Baffled on Blea Rigg - Photo Gallery

Today I'm going to combine small fells that I don't visit very often with one of my favourite scrambles. It is an ambitious route, I somehow don't think I will get to all eleven fells but it is a sunny day and I can keep going as long as the weather is good. I parked the car on the roadside at Grasmere, I'm still displeased that the National Park have hiked their car parking charges.

Grasmere village is where the walk will end but to get to my starting point I have to walk back along the road towards Rydal, Grasmere Water looks like a mirror reflecting Silver How. At the end of the lake, there is a blind bend where the road looks as though it has been carved through solid rock, a footpath takes you off the road just before there. The path takes you through woods to the weir at the outflow of the lake and if you follow the stream you arrive at a foot bridge.

Cross the footbridge and climb uphill for a short way and you will reach the Loughrigg Terrace path, the view isn't extensive but everything you can see is green. Turn left and walk along the path in the direction of Rydal, it is easy walking on a well made path but I was sharing it with a lot of water, there has been a lot of rain recently and the run off always makes use of the best footpaths. I eventually got to the site of the disused Loughrigg Quarries, there is a large interesting cave here that deserves a visit.

All I have to do now is climb Loughrigg Fell, there is a faint path up by the left hand side of the cave, the path is obvious enough to see your way through the bracken but only just. Loughrigg is like a number of the so called smaller fells, they may not be as high as their bigger brothers but they are not small. The path winds through bracken and would usually bypass the many small tarns but every depression is full to the brim of clear water today.

The gradient isn't too steep and at first the view behind is Nab Scar beyond Rydal Water, the Langdale Pikes are peeping above the western horizon. After the initial climb there are flat wet areas interspersed with many small bracken covered peaks, it is a lovely quiet place with lots of detail to be explored by the inquisitive but less ambitious walker. There is a final short climb up grass and you get to what passes for a summit ridge, the summit itself a short way further on is attractively green.

The conditions are wonderful and the summit is a fine place to admire the views of the Coniston Fells, Crinkle Crags to Bowfell, the Langdale Pikes, Dunmail Pass and Windermere stretching away in the distance. All I have to do now is lose all the height I have gained and try not to have to make a tarmac trek to get to my next objective. I can see a building below that I think is the High Close Youth Hostel and there seems to be a wide green footpath heading down in that direction.

Walking down the fairly steep but easy carpet of short grass didn't last for long, after crossing wet ground the path has become very eroded, the loose stony descent is also being used by plenty of water. I eventually came to a wall and I took the right branch of the footpath, over a stile and soon came to a road. In the absence of any other clues as to which road I was on I turned right thinking that at worst I would get back to Grasmere Water.

I was surprised and slightly confused when I reached a gate to High Close Gardens, I wasn't on the road that I thought but it must be the grounds of the Youth Hostel so I entered the garden. I wasn't completely confident that I wasn't going miles out of my way but I thought I would carry on for a while, this garden obviously doesn't receive many visitors. The good track eventually led me to the Youth Hostel where a signpost asked walkers to keep out of the grounds whilst the hostel was in use by a private party.

Shortly afterwards I arrived at another road, exactly where I wanted to be and there was a path straight across the road just where I wanted it to be. I soon came to the bridleway between Elterwater and Grasmere at Huntingstile Crag and after crossing it another obvious footpath took me up onto the ridge leading to Silver How. From the summit of Silver How I was surprised to have such a good view of Elterwater and Chapel Stile villages as well as Lingmoor Fell and its terraced quarry workings.

Now this is where I started to get confused, after descending slightly from Silver How, crossing a flat area I thought the rise ahead was the start of the Blea Rigg ridge. I think I climbed the direct path up to the cairn on Lang How whereas the path around to the left would probably have made more sense in trying to work out where I was. I was convinced that the summit of Blea Rigg was at this end of the ridge, looking the map properly would have been a good idea.

I was expecting a grassy undulating ridge, indeed the word undulating would have been invented to describe Blea Rigg, and undulating was what I got. What I hadn't understood was that I had quite a bit of walking to do before I got anywhere near Blea Rigg. The problem with Blea Rigg is that nothing is obvious, it is a broad flat ridge with many paths and many small peaks, it is easy to miss the summit and I was afraid that in trying too hard to find it I would miss it.

After thinking I had been on Blea Rigg for a while it felt as though I was taking longer than I thought to get anywhere near a summit, I saw a high point in the distance and I headed for it although I knew that it was not the summit. I am fairly certain that the peak with a cairn was Great Castle How and on the map it looks a very short distance to the summit of Blea Rigg.

In fact Blea Rigg itself starts here, there is a gradient, a good deal more rock and several rocky peaks any of which looked like the highest point from where you happened to be standing. It would be easy to spend a lot of energy climbing to each peak looking for the summit, something that I have done in the past and something I didn't want to do and still miss the summit again.

The only thing that kept me hoping I would find the summit was the position of Easedale Tarn, although I reached a point where I was convinced that I had indeed missed the summit. Then I got to a point on the path that seemed familiar, there was a small cairn by the side of the path and when I climbed to the top of a bare rock outcrop I was convinced I was at the summit, probably.

I carried on along the path and I was looking for another path going down to Stickle Tarn, then the whole path disappeared once again in the grass. A faint line of flattened grass seemed to go off in the direction I wanted but it was hardly what Wainwright described as a Main Path. Anyway I followed what was probably an animal track but I could see the top of Harrison Stickle in the distance so I knew I was going in approximately the right direction.

The grassy undulating path lost very little height until Stickle Tarn became visible and even then it wasn't too steep. Eventually I did find an obvious path that took a wide diversion to bypass a very wet area but got me to Stickle Tarn without getting my feet wet. Pavey Ark was now dominating the view and Jacks Rake was obvious slanting across the face of the enormous cliff. Stickle Tarn was a lovely place to stop and rest and enjoy the warmth, warm enough even for a couple of ducks to be swimming on the open water.

It was time now for Jacks Rake; as I walked around Stickle Tarn and up the steep loose slope to the start of the rake I wondered if my legs would cope well enough after already walking for over six hours. There were some damp rocks but my climbing technique is getting better and I didn't frighten myself at all. The most difficult part was climbing slowly below an inexperienced party of walkers, it seems mad to bring first time scramblers to this place. Going slowly is more difficult because there are times when it is easier to use your momentum to get up the steeper parts of the climb.

At the top of Pavey Ark I calculated that the shortest way down would take at least two hours so I had to give up the idea of finishing my planned route. From the top of Pavey Ark I walked over to Sergeant Man, not the first time I have done this so I know to keep as high as possible above the head of Bright Beck. You should follow the contours before losing any height and you will meet the path from Thunacar Knott to High Raise, but remember to turn off in the direction of Sergeant Crag unless you want to visit High Raise first.

As you turn towards Sergeant Man there is a faint path following the contours so I am obviously not the first person to take this route, a little bit of climbing is required to get you to the rocky summit. You follow a more obvious path down the steeper side of Sergeant Man and the obvious path leading to Blea Rigg is seen below. The path is obvious at first but there is a boggy section where the path disappears and can be a real problem in mist but keep to the right of the mud and the path should reappear.

The path is more obvious again and you will come to a tilted slab of rock where there are also at least two cairns, this is where you must turn left to get to Near Easedale. From here it takes at least ninety minutes to get back to Grasmere, the length of time and the amount of energy you need to get off a hill should not be underestimated. The path downwards is obvious and is generally good but a couple of steep eroded sections need a bit of concentration and the use of hands.

There is just one place where you can see Codale and Easedale tarns at the same time, generally at first you can only see Codale Tarn tucked in behind Belles Knott which itself looks very uninteresting from above. As you get past Codale Tarn you have a steep rocky descent and so does the water flowing out of the tarn making an impressive waterslide overlooked by the elegantly pointed Belles Knott. From this point onwards Easedale becomes very flat and wet, there are more stepping stones across wet marshy ground than anywhere else I can think of.

Eventually you reach Easedale Tarn and you begin to see more people and the path becomes more obvious. At least it should be obvious but I crossed the stream by a footbridge below the tarn and it was only afterwards I realised I was going to end up in a soggy Far Easedale if I wasn't careful. Rather than climb back up the slope to the footbridge I crashed through twenty feet of shoulder high bracken and made a precarious crossing of the gill using the available boulders, I wouldn't recommend it as a good way to cross a stream.

A final steep section takes you past the attractive waterfalls of Sour Milk Gill but there is still some walking to do before you finally get back to Grasmere. How come I ended up walking for almost ten hours in order to climb a few small fells? It was a good day anyway, the best walking conditions of the year.

Andy Wallace 21st August 2004