More than just a fallen boulder - Photo Gallery

It was raining heavily when I got up, not what I was expecting and not what I really wanted; it continued to rain until I left the motorway. By the time I reached the car park at Brackenclose it had stopped raining and it was warm enough for me to wear shorts. The National Trust man who came to check my car park ticket asked where I was walking, when I told him Lord's Rake he asked if I was aware of the fallen boulder.

There were plenty of people sharing the Brown Tongue route and I bet they are all first timers to Scafell Pike. They set off dressed in full waterproof gear but by the time they got to the kissing gate in the intake wall after the first easy climb they had to remove a couple of layers of clothing and their gaiters. This is the easy bit of the walk where you can appreciate the views of Wastwater behind and the crags of Scafell and Scafell Pike ahead, for once they are not shrouded in mist.

In spite of this morning's rain the crossing of Lingmell Gill is straightforward, not like last September when I had to walk upstream to a point where the flow was less torrential. After crossing the gill it is upwards and upwards on Brown Tongue itself, the higher you get the steeper the reconstructed path becomes. After a while you just get your head down and plod, it does no good to see how much further there is to go. Where the path forks below Hollow Stones the first timers should turn left but many don't and end up on the scramble up the scree to Mickledore Ridge, welcome to Scafell Pike!

I deliberately took the right hand fork, after a less steep section the terrain becomes much more rugged and the path becomes steep again as you make your way towards Mickledore. At the top of the reconstructed path is a large boulder and you begin to see just how impressive the the crags are that you have been looking at on the way up. Carry on past the boulder and you will come to a cairn where a scree slope rises on the right, you can start to climb the scree slope here but I prefer to carry on for a little while.

There is a small group of large boulders on the left hand side of the path that makes an ideal place to sit and contemplate the scree slope in front of you, I always try to trace the route of the West Wall Traverse from there. Walk up the scree, it is quite stable with a visible trodden route to follow; all you can see ahead is rock, there seems to be no way through. Part of the way up a gully has formed in the looser stones, the result of heavy rain last year. The going gets steeper and more rugged after the gully all the way until you reach a high wall of rock, this is the base of Scafell Pinnacle.

Slightly to the left you can find a cross carved in the wall, a reminder of the need to be careful. To the left is the climbers traverse that Wainwright calls Rake's Progress that will take you uncomfortably to Mickledore Ridge; to the right is Lord's Rake, from one angle you can just about see the fallen boulder. There are three warning signs telling you about the fallen boulder, two of the signs have been damaged by rocks sliding down the Rake, there is no warning about them.

The bottom of the Rake doesn't seem to change, a couple of large boulders acting as chock stones they must hold back an enormous amount of rock. I always feel a surge of apprehension when I start to climb Lord's Rake even though I have been there several times I know I need to take care. I always think the natural surface of the rake is a mix of gravely scree and soil but last year it was full of boulders from a rock fall at the top of the first rise. Once I clambered over the wet chock stones I could tell there has been a fresh rock fall, the higher I climbed the more rocks there were piled up loosely.

This kind of scree can be quite safe when it is stable but this fresh material is still on the move and I had to be extremely careful. I always keep close to the left hand wall of the rake, the rock of the walls is wet, mossy and crumbly but at least it gives some support. I got to a point where I needed to support myself while I stepped over a couple of larger rocks and got hold of a rock that should have been heavy enough to give me some support. As soon as I touched it the rock slid down past me and dislodged a pumpkin sized rock that brushed past my leg.

I was alone in the Rake and it was a good job there was no-one just behind me, I was glad to get past the loose rocks to the more familiar gravel and soil close to the top of the first rise. The final few metres to the first col has always been a dirty fingernails scramble up the steep loose surface, these days the fallen boulder leaning precariously against the rock wall adds a certain urgency to getting to somewhere you feel safe. The rock wall that the boulder leans on is the same one that has fallen into the Rake over the last couple of years, if the remaining section falls the boulder will surely go with it.

When you get to the boulder it seems firmly and securely wedged against the rock wall although something has moved because there is room to get past it rather than under it. From the other side it looks secure until you see the bottom where there is a wide crack, is it wider than last year? The visibility has been good so far but now it is starting to rain slightly and Scafell Pike has been covered in mist. There is no need to follow Lord's Rake to the end but I always do, it is an interesting and exhilarating route with good views as you descend and climb to the second col followed by a longer descent and higher climb to the exit.

This is not where I want to be though so I have to retrace my steps back to the boulder, squeeze past the side of it and walk across the steep eroding slope to join the West Wall Traverse. Unfortunately the weather has now closed in restricting the views of the intriguing swirls and lines in the rock face of Scafell Pinnacle a few metres away across the chasm of Deep Gill. The rain also makes the walking rather more interesting, the lack of other walkers to remove moss from the rock this early in the season means that the rocky ascent can be more slippery than usual.

The West Wall Traverse ends when you get into the upper part of Deep Gill, no stream runs in this part of the gully but there is a lot of wet rock. Deep Gill doesn't seem to change, there is not the same amount of erosion here, the high rock walls seem to be very solid. As you get higher up the gill it narrows and the walls are made of much less solid material, whatever you get hold of comes away in your hand. The final exit is awkward as you have to turn left without any real handholds or footholds, you just have to push against the steep crumbling walls with hands and feet as you scramble up to the grassy saddle of Scafell.

By now it was raining hard with no visibility; it isn't a good place to be lost, there are steep crags all around a flat featureless plateau. There is a small cairn nearby, from it proceed in a south westerly direction and you should come across cairns and hopefully a cross shaped pattern of stones on the ground. Follow the cairns and you will come to more cairns and a couple of inadequate shelters before climbing a little over boulders to reach the summit of Scafell. There are several cairns and a couple of shelters in a line along a short craggy ridge, I have never really worked out which one is the summit so I visit them all.

Walking south towards Slight Side the ridge broadens and in poor visibility it feels like a big place but if you keep to the crest of the ridge when the path disappears you will eventually find it again. As I got below the cloud base I could see Slight Side so the navigation wasn't a problem any more, there is a faint path that takes you the gap between the twin peaks of the summit. The two peaks are large outcrops of rock, the summit is on the left hand one and the rock is easy to scramble over but is slippery with the lack of traffic. Descend back down to the gap and get off the rock to find a small cairn where you turn left on a faint path.

The path leads to an eroded rocky descent that turns into an uncomfortable scree gully and as soon as you can you should bear left down towards a more obvious looking path. The path is loose stones to begin with but soon you are on a less obvious path going down a grassy slope. I didn't want to lose too much height and was looking for a small cairn perched on top of a large boulder. I found the boulder but it had no cairn, now is the time to turn left in the direction of Eskdale.

You wouldn't have expected to find a path here on an eccentric route, I just followed a natural line keeping to the contours and avoiding the worst of the boulder fields. Curiously I passed a couple of small cairns and there were occasional signs of flattened grass, maybe it isn't quite as eccentric as I thought. In the past I have kept as high as possible above Eskdale, the Great Moss is well named, but always you have to descend eventually and some of the wet slopes have been uncomfortable. On this occasion after keeping to the contours you come to a slight rise so I started to descend here and it seemed a much better route.

When you see Sampson's Stones, a group of very large boulders arranged around a hillock like decorations on a cake, just make a beeline for them keeping out of the wettest areas. You will pass through a complex old sheepfold where you will find a faint path through the stones keeping generally dry shod until you see the waterfall of Cam Spout. Walk over to the waterfall, this is another good place to rest and admire the place and contemplate climbing Scafell again after your legs have already started to complain.

The climb up the rocks by the side of the waterfall is interesting and not difficult, plenty of holds for hands and feet but exhilarating enough not to worry about aching legs. At the top of the climb the walking is easier allowing me to worry about how hard the rest of the walk is going to be, the incentive for carrying on is that I won't get back to the car if I don't. After a particularly eroded part of the path where the red undersoil shows through there is a seemingly meaningless cairn but this is where you need to slant upwards to the left.

The path you are on will take you on the Scafell Pike side of the wide gully to Mickledore but you need to get over to the Scafell side. You will find a stream, you need to be to the right of it to find a large cairn at the entrance to Foxes Tarn Gully. This is one of my favourite routes, an interesting but not difficult exercise in route finding over and between boulders either side of the beck. Where the boulder size decreases continue to follow the stream, there seems to be a branch of the path up to the right that I have never been brave enough to follow.

You will come to Foxes Tarn, not as much of a puddle as it used to be with the unofficial dam getting more substantial each time I see it. The path upwards is obvious to start with, I'm sure the path builders would be disappointed to see how badly their path has been treated by the mountain. The path is obliterated by scree in several places although following the line of it is less arduous than climbing up the steep screes that have never been tamed. Eventually, although actually it takes only fifteen minutes, after leaving Foxes Tarn you arrive back at the Saddle of Scafell.

You will find the cairns and maybe the cross of stones, follow the path to the left to find the cairns and shelter just below the summit of Scafell. The conditions are no better now that the first time I was here so a visit to the summit seemed unnecessary. Instead of going straight up to the summit there is the start of a path on the right, it is the Green How path which is the quickest but not necessarily the easiest way down from three thousand feet. This path is becoming increasingly eroded and slippery on the steep slope until you get to grass.

The faint path on grass takes you steeply downwards, don't try any shortcuts by turning right just keep to the line of the path until you find a groove by the side of a stream. If you get to the fence and there isn't a stile you have probably come too far left so turn right and follow the fence until you find a stile. This is a very long descent, your knees will not thank you for this and there is a very wet section before you finally get down to level ground. The consolation is that the car park is very close and you have welcomed in your summer season with a classic walk.

When I got back to the car park the National Trust man was doing his rounds again and he asked how it had been. It turns out that like many who give advice about the fallen boulder he has never seen it and is completely unaware of the real nature of Lord's Rake.

Andy Wallace 30th April 2005