Holme run to Lingmoor Fell - Photo Gallery

My friends from Kent are in the Lake District so I have planned a walk that won't be too strenuous and takes in a couple of small fells that I haven't visited before and which don't really fit into any of the usual walks I do. The forecast was good and it was already warm by the time we left the cars in the National Trust car park in the middle of the village of Elterwater.

Walk out of the car park and turn left, walking along the road you soon pass the Youth Hostel showing you that you are on the right road. One of the more pleasant road walks takes you past Fletcher's Wood and eventually come to a busier road. Walk in the direction of Coniston and soon afterwards is a very missable signpost showing a Public Footpath to keep you off the road. Follow the faint path parallel to the road, go through the gate that you come to and you will eventually drop back down to the road.

Turn left along the road in the direction of Coniston and cross over to find a path that stays close to the road for a while. Walking through trees most of the time you come to a flatter area, a foot bridge on the left should be ignored as you turn half right and go through a gate. You don't seem to climb very much through Harry Guards Wood and I was beginning to think that we were heading in the wrong direction.

We passed an untidy cairn before reaching a large boulder, having looked at the map I thought that the cairn might be trying to tell us something. We retraced our steps for a few yards back to the cairn and sure enough once you got through a gateway of tall bracken there was a path leading up hill in the opposite direction to which we had been going.

The path was rough and fairly steep but not too demanding as we walked through the attractive and interesting woods until we reached a rock outcrop on the right, the heather in bloom made the rock too attractive to ignore. My less energetic friends carried on up the path between bracken to Uskdale Gap as I scrambled up an interesting rocky ridge to a subsidiary summit on the other side of the gap to the summit of Holme Fell.

I followed my friends up to a prominent cairn on what was obviously the summit, well it was obvious until I read Mr. Wainwright's chapter on Holme Fell. I realised then we had got to the cairn on Yew Crag and not to the summit of Holme Fell, it's a good job I don't worry about touching summit cairns. Anyway the views were extensive if a little hazy, Coniston Water, the Langdale Pikes, Wetherlam and Coniston Old Man were well seen, Helvellyn and Fairfield seemed to be covered in mist.

There was an easy descent, quite damp underfoot, that took us to the disused reservoirs that are fairly well full of water weeds. The good track that we found took us to the Hodge Close quarries, a fascinating place, steep high crags and a delightfully emerald coloured tarn. It was warm and we were envious of the people swimming in the blue water as long as you ignore the heavy metals that give the water its colour.

Follow the track northwards through the cottages at Hodge Close and another pleasant walk until a small crossroads at Stang End. Bear left on tarmac and almost immediately turn right going through a gate into what feels like someone's back garden. The path takes you across fields to Little Langdale, Lingmoor Fell ahead looks an impressive little hill but still only a little fell.

The weather by now was hot, the iced lolly break at the Three Shires Inn was very welcome.

I had planned a route that looked quite straightforward, avoiding the need to ascend and return on the same path but honestly it looked quite a reasonable way up and would take us directly to the summit. The path was clearly marked on the map by the side of the intake wall around the base of Busk Pike and above another wall to a ford of Gill Grains and then it looked a short distance to the summit.

The path by the wall was obvious enough, a tunnel between wall and bracken giving no view of valley below or the fell above. So far so good apart from Nigel being mislead into trying to find an impossible route upwards, battling up the steep bracken slope and then having a painful, knee unfriendly route down again when the bracken defeated him.

I suppose I should have noticed the path continued beside the wall, the bracken having hidden it making the small, scree filled steam bed look a bit like a path. Anyway we carried on around Busk Pike, losing height at one stage until one wall ended and another began to take us uphill, the path still obvious enough to follow. Eventually we reach Gill Grains and enjoyed a splash of cool water before carrying on, the path continued beside the wall with the bracken being taller and more difficult to get past.

Then we got to the point that I believed to be the ridge I had seen on the map, all we could see was a six feet high wall of bracken with a series of rock outcrops every twenty feet or so. The plan was to bulldoze a way through the bracken and gain height scrambling up the outcrops. This is probably not the best summer route, the steepness isn't that great but the bracken is a formidable obstacle.

It seemed to take forever, after each bout of wrestling the bracken there was a pleasant little scramble over good rock but every time there was more bracken. Eventually the skyline was visible, it would be too easy if that were the summit and sure enough what I hoped was the summit was still a distance away and there was more climbing to do.

The positive thing was that I was exactly where I thought I should be on Mart Crag, it was only a small consolation seeing the walk and climb that still had to be done. We walked around to the left of a marshy plateau looking for the least strenuous way to the summit and where the final climb began we came across a path, the one coming up from Blea Tarn. I was glad to reach the summit of Lingmoor Fell, it had taken far longer than I expected to get there, so much for the considerate non strenuous route I had planned.

For a little hill, Lingmoor Fell has an impressive cairn set on a small peaked outcrop of rock, must remember to take a photo of it next time. I did take photos of the view, the Langdale Pikes and Crinkle Crags look especially good. The way down to Elterwater is to follow the fence, but which side, there are obvious paths either side of it. We started to follow the path on the left hand side of the fence seeing as we were on that side anyway.

We walked along the pleasant grassy ridge but without losing too much height until we came to the wall that prevents you from falling into the disused quarry. The fence we were following has become a wall with no stiles, the protruding stones made good enough steps to climb over it. Then we began to descend on a grassy path, wet enough in places to slip embarrassingly onto your backside if you are not careful.

Eventually we got to down to a track on the Little Langdale side of the fell, turn left for an easy walk in the warm late afternoon sun. We got back to the car park at Elterwater ten hours after leaving it, a little longer than I had intended to walk.

Andy Wallace 7th August 2004