and check for an incapacitated daughter.  However, after another trip ahead of the rest of the group I found her sitting quite calmly on a rock.

So there are warning signs at either end of this path - we'd blithely ignored them and learnt our lesson.  Taking the extra could of km to walk fully around the lake would have meant a lot of road walking but would have been far faster...

Yewbarrow, and just one more

We'd walked the Yewbarrow ridge before, staying at Bowderdale three years earlier, but I hoped that we could fit in Red Pike as well this year.

Difficulty: 7

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (16)

11:08, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (68)

13:19, 2.5km 2h10 614m, Yewbarrow (627, Wainwright, Hewitt)

13:46, 3.4km 2h37 647m, Yewbarrow North Top (Stirrup Crag) (616, Hewitt)

15:26, 6.6km 4h17 1116m, Red Pike (Wasdale) (826, Wainwright, Hewitt)

15:52, 7.7km 4h44 1199m, Scoat Fell (841, Wainwright, Hewitt)

16:07, 8.3km 4h58 1201m, Steeple (819, Wainwright)

16:40, 10.1km 5h31 1349m, Haycock (797, Wainwright, Hewitt)

18:35, 16.9km 7h26 1359m, End (68)

We parked at the car park just after the bridge on the left, right at the bottom of the Yewbarrow ridge path.

It's one of those paths, where you have no idea how it gets up the rocky part at the top, but you mainly focus on continuing to make progress up the steep section and ignore what the future has in store.

Nearing the top, for a view across Wastwater.

Looking down at Isabelle, and across to Middle Fell.

Evie at the top of Yewbarrow.

Poppy at the top of Yewbarrow North, a little like Cambridge North - it's there, and some people swear by it, but most people can pretty much ignore it's existence.

Heading down the steep section to Dore Head, the saddle point between Yewbarrow and Red Pike opposite.  Once we'd got everyone down this, we decided to split the party, with Jo taking the four smallest children back leaving myself, Caroline, Isabelle & Dave to make our way up to Red Pike to compete the planned walk.

We made it to Red Pike!  Surprisingly quickly given the lack of small children to encourage...

Caroline at Red Pike, the cliffs down the side are quite impressive from here.  At this point, given we were quite close to Scoat Fell, we decided to just do one more Wainwright.

Yes!  We managed to get to Scoat Fell without much difficulty.  This photos looks east towards Black Crag & Pillar.

Now at this point, I spotted the fairly accurately named Steeple, and we all decided that it didn't look too far away, so we really should to another Wainwright.

Panorama from Steeple, sweeping from Ennerdale at the left to the ridge with Pillar, Black Crag and Scoat Fell on the right.

From Steeple, looking back the way we'd come.  At this point we could make a circular walk of it, if we just headed a little more to the west.

Fortunately that path brought us 500m from Haycock, so we spent the extra 25min or so on a little diversion to our final Wainwright of the day.  Here looking towards Ennerdale.

So finally we headed down the path back towards Wastwater, turning directly into the very strong wind for the first section - my eyes were streaming so much I could barely see where to put my feet.

And finally we got to see Yewbarrow again, lit up in the late afternoon sunshine.

Scafell from Eskdale

Grace had a school trip to the Lakes the previous December, staying at the Youth Hostel in Eskdale, and had done a very similar walk with her group.  This was a fairly short drive from us, and would pick up Slight Side on the way there.

Difficulty: 6

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (16), Grace (14), Evie (11), Poppy (8)

10:11, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (91)

12:57, 5.4km 2h45 677m, Slight Side (762, Wainwright)

14:11, 7.2km 4h00 892m, Scafell (964, Wainwright, Hewitt)

18:54, 17.5km 8h42 1094m, End (93)

We parked at the fairly small car park just off the road on the left, right where the path started that we wanted to take.  The farmer's wife came to have a chat as we got ready to set off, reminding us gently that we shouldn't stay overnight - she was very friendly, and even helped when we set off up the hill - pointing out that we were going in the wrong direction...

After the first section of climb, we rested for a round of rhubarb & custards.  This was looking back south towards Hardknott.

Setting off towards Slight Side and Scafell.  We initially headed a little too right, in an attempt to avoid the mass of sheep that was being expertly herded by the farmer & dogs.  They streamed past us, all sticking to the path, and beat us by miles to the fell this side of the climb up.  We even got to admire their different skills at jumping over the stream, putting pay to my theory that we would be safe since sheep can't cross running water.

Top of Slide Side.  We sheltered from the wind on the south side of the peak, and had some lunch.

Top of Scafell, quite a windy day, but blissfully empty of people, as opposed to Scafell Pike opposite.

Top of Scafell, looking back towards Wastwater.

We took an interesting route back, through a scree field and then a rocky gully.  I'm not sure Caroline was totally on board with this route choice, but nevermind.  After we'd got to the bottom of the first scree field, the girls made an ice collection - picking up great sheets of ice from the still pools at the bottom, and finding ice sculptures in the stream heading down.  We were a little alarmed to see a huge rockfall to the side of the slope, with some fairly significant boulders falling about half way down the slope - it would have been very serious for anyone to be in their path.  Thankfully they all came to rest a good way off from where we were standing, and we'd all come down the other side of the slope.

After getting to the bottom, Grace lifted our spirits by running an exercise class based on her hockey fitness training.  We had planks, agility drills, lunges, and more.  Caroline was also determined to reach some magic milestone on her watch, which was apparently complaining that she'd stopped exercising after going too slowly down the rocky gully.  So she and the girls were doing sprints and steps - it was so clearly early in the week and everyone was fit and healthy!  After a little more descending we reaching the waterfall where Grace & Poppy posed for a selfie.

Heading back across the flat, skirting around the raised ground to the right.  Not too boggy underfoot for a change.

Posing (quite deliberately for Evie) on a convenient rock.

Irton Pike

After picking up Grace from her school trip late on Friday evening, we could only make it up to Birmingham that night, so drove up to the lakes on Saturday morning.  After a quick lunch we set out mid afternoon on the only walk we'd planned from the house that week.  I wasn't sure whether we were being too ambitious with the distance, but with the warm weather and easy paths we made good time.

Difficulty: 3

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (16), Grace (14), Evie (11), Poppy (8)

15:17, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (30)

18:59, 11.4km 3h41 355m, End (30)

The house was in Santon Bridge, just up the road from the Bridge Inn.  We started up the river path, before crossing over and going around the far woods.  A small road section led to the path up Irton Fell, then headed towards Irton Pike.

This was the second half of the walk, as we headed towards Irton Fell, the raised ridge in the background.

First glimpses of Wastwater and some of the targets for later in the week.

Top of Irton Pike, looking back towards Wastwater.  Irton Fell continues along the ridge to the south of Wastwater, with Whin Rigg and Illgill Head.

Irton Pike again, now with extra walkers.

From Irton Pike, looking west towards the sea.

Heading back around the edge of the woods after descending from Irton Pike.