Linger More Fell - Photo Gallery

There was thick mist covering the fields close to home but by the time I reached the motorway it had all disappeared to reveal a bright, sunny morning. The sky was blue when I parked the car in Skelwith Bridge and for the first time this year I decided it would be safe to leave my waterproof jacket in the car. I set off along the road in the direction of Ambleside and was glad of the footpath on the other side of the wall to the traffic. The footpath ended and I had a short walk along the road before turning left up the smaller road leading to High Close.

I walked uphill until turning right just after the entrance to Brunt How Cottage; a short distance along a tarmac driveway brought me to the start of a footpath that was almost completely hidden by trees and bracken. Once I passed through the metal gate and up a few steps I was onto a sheep field, following a faint flattened-grass path. The path crossed over a track and into another field where the path seemed to disappear; although as I discovered later I had merely mislaid it.

I walked uphill to the corner of the field nearest Ivy Crag's bold front; I disturbed a number of hares who proceeded to show me just how fast they could run away. In the corner of the field there seemed to be a surplus of stone walls, I can only imagine that this was the sheepfold marked on the map and no passes through it. I found what seemed to be the lowest part of the wall and with the help of protruding stones near a blocked-up hogg hole I was able to climb over the wall without damaging it or myself.

On the other side of the wall I had a few feet of tall, wet bracken to get through before I was on a proper path. I turned right and walked along the path and soon passed a gate, obviously where I should have ended up if I hadn't lost the path across the field. The path followed the wall around the base of Ivy Crag; I had no intention of trying to find a more direct route up through the densely-packed bracken. I came to a small tarn just before a stream where a smaller path branched off to the left; it seemed to be about time that I started work.

Climbing Loughrigg Fell isn't that hard; especially on a warm, sunny day when the bright green of summer is just becoming trimmed with the brown of autumn. I suppose it is an undulating ridge but the undulations aren't very severe and a short diversion takes you to the cairn at the rocky top of Ivy Crag; the views of mountains and lakes are better that you might expect from a small hill. There are a few more ups and downs and for a while you can see Loughrigg Tarn below; a reconstructed path takes you up the final rise to the summit plateau. The summit itself with triangulation column stands on a slightly raised rock outcrop; you can't complain about a horizon containing Crinkle Crags, Bowfell and the Langdale Pikes.

I retraced my steps, getting down from the summit outcrop as far as a cairn at a crossroads of lawn-like paths amongst the bracken; an obvious path goes down towards the apparently two halves of Elterwater. The nicely lawned path didn't last for long as it made its way quite steeply downhill in a shallow gully; erosion has set in, creating a rough, stony surface where some of the stones were slippery with being wet. The path comes out of the gully to makes its way through bracken and you have to take care because you can't see through the bracken to where you are putting you feet.

Sheep usually stay well away from you when you are crashing through bracken but one was in a great hurry following me down the path and had to crash through the bracken itself as it overtook me. I eventually reached the bottom of the bracken covered slope at a wall where I turned right, through a gate; I walked through woods for a short while before reaching a couple of cottages on the High Close road. After crossing a stile to reach the road I turned right in the direction of High Close; not far along the road there is a gate giving access to its grounds.

I went through the gate and followed a track around to the left; there is a wide variety of trees here, obviously the original Victorian occupiers of High Close had a big garden to fill. There are lots of gates and paths along the way but keep to the track; it bends to the right at another gate and shortly afterwards you emerge onto the road to Elterwater just below the hostel. The temptation here is to follow your nose and head across Silver How towards the Langdale Pikes; they looked splendid under a big blue sky. I turned left and it was a lovely walk in the sunshine down the road for a while until, once Elterwater comes into view; there is an obvious path that bears left from the road taking a direct route to the village.

There were plenty of people in the village and I wasn't at all tempted to join the people sitting in the sunshine outside the Britannia Inn. I walked through the centre of the village, across the river, past the Youth Hostel and then turned first-right up a small road. I carried on along the road, not taking the rough track toward Little Langdale and carried on past the front gate of Elterwater Hall estate. The tarmac road becomes a track good enough for quarry traffic; I ignored the bridleway going up through the woods towards Little Langdale on the left and carried on along the track for an easy walk through the woods.

The track gains height at an easy gradient but gets a little bit steeper as you pass the spoil heaps of the disused Banks Quarry; shortly afterwards I came out of the woods into the sunshine again. As you reach level ground near the disused quarry-face you have the best view of the active quarry near Elterwater. The track carries on at an easy gradient for quite a long way; Great Langdale spreads out beneath you on the right and on the skyline ahead you can just about make out the remains of a building. As you reach a bend in the track you can see Lingmoor Quarry ahead, and the dead-straight route of what must have been the old mineral line up to the rock face.

As I rounded the bend and was contemplating just how steep and rugged a climb it would be up to the quarry and how I would get up to the ridge from there, I saw two other walkers emerge from the trees. They had come up from the valley and were trying to find the path I was on; I was keen to carry on ahead but the other two took the waymarked easier looking path up to the ridge avoiding the quarry. The track had become completely grassed over by the time I reached a stone built platform at the bottom of the mineral line. The start of the route upwards wasn't easy to find, it has been covered over by loose stones from the spoil heaps sliding downhill and the whole lot has become overgrown by bracken.

The going was loose and occasionally slippery at first through the bracken until I reached a larger area of spoil that the bracken obviously couldn't gain a foothold in. After that the bracken was well established and the ground was dry enough, all I had to think about was the gradient; the mineral line is a lot longer than it looks from below. Eventually I reached the large willow tree that has grown across the path, the tree is visible from a long way down and had been my first target; there were two unusual maroon-coloured fungi under the tree.

Once you get past the tree you get to an impressive stone-built causeway, at least six feet wide at an angle of at least forty degrees. I wouldn't have enjoyed walking down this when the rock was wet but climbing up over dry rock was quite enjoyable. The structure of the causeway is starting to break up as you get close to the top, and the spoil heaps will overwhelm it in time, but it didn't cause me any real problems. As you reach the quarry face the ground is level enough for stone buildings to have survived except for their roofs; the building on the edge is certainly a room with a view.

A faint path goes around to the left of the quarry face at first but then you have to make your own way up the steep spoil heaps to the ridge wall and the upper buildings of the quarry. There is no stile in the wall here; I used a piece of slate propped against the wall to give myself a leg-up to reach the through-stones that I could stand on to climb up to the top of the wall and then jump off the other side. I scrambled up the steep mix of grass and boulders to the apex of the quarry face; you can get very close to a very quick descent but the view downwards was all I was after.

From there you can also see the undulating ridge ahead, the wall along the top emphasises the gentle up and down nature of it up to the final summit mass. It felt like a long walk before I started to climb the eroded path up to the summit; after walking on good ground so far you reach the one boggy area that will get your boots muddy just before you reach the rocky summit crown. There was a group of people just below the summit who were greeting the fell-runners staggering up the final few feet of the climb from Blea Tarn before they gratefully reached the downhill section of their run.

From the summit you can see the rest of Lingmoor; on the final bit of the climb the wall had been replaced by a fence but the wall resumes, assisted by the fence to take you in all the way to Side Pike after a slight change of direction. After walking by the side of the wall for a couple of minutes you can climb a short way up to another cairn for a fine view of the Langdale Pikes; I was surprised to see that Side Pike is so much lower than the summit of Lingmoor Fell. On this side of Lingmoor you can see where it got its name from, the heather flowers have all turned brown now but it would have been a very purple place a few weeks ago.

The path by the side of the wall follows the ridge over a number of rocky undulations and it gets quite rugged and awkward in places. One particular sloping rock could be difficult if it was wet or slippery, the wall hasn't survived here and is replaced by a fence; I think there is a diversion around the outcrop causing the obstacle but it is a long way round. It is a curious paradox that you can hold on to the wall to help you down at most of the awkward bits but if the wall wasn't there you could probably find an easier route anyway. Eventually you cross a small stile to get on to the opposite side of the wall where a grassy path leads all the way to the apparent dead-end of Side Pike.

In spite of its lack of height, Lingmoor Fell is big and the walk from the summit to Side Pike is about a mile; it has taken me much longer than I thought it would so it seemed that I wouldn't finish my planned walk again. As you approach the cliff-face of Side Pike there is no obvious way around or over it; only when you are almost within touching distance of it can you see a small path going around to the left. I saw a couple of people coming around on the path and I suspect they didn't realise just how exposed it is above a good, steep drop.

There is a gap to squeeze between the rocks, it is a real Fat Man's Agony and I had to take off my rucksack to get through it; the small path then takes you around the back of the crag and the excitement is over. Even from this direction it would be an interesting climb to the summit of Side Pike; I must come back and do that sometime. The path takes you through bracken and across rough ground and then down to the road at a cattle grid; cross over the road and follow the fence for a short way and pass through a gate to get onto the path to Blea Tarn. The good path takes you through the woods by the side of the tarn; there were some remarkably large and as yet undamaged specimens of fungi in many places growing between and on the trees.

As you emerge from the woods you have passed the tarn, you need to cross a footbridge to go and play in it as quite a few people were doing. I carried on along the path which was suddenly much rougher as it traversed the bracken-covered slopes on the other side of Blea Moss to the Side Gates road. By the time I reached the road I had decided to find my way back to Skelwith Bridge without walking on roads where possible; the Little Langdale tarmac route can be hard on the feet at the end of the day.

I crossed over Fell Foot Bridge, walked along a good track to Bridge End, then followed a rougher track past High Hallgarth cottage; the path then got really rough between the heaps of quarry spoil before I got to Low Hallgarth. The track from there is good enough and just wide enough for cars; the track took me past Slater Bridge to the Atkinson Coppice car park. I was then using map and compass to find a track going in the right direction and correctly found the crossroads at Stang End. I walked along the road to High Park and went through a gate as directed by the footpath waymark and a further arrow took me across a field to reach the woods close to Colwith Force.

I took the path downwards to the waterfall hoping to get some good photos; the subject was interesting enough with a powerful surge of water squeezing through the dark rock. Just when I needed my camera most my final set of batteries decided that they had had enough for one day. I continued on through the woods until I reached the road at Colwith Bridge, turned right along the road for a short while; on the left is the start of the final part of the footpath back to Skelwith Bridge.

Andy Wallace 16th September 2006