Walk Reports|Far Eastern Fells|Mardale Head|Lady's Seat, Low Raise, High Raise, Rampsgill Head, Kidsty Pike, Straits of Riggindale, High Street, Mardale Ill Bell, Nan Bield Pass, Harter Fell, Gatescarth Pass

Mardale Head - Photo Gallery

When I arrived at Mardale Head, it was dry but cloudy and mist covered all the tops; I struggled to get through the barred gate at top of car park, it was subject to a takeover by a group of people and cars making up the control point for some kind of fell race. I walked across the usually marshy head of the Haweswater reservoir, it would have been a bit more difficult to cross the wide stream if it had been a wet day.

I climbed up a grassy bank to a ladder-stile, and climbed over it to get to the lake-shore path, the rough path leads up the the side of the forested promontory call The Rigg; I suspect that The Rigg would have been more of a ridge before the valley was flooded. The Rigg might also have given its name to Riggindale that you enter after passing the forestry; the path there is lined by standing stones, an extravagant way of keeping walkers off the grass! I crossed Riggindale Beck at Bowderthwaite Bridge, and carried on along the path, ignoring the right-of-way going up the ridge to Kidsty Howes.

The path led me to a small bridge across Randale Beck; the way ahead was unclear, a path appears on the map on the other side of a forested plantation but there is no obvious way of reaching in. I thought about taking the barely visible path, by the side of the plantation boundary wall, but the bracken looked too dense for comfort; after walking around to the other side of the trees, all I could see was a rough, pathless slope uphill.

I was using walking poles for the first time, and was looking for a challenge so I decided to go for it; I climbed up a small steep gully; there were loose stones with one big step up. After that I climbed up steep grass and clambered over awkward rock outcrops; the poles helped me up the slope but were a nuisance when I needed to use both hands. Eventually I reached easier ground, and there was a path-cum-stream through the bracken that took me to the top of Lady's Seat.

The was a vague path that descended a little before climbing up the broad ridge towards Low Raise; I came across a ruined building, being used as storage for plastic buckets by the local shepherds. After that there was no more path, I has a steep climb up the grass; the kind of slope I had started to dread but my new walking poles had given me a fresh enthusiasm. At the top of the slope, I walked into the mist, across a big rolling moorland; I thought I could smell deer. I kept climbing up on pathless grass, eventually I came across a faint path again.

I saw a herd of deer, in the Lake District you don't normally see enough at one time to call a herd; they saw me coming and kept out of my way, and I soon lost sight of them. After what seemed like an everlasting climb, I eventually joined the faint path that I half-expected to find; it led me up the broad ridge to the cairn at the summit of Low Raise. There was a more visible path that took me easily up to the cairn at the summit of High Raise; the mist was starting to clear and I could see across to where I was heading.

I descended easily to a broad col, and at the path crossroads, I kept right to walk up to the summit of Rampsgill Head; I had an unexpected view down into Ramps Gill, albeit a fairly misty view. I made the easy walk over to the summit of Kidsty Pike; it was windy and cool at the summit, it was busy as I walked across the Straits of Riggindale. At the lowest point of the path, High Street rose up ahead; I chose to walk up the path on the left hand side of the wall, paused for a view at a viewpoint cairn, before walking up to the summit of High Street.

As I was having a rest at the summit, the mist came in, and I sufficiently convinced that it was going to rain that I put my waterproofs on. I followed the summit wall until I came to an obvious path bearing left, and made the easy walk to the summit of Mardale Ill Bell. There is a rough descent down to Nan Bield Pass, and a rugged climb upto the summit plateau of Harter Fell. As I reached the broad ridge, I turned turn eft for another easy walk to the distinctive twin summit cairns; the distinctiveness has been diminshed a bit because the fence posts seem to have been extracted from the cairns and scattered.

I carried on by the side of the fence; the modern JCB-made path is eroding in places, it is obviously no match for Lake District weather. When I got down to Gatescarth Pass, it was too misty to see Branstree, straight ahead of me; the obvious eroded path makes the long descent back to Mardale Head.