Crag Central - Photo Gallery
Walking in the Central Fells can be a very wet experience, but after weeks of dry weather this could be the right time to visit the fells called crags overlooking Borrowdale and the flat centre of the Lake District.
Starting from the National Trust car park at Rosthwaite walk back to the centre of the village and cross the main road and walk along the lane leading to the Watendlath path. When I first got to Keswick the temperature was one degree centigrade but it soon warmed up in the sun making a very pleasant start to the day in tee shirt and shorts.
The path is set at quite a comfortable gradient but the view back over the valley quickly improves as you gain height. At the highest point of the path just before it starts to descend to Watendlath there is an obvious path on the right that goes through a gap in the wall heading towards higher ground. The path disappears in places but when you reach a wall you have to find a gate to pass through, there is a sign directing you around the wetland to avoid damaging it. Heading towards higher ground without any real path you find a more obvious path coming up from Watendlath, after passing through another wall and after gaining height the hamlet and tarn of Watendlath come into view.
The summit of Great Crag is a mixture of rock outcrops and heather, with excellent views over Rosthwaite and Watendlath, there is a slightly lower cairned subsidiary summit from where there is the first view of Dock Tarn. From the col between the two summits there is an easy descent to find a path that provides another very pleasant walk, this time to Dock Tarn, in my view probably the best tarn setting in the Lake District. Continue to follow the path and it starts to descend towards Stonethwaite, an unfortunate loss of height but it is the only way of linking Great Crag to my next objective.
The hazy view of Eagle Crag and Sergeant's Crag and the valleys of Greenup and Langstrath give a good feeling of being among mountains. The path descends steeply through trees, there were a large number of walkers climbing the path and clearly feeling the strain of the steep gradient. On reaching valley level turn left up the valley until reaching a footbridge over Greenup Gill near its junction with Langstrath Beck. The place is named Smithymire Island on the map, I couldn't work out what the island was supposed to be but the bouldery stream with its little waterfall is a wonderful place especially in the warm sunshine.
After crossing the bridge walk over wet ground and follow a wall up the valley until another wall sets off steeply up the side of Eagle Crag. You accompany a wall for quite a way up one of the steepest of green fellsides until the vague path leaves the wall. Cairn detectors need to be switched to full power to detect the first in a series of small cairns leading you upwards even more steeply. As you rejoin the wall where it meets a crag there is a stile that has to be crossed and shortly afterwards a steep gully on the left has to be climbed. At the top of the gully the way ahead looks impossible but by zigzagging around the rocks a fairly straightforward way up to the rocky summit can be found, of course you could always make a more direct ascent straight upwards.
The steepness of the climb up Eagle Crag is rewarded with excellent views down into Langstrath and back towards Borrowdale. Eagle Crag is a splendid rocky summit, the walk over to Sergeant's Crag is very pleasant in the warm sun, the loss of height isn't too bad and the climb up to Sergeant's Crag not too hard. Eagle Crag looks very distinctive from the pleasantly rocky summit of Sergeant's Crag, even Ullscarf looks good in the bright sunshine with decorative cloud shadows.
The walk towards High Raise is a real plod, at least the ground isn't too wet after weeks of dry weather. Instead of going all of the way to the summit of High Raise I turned left and walked along the top of Long Crag, it felt like the place belonged to me with nobody else anywhere in site on the large grassy plateau. When I reached Greenup Edge it was the driest that I have ever seen it and the long walk up to the summit of Ullscarf required hardly any detours to avoid the usual wetness.
Shortly after passing the summit of Ullscarf is a fence with a broken step stile that has to be crossed. Well it doesn't really have to be crossed but I have walked the Coldbarrow Fell route before and wanted to find a route directly down to Blea Tarn. It is a surprisingly long walk to the tarn without any trace of a footpath, probably because the ground would normally be excessively wet and nobody would normally go that way.
Blea Tarn is another fine place to sit down in the sunshine, a splendid setting that seems to be rarely visited judging by the small amount of wear and tear on the bridle path. Follow the path by the tarn and make a slight climb up to a couple of prominent cairns before making the easy walk towards Watendlath. As the path meets the one coming down from High Tove there is an excellent view of the hamlet and tarn of Watendlath. Last time I used the steep final descent the dampness made the footpath excessively slippery and I had to walk on the grass but today with dry conditions it is good.
After seeing virtually nobody all day in good walking conditions it is surprising to find Watendlath very busy, the only reason for being there is apparently the cafe. Apart from fishing there isn't anything else to do there although it has to be said that it probably the nicest setting of anywhere in the Lake District that can be reached by car.
Finally an easy walk back to Rosthwaite with the sun still shining, definitely the best of days for walking one of the wettest of areas.
Andy Wallace 13th April 2003