Fisher Gill to Fisher's Wife's Rake - Photo Gallery
It was quite misty on the journey north and especially once I got to the Lake District, by the time I got to Stanah it had cleared at ground level and I was hoping the same would happen higher up. I parked by the side of the phone box in front of the houses and set off along the path to Sticks Pass. You pass some farm buildings and cross a wall using a ladder stile, the lonely little Shetland Pony that lives here was standing on the other side of the wall waiting for someone to bring breakfast. You walk upwards across a field following the muddy footsteps until you go through a gate in the top corner and cross over the water race used to divert streams to Thirlmere.
After crossing over a stream with a waterfall you reach a grassy slope and a short way uphill there is a signpost showing the way to Swirls Car Park. A path above the top of the intake wall follows the contours until you reach an exciting looking footbridge that crosses an unexpected gorge. This is Fisher Gill and the bridge is just below one of its waterfalls; looking upwards you can see several more, these are the ones you can see from the road at the head of Thirlmere.
The footpath is marked with lots of yellow arrows designed to keep you from accidentally going down to Fisher Place farm, however you wouldn't want to walk down the steep, wet slope on purpose. The path carries on ahead following the wall but if you look uphill after crossing the footbridge you will see an innocuous green gap in the bracken. Walk up the steep slope and just beyond the gap in the bracken you will find the start of a faint but obvious path – this is the old Pony Route to Helvellyn.
Walk up the steep slope keeping close to Fisher Gill, the ground is good with just the odd muddy section. This is an extremely interesting gill with plenty of waterfalls interspersed with sheltered pools as the water gets downhill in a number of rugged steps. The view down the gill is very attractive with green and gold (oh alright - it is dead, brown bracken but it looks quite attractive anyway). In the valley the mist is playing games, hiding and then revealing Great How below and High Rigg further up the valley.
The gradient eventually eases at a broad, flat hanging valley that you wouldn't expect when you look upwards from the road below. The path was leading me towards the junction of Sticks Gill and Brund Gill but I didn't want to carry on to the summit of Whiteside, not yet anyway. The map shows an almost parallel path not very far away so I headed uphill across grass towards the skyline and sure enough I found a path on the easy ridge leading to Brown Crag. I reached a large cairn on the the path as it continued to follow the contours around the bend; at this point I went uphill at right angles to the path to make the short climb up to the summit.
The summit of Brown Crag doesn't have a cairn but the neat little top has a good view of the faint path contouring around Whiteside and Whiteside Bank. There was a good view of the summits of Raise and Stybarrow Dodd against the blue sky but a less welcome view of very thick mist coming up the valley and Helvellyn Lower Man already hidden by it. After leaving the summit I rejoined the path, the first part over grass is faint but obvious although I managed to lose it at a slight bend, a branch of it seemed to be going uphill too much so I kept following the contours. The way ahead was now in mist so I decided to try some navigation, I found the sheepfold I could see marked on map telling me I was too low down, maybe I should have followed the path uphill earlier.
I was working my way diagonally uphill whilst still heading towards the col between Whiteside and Helvellyn Lower Man and it was no real surprise when I found the path again. The path became unclear as I reached the headwaters of Helvellyn Gill or maybe I just lost it again but I was in the mist anyway. I continued uphill, not straight up but at an angle in the general direction of where I hoped Helvellyn would be. I eventually reached a broad path at a col and it was well marked by large cairns but I didn't recognise the place even though I was here only four weeks ago.
The cold and the mist I can cope with but it's very disconcerting not being confident of where you are even in familiar places when you approach them from an unfamiliar direction. On the other hand it was impossible for me not to be where I thought I was; even though as I climbed the stony ridge it all seemed to be not the same as the last time I was here. After what seemed to be too short a climb I reached a stony summit with a couple of substantial cairns, I couldn't tell where I was and the covering of frost on the rocks made me feel even more disoriented.
I carried on anyway knowing I had to be where I thought I was, after a short descent I saw the remnants of a cornice as the ground fell away into a steep corrie and I knew where I was. I had just left the summit of Helvellyn Lower Man and I was following the path along the edge of crags above Brown Cove. Rather than follow the wide path to the shelter cairn near the summit of Helvellyn I walked up across the broad featureless summit. Navigation is easy, just make sure you don't fall off the edge and you will reach the cairn marking the top of Swirral Edge, there was nobody coming up that way.
It was extremely cold in the wind, the mist droplets on my clothes turned to ice and the water in my drinking tube kept freezing. I visited the triangulation column and the summit cairn but I didn't feel inclined to spend any time up there and turned back to retrace my steps back to Helvellyn Lower Man. The descent back down the stony ridge didn't feel any more familiar but it made all the difference being sure of where I was. The wide obvious path takes you on to the summit of Whiteside without any steepness, in these conditions you just wrap up, get your head down and follow the path.
Without stopping I carried on over the summit of Whiteside and after a short descent I realised I had come off in the wrong direction. Having already had a bout of disorientation I decided it might be sensible to use my map and compass rather than my usual wandering around technique to get back towards the path. Having decided on a bearing and after a short walk across grass I saw the dark shape of Raise ahead but I still almost followed the path that contours around Raise and goes down to Glenridding. The fellrunners coming down from Raise caught my eye and a quick course correction got me onto the ridge, an obvious route even though no real path has been trodden in.
The mist started to clear a little bit, I even got a view back to Whiteside, but it really only served to let me see the false summits ahead on what felt like a long walk to Raise. There are rock outcrops at at the summit, the path goes between a natural portal formed by two of the outcrops and becomes rougher as it makes its way downwards. At the bottom of the descent the roughness suddenly disappears and there is a good path across the depression and past the cairn with a stick at Sticks Pass.
You carry on straight ahead to find a good path to take you up Stybarrow Dodd until the gradient eases and the path just disappears into the mist as you reach a cairn. Keep going in the same direction to find the obvious path again, but if you want to find the summit you have to branch off slightly to the right without a path but generally keeping above and parallel to the main path. Having found the summit cairn, which in the mist seems like the proverbial middle of nowhere, head left or half left to rejoin the path again. You descend to a shallow depression and for the first time on the walk it all gets a bit soggy and boggy.
The depression is the almost unnoticeable boundary with Watsons Dodd, take the fainter left hand path as you start to climb again or you will miss the summit. Missing the summit might not seem to be a big problem but in the mist if you lose the path and have to navigate you need to know where you are and Watson's Dodd has fewer landmarks than most of the other fells. The path to the summit over wet ground isn't that obvious but it got quite busy as seven fellrunners overtook me and soon disappeared in to the mist. At the summit I met three other walkers who had obviously had a traumatic time in the mist and they were glad to meet someone who knew where he had come from. I pointed them in the direction of Stybarrow Dodd but I suspect they might not have followed my helpful guidance on where to leave the path to find the summit .
I got my map and compass out again to find the path towards Great Dodd, there is no visible path at the summit cairn on Watson's Dodd but one becomes obvious if you go in the right direction for a few metres. The path is wet and muddy and eventually rejoins the main path towards Great Dodd; continue along the wet grassy path until after a short ascent over stonier ground you reach a stone shelter. This is not the top however, you have to carry on upwards without a path and you should find the summit cairn. This is a confusing place in the mist and after a short descent it was no surprise to find myself off the path and out of sight of the summit cairn.
Once again before I wandered too far it was time to use my map and compass, it seems to work - I should try it more often. I soon found the start of the soft eroded path that just fizzles out before it gets to the to the summit of Great Dodd. The top layer of material has obviously been frozen fairly recently, it becomes very soft after thawing out and before any water has had chance to evaporate it is almost liquidised. On the way downwards the mist showed some signs of clearing as I caught the occasional glimpse of Calfhow Pike ahead and Deep Dale down on the right hand side.
I walked up to Calfhow Pike, the main path bypasses it but why would anyone want to do that, it's the only island of solid ground in the area. I had some visibility from the top of the Pike and I could see that I couldn't see very much on Clough Head. I was going to head directly for Jim's Fold from here but in the mist and with the ground being so flat and wet it may be better to get to Clough Head summit first and take a bearing from there. I was feeling fit and I probably had enough time to cross the wet ground and make the long plod over grass to the summit.
From the summit of Clough Head I followed the faint path running along the edge of the crags above St Johns in the Vale, I found lots of sheep but no sheepfold and I was running out of daylight. I found the big cairn at the head of the path coming up from Wanthwaite but I carried on, at least I have an alternative route if I can't find what I'm looking for. Eventually I could see the obvious top of Sandbed Gill and found Jim's Fold just where it should be. In spite of one being marked on the map there is no path, if you follow the bright green strip of wet vegetation towards the gap in the crags you will find a cairn and a faint path.
The path leads to a steep drop and it looks impossible but the route of flattened grass carries on downwards. Just as you think that it ends and you might struggle to get down the path makes a turn just in time to avoid the difficulty. It has become eroded half way down and you need hands to support yourself down the looser section, all the time the ground falls away seriously steeply. The path crosses a dry eroded gill just above a chockstone, looking back it looks a precarious crossing. The path continues steeply downwards becoming more eroded, a couple of gorse bushes have grown across the path and at one point an overhanging juniper tree above a rock makes an interesting step downwards.
The path ends in scree, it looks like a newer trodden way has been formed above the scree and beyond to an easier way down. I chose the straight down route on steep slippery stones, there are lots of sheep bones lying around and I don't suppose they got into trouble on the way up. You eventually reach a wall at the bottom of the scree, turn left and follow the wall to a gate that lets you into the grounds of Bramcrag Quarry. You soon find the quarry road, follow its winding course down to the valley road for a forty-five minute walk back to Stanah in the dark, preferably avoiding the cars.
Andy Wallace 22nd January 2006