Grasmoor Direct Whiteside Indirect - Photo Gallery

It was a sunny morning, but quite cold, it was 4C when I got to Lanthwaite Green and I set off in shorts, jacket and gloves. Grasmoor is a formidable-looking object in front of you; it is a quiet route too, I only ever see the occasional other walker there. After a preliminary climb up a grassy slope, it starts off with steep loose stones, slippery scree that gets steeper as you get higher; fortunately there are remnants of vegetation to climb on, its a good job the heather is well-rooted. After a good strenuous climb, the path turns sideways, the first time it mislead into thinking that the worst was over, but it gets steeper again and you have to hang on to the heather.

Eventually, after passing around the base of a crag, there is a final clamber upwards through a rock gateway, and you emerge onto a rock platform overlooking a steep drop. There is a big step up onto the start of the proper rocky ridge; a small path goes around this part of the ridge but the rock it too good to resist the reasonable scrambling with some exposure. There comes a point where the nature of the rock changes, the clean grey smooth surfaces end at another scramble, the rocker is darker, rougher and liable to be greasy. There is a path going around to the left, leading to a gully which is a viable ascent, but I thought I would try the ridge.

The rock was dry enough to walk almost all of the way along the crest of the ridge, I have had to leave this ridge more often than not because it can get very greasy. On this occasion though I was able to stay on the ridge except at one point where I had to make an awkward descent near to the most awkward part of the gully. It takes a couple of awkward steps to get onto the ridge again, but it becomes much more straightforward after that; it feels quite safe but looking back you can see how exposed it is.

There is a point where a slightly more obvious path avoids the remainder of rock, but a fainter path keeps to the now less obvious ridge, it is still worth the effort. The steepness eventually ends at a cairn on Grasmoor End there is still a bit of a slog to get to the summit of Grasmoor. Although it was in bright sunshine, the cool October air meant that my jacket was still required but it was no longer cold enough to need gloves.

From the summit I headed directly towards Grisedale Pike, until I reached the rim of Dove Crags; I walked around the edge at first but eventually reached a faint path. I descended the ridge, all the way to the bottom, before crossing a stream just above it falls into Gasgale Gill. On the path leading to Coledale, there is a cairn where the path from Sand Hill joins it; from there I started to contour around the steep slopes to get to the back of Eel Crag. After crossing rocky ground, I could see a faint path, it can be seen from here but is more difficult to trace on the ground. After getting across steep ground and scree, I realised I was too low down on the slope and had to climb up the grass to a depression in a natural corrie containing a man-made stone shelter.

There is a ridge up the side of corrie, Wainwright called it Tower Ridge, it starts off on steep grass, then there is some straightforward scrambling, but it still needs care. This is a quiet walk guaranteed, I have only ever seen one other person on this ascent to Eel Crag; at the top of the ridge you reach the summit plateau and it is a fairly easy walk to the triangulation column at the summit of Eel Crag.

It is an easy walk down to the col on a reconstructed path that now leads almost all of the way to Coledale Hause. I walked across the hause and made the long slog up to the top of Sand Hill, and then made the short additional climb to the summit of Hopegill Head. I walked down the rocky ridge in the direction of Whiteside to a col, and walked along the rocky crest of Whiteside Edge, it presents no problems if it is not wet or windy. I kept to the crest of the ridge all of the way to the summit of Whiteside; there is an interesting view of shattered crags falling away steeply to the valley.

From the summit, I decided to try walking down the west ridge, as a change to the sometimes tedious walk down to Lad Hows. The map shows the contours are just as tightly packed, so I didn't think it would be that easy. There is a straightforward path on grass at first, then it becomes an eroded mess on steep ground, almost as bad as the descent to Lad Hows. Then I lost the path and earned myself a strenuous steep descent through heather and springy moss; I walked through pathless bracken to a sheepfold, there was a faint path for a while.

There was still an arduous lengthy walk across wet ground, there were boulders and pools of water hidden by the bracken. I eventually got down to the path by the side of a wall, for the remaining thirty minute walk back to Lanthwaite.

Andy Wallace 17th October 2009