Grikey! - no photos today
Famous last words! After yesterday’s bad weather I said that it couldn’t be any worse today, sure enough it was raining even harder this morning. So with us having evacuated from the hostel I took the opportunity of getting to a part of the Lake District that I wouldn’t normally have visited.
My first choice, Fellbarrow from Thackthwaite was thwarted by a couple of Council workers who had taken up the whole of the only available parking spaces with their van. I set off then for the Ennerdale and found a car park at the western end of the Lake, no rain here but the view up the valley was of angry clouds over the fell tops.
I walked over to the lake and started walking on the path along the southern shore of the lake and taking the path on the right slanting up towards Anglers Crag. I haven’t been this close to Ennerdale Water before and I enjoyed the new, although limited, views across the lake and up the valley.
From the top of Anglers Crag the pinnacles of Crag Fell became visible, the path towards them was more obvious than I was expecting it to be. It was wet and green but not grass so it wasn’t as arduous as many steep green ascents. The pinnacles at close range are very impressive and as far as I can tell they haven’t changed much since Wainwright illustrated them in the Western Fells. There was a Wainwright moment as I stood at the same point as he must have done to make his sketches, followed by an andyfellwalker moment as I stood as close to the impressive rocky outcrop as possible.
The faint path then follows the same contour as it traverses Crag Fell, across a couple of small ridges before meeting the main path up the main ridge. A not too steep green path with muddy footholes led up to the summit, the wind came in strongly from the right over the ridge threatening to overwhelm me with the thick mist that was all around.
From the summit another faint path runs south to a fence, turn right to follow the fence at first, cross another fence by a step stile and make a bee line for the summit of Grike.
The summit of Grike contains a large well-built shelter cairn that kept the strong wind off me, and another two smaller but large cairns. The fell is completely green except for a rash of loose stones at the summit about twelve feet in diameter – it just looks as though they have been dropped there rather than being a natural occurrence.
There are no obvious ways back down to the lake, I’ll have to consult the Pictorial Guide that I happened to find in my rucksack. In a trice I had the answer, avoid the crags and don’t get too near the ravine – do I trust this man, of course I do.
Walk northeast over pathless, rough grass and vegetation until reaching the parallel streams that merge into Ben Gill. There is a small ridge between the two streams containing the faint path until a relatively new fence is reached. To the right is a steep green embankment that I didn’t fancy so I tried going left, past a newly deceased lamb, but I was going in the wrong direction. I went back to the path and climbed over the fence to follow an old path until meeting the main path to Crag Fell as it forded the combined stream just above the start of the ravine.
An easy path now leads downwards, then becoming muddy through the pine trees over the tree routes and finally back to the starting point.
A very pleasant 3-hour walk followed by a sunny drive north and the angry clouds still hide the felltops.
Andy Wallace 11th June 2002