Lords Rake and Foxes Tarn Gully - Photo Gallery

I parked at Brackenclose where it was already very warm at 9am, there was plenty of room to park, but I knew it would be busier later with Three Peaks troublemakers. I walked by the side of Lingmell Gill, until crossing it to start the ascent of the freshly reconstructed path by the side of Brown Tongue, that gives its name to the route. The new reconstruction is better than the old one and cleverly almost made me miss the unreconstructed path that branches off towards Hollow Stones.

After passing the open ground of Hollow Stones, the path becomes steeper and more rugged, there are signs too that it is about to be reconstructed. Once you reach the big boulder you are almost at another junction; after the next cairn there is a group of boulders opposite a screen fan going upwards on the right. I climbed up the scree slope, I was in mist by that time; in the past a reasonable trodden path got you up the scree quite comfortably, but there has been a good deal of erosion and a deep gully has formed in the past few years.

Around the eroded gully, there is a lot of new loose material; there has been a massive movement of rock at the bottom of Lords Rake, there were two big chockstones at the bottom of the rake that have always been there for me, but they are gone. There is a considerable amount of very loose new material in the bottom half of the rake, it has slipped down from the upper half of the rake which has fewer loose stones but is just as steep and awkward as ever.

The fallen boulder is still firmly wedged in place, more boulders have fallen away from its base and in the fullness of time it will follow everything else downwards when it is finally undermined. Climbing upwards, under the fallen boulder is rather intimidating but a mere person would not be in any danger of bringing it down on themselves. I walked up to the end of the Rake, it is equally eroded but without the intimidating rock walls on either side; the mist had cleared as I walked back again to go under the boulder, and made a precarious walk over the continually eroding entrance to the West Wall Traverse.

The Traverse is a high level, rising rough path in the shadow of the crags of Scafell Pinnacle; as I reached the end of the Traverse where it meets Deep Gill, I could see that the rockery has been rearranged there too. Deep Gill is a steep, narrowing gully, clambering over big boulders at the start and scrambling up the crumbling gully walls nearer the top with a couple of big steps up to exit onto the plateau below Symonds Knott. After walking across the plateau, this is a short climb to the summit of Scafell.

I walked along the crest of the ridge, and as I approached Slight Side, walked around the side of the summit outcrops to the subsidiary summit and scrambled to the real summit. There is a steep descent, if you can find it, it is very eroded at first and then becomes a small path in the grass. I missed the cairn on a large boulder I have used as a landmark before before, I can believe that the cairn has gone but not the boulder! I followed a faint path as it turned left, but soon became lost in the grass before I reached swampy ground; it is not unusual to make a beeline across pathless, usually swampy, ground.

Sampson's Stones is the obvious landmark to aim for; I met a couple of bouldering climbers there, I'm surprised that I don't see more of them on those intriguing big boulders. There is an obvious path up the Eskdale valley, that keeps away from The Great Moss, and leads towards Cam Spout, a significantly high waterfall. There is an exhilarating steep scramble up the rocks by the side of the waterfall, follow by a steady climb to the entrance to Foxes Tarn Gully; the big boulders there have moved again.

There is another interesting bouldery scramble up to Foxes Tarn; there is a steep scree slope to be climber, the reconstructed path is still there and I can usually find most of it, but it is definitely overwhelmed by scree in places. Back on the summit of Scafell, there were unusual cloud formations below, and mist spilled onto the summit; you have a steep slippery descent towards Green How, and then the long green descent that asks “why” rather than “how”, back to Brackenclose.

© Andy Wallace 5th Jun 2010