Crinkle Cairns - No photos today
It is dry with good visibility as I arrive at the Old Dungeon Ghyll in Langdale, I hope it stays that way because my last few visits to Crinkle Crags have been in mist.
I set off up the Wrynose Pass road and after the first steep sharp bend an obvious path starts on the left hand side of the road heading to Pike o’Blisco. Just as I set off along the path there is a shower of rain, at least I hope it’s a shower, causing me to put my jacket on. The shower passes but I’m thankful for the cool, almost cold, breeze as I make my way up the steep constructed footpath.
At the top of the footpath is a cairn and instead of following the path towards Pike o’Blisco I turned left to explore Wrynose Fell. It turns out to be a delightful place full of tarns situated in shelf like positions, and with a couple of excellent cairned viewpoints overlooking Langdale, Wrynose Pass and the Coniston Fells.
I retraced my steps and rejoined the main path towards the summit of Pike o’ Blisco. There are a couple of rocky scrambles that can easily be avoided but why would anybody want to avoid them? The summit of Pike o’Blisco is comprised of a pair of rocky towers, the higher one being a flat platform crowned by an impressive cairn with excellent views all round.
An unfortunate loss of height is necessary in descending to Red Tarn to pick up the popular path from Oxendale to Crinkle Crags. There is no obvious path up to Cold Pike so I headed straight up the steep grassy and bouldery fell-side. The summit of Cold Pike is interesting with three separate cairned rock towers, I only climbed the highest as it got cold and started to rain, enough to force me to put on full waterproofs – this might not be a shower.
I dropped down to rejoin the main path and it did stop raining and it became much brighter but that breeze felt distinctly autumnal.
Crinkle Crags is my favourite ridge walk and it felt good to be able to see the whole ridge as I walked along as well as Bowfell, the Scafells and the Langdale Valley. Bad Step is an enjoyable scramble for confident walkers but dogs find it difficult and don’t always understand that they should use the detour to avoid the rocks - standing at the foot of the rocks, barking loudly, doesn’t usually work.
I did visit every Crinkle summit and Shelter Crags summit and the summit of the prominent rock tower, and I have photographic evidence, it’s surprising just how many people simply follow the footpath.
The climb up to Bowfell from Three Tarns wasn’t as painful as I was expecting it to be and the conditions were getting warmer all the time in spite of the cool breeze. The Great Slab is an impressive feature, and one day I will climb it but I don’t fancy going down it. The summit of Bowfell is a fine airy place, you couldn’t mistake it for anything except the top of a mountain and it has a special view of Scafell, the East Buttress being a fearsome looking object.
From the summit of Bowfell, rather than follow the path down to Ore Gap, on a day like today you have to follow the route along the top of the crags, the view of the Great Slab from the cairned viewpoint is particularly impressive. There are occasional way marking cairns along the descending ridge but no clear path, when you get to a small tarn Ore Gap is visible and I made my way down to the main path again.
Here starts the long descent to Angle Tarn and then down Rossett Gill to Mickleden and on to Langdale. Rossett Gill has been visited by the Path Fairy and clever use of a newly constructed path leads you to the original easier route providing some protection for Rossett Gill itself, although I descended the Gill because I enjoy it.
Finally the long march along Mickleden bottom in increasingly warm conditions until returning to the Old Dungeon Ghyll car park.
Andy Wallace 31st August 2002
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