Not the Tourist Route to Skiddaw - no photos today

After the floods and bad weather kept me away from Cumbria last weekend nothing was going to stop me from walking today. It was still grey and gloomy by the time I got to Keswick and as I drove to Applethwaite there was plenty of evidence of trees having been removed and branches pruned as a result of last week's storms. I parked the car across the road from the Underskiddaw Church Rooms and walked back along the road to the signpost for Skiddaw.

Turn left along Gale Road until you reach the car park at the end of the road, the road is littered with tree debris, broken trees are evident on either side of the road and the footpaths through the woods are closed. It wasn't raining but by the time I got to the car park it was completely misty, the usual grey day for climbing a very grey hill. At the end of the car park you have a choice of stile, barred gate or kissing gate to get onto the path.

You turn left onto what is the tourist route to Skiddaw, I will have to be careful that I don't miss my turn. I passed a path branching off to the right but I couldn't tell if it was the one I wanted, I decided to carry on to the memorial cross to get a bearing. When I reached the cross I had only passed the one path so I knew that was the one I wanted so I retraced my steps the short distance and set off on the path leading to Whit Beck.

On reaching Whit Beck I knew then I was on the right path, following the contours of Lonscale Fell's lower slopes in the direction of Glenderaterra Beck. Shortly after you go through a gate the path bends to the left high above the beck heading towards Skiddaw House. The path keeps to the contours and as it passes the base of Lonscale Crags it is just a rock shelf, fine in dry weather but care is needed when the rock is wet, it is a long steep way down to the valley if you slip off.

There is no sign on the map of Wainwright's route so I am paying particular attention to any landmarks. After the rock shelf you cross over one gill, continue to follow the path for a while and then cross another gill that shows signs of quite a lot of erosion and the opposite bank is very muddy. According to Wainwright there is an area of heather and scree before you start to descend a little, then you have to slant upwards over grass and bilberry, so far so good.

Then I am supposed to go up to an obvious saddle, nothing is obvious in this mist so I decided to carry on and see where I get to. I came across a small path that may have been an animal track, I followed it south for a while across what seemed to be quarry waste but because it wasn't gaining height I retraced my steps to follow it northwards. This was more promising and I reached a grassy area that might be a saddle before the path disappeared although there were some signs of flattened grass on the steep upwards slope.

I was following my compass and relying on instinct as I started to climb the steep grassy slope, there are plenty of footholds in the rough slope unlike some plain steep green climbs so for now I am still walking and not scrambling. My compass and my instinct tell me I am going in the right direction, upwards is almost always the right direction if you are in doubt, but I wish I could see where I was going.

Then up ahead I could see what looked like a buttress and that gave me some confidence that I was going in the right direction. When I reached the rocks I came across a path but it didn't seem to be going upwards, on a dry day I could probably have scrambled over the rocks but not today. I skirted round to the left to get above the rocks and it became clear that I had just finished the easy part of the climb.

There was a small gully going very steeply upwards, mainly vegetation but with loose stones in places with steep heather and rock on either side of the gully. Now I had to use hands and feet, the best handholds were the well rooted heather plants, the rocks that weren't loose were greasy and difficult to hold on to. The footholds had to be checked before relying on them, the vegetation gave a good enough grip but loose or slippery rock underneath could have caused a problem.

There was no exposure as such but it was a steep way down if I had slipped. It was very strenuous, I had to use my long legs to search for and use the best foot holds. It looks a very short distance on the map but maps don't do very well with steep, it seemed quite a long way before I got to a small pinnacle of rock on what seemed to be the horizon. It wasn't the horizon of course and there was more strenuous all fours climbing to be done until I reached a larger rock pinnacle on another horizon.

Still more work to do, Wainwright says grassy ledges on the right would be cheating but I'm going to have to cheat because the steep bouldery way ahead just isn't safe today. Even the grassy ledges are not that easy, long legs get me out of trouble again while I hang onto the grass, it's a long way down. Finally I reach the top, it is a short walk to the small cairn at the summit of the east peak.

It is bleak, misty and windy, there is a vague path but compass bearing is the only thing I trust on this broad, featureless plateau. The summit of Lonscale Fell bears a larger cairn but it could be anywhere as my compass leads me westwards again. I remember there is a fence that I have climbed before and sure enough the fence is there and has been repaired but still has to be climbed. At least the navigation is easy now, the fence takes me across Jenkin Hill and for the first time I noticed that it has a cairn, I haven't been on this side of the fence before.

Suddenly there is a big barred gate with a kissing gate, stile and signpost to Skiddaw summit. Personally I don't understand why people ignore Little Man, it is no more difficult climbing it than bypassing it to only climb Skiddaw. On the way to Little Man is the subsidiary peak of Lesser Man that has one of those modern art style cairns made from old metal fence posts. The climb as such is not much more than a walk and not too steep, the only problem is the wind now making it seem harder work than it is.

From the summit of Little Man there is a steeper descent but not that much steeper than the climb following a fence, although the path is too wide to be lost. At the end of the fence you start the climb to Skiddaw itself, an easier walk than the climb to Little Man. There are two shelter cairns that you pass, the second one in particular could be mistaken for the summit but carry on and there is a short descent before the final climb to the summit.

There is a shelter cairn, trig point and another small column which as I remember is some sort of millennium project. The summit is too exposed and windy to hang around so I retraced my steps back to the previous shelter for a drink and a bite to eat. As I was there the mist eventually gave way to rain, it was cold and heavy rain that made me move away more quickly than I had intended.

From this shelter you can head west, I made a note of the cairn as I was on my up, there is a steep, loose path that will take you to Carlside Tarn. I knew where I was going fortunately, the heavy rain meant that I kept my head down and just got off the hill as quickly as possible. There was no respite in the rain as I negotiated the dubious stepping stones across the tarn and made another relatively gradient free climb to Carl Side summit.

The descent from Carl Side is quite straightforward enabling me to make good progress, the path gets a bit more rugged around the outcrops at White Stones before settling to a steeper final descent on grass to Millbeck.

Andy Wallace 15th January 2005