GASP, it's a sunny day - Photo Gallery
It was a cold, damp morning, as though it had been foggy overnight; I had planned a quiet start to what was going to be a busy route if the forecast was correct. I had to drive through more fog on the motorway but the sky was clear when I got to Seathwaite, with just a light covering of frost on the ground. There were plenty of cars at Seathwaite Farm when I got there; Scafell Pike was going to be busy but I anticipated that most people would be taking the most direct route. I had been looking for an alternative way round and I saw a footpath marked on the map that I hadn't noticed before, definitely a quiet walk.
The path looked as thought it started beyond a footbridge on the path towards Stockley Bridge but I've never noticed it; rather than walk for a while and not find an obscure path I decided to head uphill as soon as I got through the farm gate. I climbed over the wire fence by the side of a locked gate; it's not unusual on infrequently used paths to have to stride over obstacles. I started to walk uphill aiming for Hind Gill, a big deep gully on the map and it looked quite intimidating as I started to get closer to it.
I saw another couple of walkers ahead of me uphill so when I came to a fence I turned right to walk by the side of it; there must be a gate if the others had come this way. I did indeed find a gate that wasn't locked; the other walkers had now somehow crossed over a wall higher up the hill. They were met by more walkers who were already on the other side of the wall; maybe the proper path isn't as obscure as I thought it would be. The ground had become quite steep by this stage and I had to keep swapping from side to side of the gill I was following in order to avoid boulders.
I reached the wall, which was too tall to climb unless I had to, near to its top corner; if there was no way through at the top I might have to climb over it anyway. At the top corner the wall was easy enough to climb, it was lower and there were protruding stones to stand on; there was also some wire fencing lying on the top of the wall that seemed to be there to protect it. After climbing over the wall, I had to make a steep descent of about twenty feet, on grass, before I could get to a safe place to cross Hind Gill.
Having climbed up the opposite, steep bank of the gill I found a perfectly good path, why haven't I ever seen it before? It is still quite steep and a little way uphill is another wall, this time with a gate in it; I could then see that there is a path by the side of Hind Gill without having to scramble up the steep-sided gully. Not only did I find a good path I didn't expect, but there was one party of a dozen walkers ahead of me and other party of nine or ten below me. It wasn't as quiet as I had expected but the steep, rugged route is never going to be a tourist path.
Once I got through the gate, the faint path took me steeply uphill, over rough green ground and around boulders; the path was obvious enough with exposed gravel in places but certainly it hasn't been heavily used. After the first grassy section you reach more exposed rock where the traffic of walkers boots has eroded a rough broken path up through the boulders. The steepness of the sides of Hind Gill was also apparent, there were trees growing on ground that seemed to be at an angle of seventy degrees.
I was enjoying the route; a strenuous climb on rocky ground is good for the soul as well as the legs and there were good views of the hanging valleys of Gillercombe and Styhead Gill. The steepness ended just after the rocks but there was still a way to go to the skyline; the end of the steepness was also the end of the shadow. In the sunshine and good visibility there were clear views of Skiddaw and Great End; there was also an unusual and interesting view of Great Gable beyond the fully-exposed Green Gable and Styhead Gill.
It was a steady climb up the grassy slope, I lost the faint path on a couple of occasions but the strategically placed cairns soon got me back on course. I eventually reached level ground by which time it was warm enough to take my jacket off; I did keep my gloves handy however, sometimes a tee shirt in February isn't quite enough. Shortly afterwards I met the main path just before the final scramble to the summit; there is about thirty feet of mandatory climbing before a rocky ridge allows another fifty feet or so of scrambling to Glaramara's subsidiary summit.
The subsidiary summit is a fine viewpoint for the main northern and eastern fell ridges; beyond the Langdale Pikes in the south there seemed to be a cloud inversion. The main summit of Glaramara gives good views of the Gables with Pillar behind but if you visit the other two subsidiary cairned summits before descending you get a fine view of Great End and Ill Crag. The last of the subsidiary summits gives a very strange close-up view of Seathwaite Fell and tyhead Gill above Taylorgill Force; it somehow felt real and close enough to touch, it must have been a trick of the light.
Once you have visited all of the summits you are allowed to descend; retrace your steps a short way from the end of the summit ridge to find a faint path down to a col with a view of the Gables. Because I wasn't paying attention I had wandered off the main path onto a smaller branch so I decided to see where it went to; it soon became obvious it wasn't going anywhere I wanted to be so I made way back over to the ridge path. The ridge to Allen Crags takes an interesting, undulating course; there are four depressions each containing one or more small tarns. Coming from Glaramara, the depression containing the largest tarn is where Glaramara becomes Allen Crags; the fourth depression gives one of my favourite views across two still tarns to the Langdale Pikes.
After the undulating comes a more sustained climb over increasingly rough, stony ground up to the summit of Allen Crags. It is a fine viewpoint on a good day for Great Gable and Sprinkling Tarn, the real Esk Hause and you can now see the join between Great End and Ill Crag. It's a fairly easy descent from Allen Crags, especially if you keep to the side of the badly eroded path, until you meet the highway linking Sprinkling Tarn and Angle Tarn. You climb up past the cross-shaped shelter to the flatness of Esk Hause; this is probably the busiest and most confusing (in bad weather anyway) junction in the Lake District.
The weather was perfect on the hause although it was cool enough to make me put on my pertec wind shirt; the view down into Eskdale showed a classic cloud inversion but the sun was too strong to take any reasonable photographs of it.
Navigate? In good weather just follow the endless of stream of people walking towards Calf Cove; the reconstructed path up to the col between Great End and Ill Crag is one of the best, it needs to be with so much traffic. From the cove, a short climb up a rough path leads you to the start of Ill Crag's boulder field; it's a fine place if you like boulder-hopping but hard on the feet if you don't. There is a small rise that the path bypasses, but I always climb to the top and clamber on to the big boulder there; just for the exhilaration of doing it and the opportunity to play with close-up photos of Great Gable.
After a slightly inelegant descent from the top rock I hopped across the rest of the boulders to rejoin the path as it crosses the shoulder of Ill Crag. You have to leave the path to reach Ill Crag's summit; the ground is even but there is more boulder-hopping to do before the short rocky clamber up to the twin-cairned top. On a sunny day there is nothing to compare to the exhilaration of scrambling over rough ground especially when it leads to such a fine viewpoint. Great Gable and most of the western fells made a fine family group; beyond the wetness of Great Moss, the inversion stretched as far as the eye could see. Scafell Pike seen from Ill Crag on a good day looks a real mountain, proud to be England's highest.
You have another interesting clamber, down the boulders a different way just for fun; aim for the tip of Great Gable you can see and hop across the boulders, meeting the main path just to the right of a rock outcrop. The eroded path down to Ill Crag col must be a candidate for reconstruction, it gets a little worse each year; from the col there is a good line of cairns to follow on the climb to Broad Crag. The cairns however can disappear in the sea of rocks and boulders so you have to keep your eyes open for them; they also lead across the shoulder of Broad Crag and not to the summit.
If you want to reach the summit, and who wouldn't on a brilliantly sunny day, you have to bear right from the path and aim for the skyline. Broad Crag summit is another excellent place, the cairn no longer exists but the big summit rocks don't need it anyway. Then you have an interesting scramble down the rock on the other side of the summit, this is the hardest place of the day if you happen to fall over. You rejoin the main path again for the descent to Broad Crag col; you can try to count the number of people coming down from Scafell Pike but they keep appearing all over the place so you never do.
The final climb to Scafell Pike is as rough and tough as it should be and I'm glad this path isn't reconstructed, it would take away the character of the place. After the roughness and toughness you reach the boulder field that you have to hop across and up to reach the summit. Playing “name the summits” would certainly take longer from Scafell Pike's big cairn would give you a longer list than from anywhere else in the Lake District.
The descent towards Lingmell col is obvious once you get on to the right path, and easy in good weather – just head for Lingmell. After passing some of the largest cairns you have ever seen on a path, the gradient and erosion increases; after a while you cross the edge of some sloping slabs before turning down on to the most eroded part of the path. You reach a large cairn where you can see a big boulder not far ahead with a cairn on top of it; shortly after that you reach another cairn and this is the place to turn right for the Corridor Route.
After crossing wet ground you reach more rocks and cairns and an obvious path which is the Corridor Route. The generally good path will take you to Styhead but it has its moments; getting around the top of Piers Gill becomes more eroded every time and the top of Greta Gill can be entertaining in bad weather. Shortly after the scramble around the top of Greta Gill is the place where, once again, I stopped a party of walkers from following a small path down to Lingmell Beck. As daunting as it might look, you have to scramble up the rocks (it isn't as difficult as it appears) to remain on course for Styhead.
The path takes you past the bottom of the unmistakeable Skew Gill where you can carry on to meet the Sprinkling Tarn path and turn left for Styhead. Alternatively you can cut across Spout Head which can be wet, the path is not very obvious and there are a couple of cairns that don't tell you very much in bad weather. From the stretcher box at Styhead Pass I followed the path down past Styhead Tarn and kept on the left hand side of the gill to visit Taylorgill Force.
I can't remember having descended that way before, it is an interesting little rocky scramble before you get to the wetness of Seathwaite. There isn't much of a path across the wet fields but it's easier on the feet than tramping along the track on the other side of the river. The drive home was through fog, apparently it had been foggy all day.
GASP? Glaramara, Allencrags, Scafell Pike.
Andy Wallace 3rd February 2007