Phew Gill to Lords Break - Photo Gallery

I have been waiting for a few weeks for some good weather to do a special walk but I can not wait any longer, I'm going to do it today. It is raining heavily as I set off but I am wearing my shorts anyway, is that natural optimism or just wishful thinking.

By the time I got to the National Trust car park at Brackenclose at the head of Wastwater it had stopped raining but it was still damp and the tops of the hills were covered in mist. I walked through the next door camp site and then followed the path that takes you almost to The Green and Wasdale Head, not many cars parked there today.

I carried on up the road and through the little car park just before you get to the Barn Door shop, there is a footpath across the fields to the little church of St. Olaf's, worth a visit if you have not been inside or read the gravestones before. Just past the church is a farm track, turn left towards Burnthwaite and bear left through the farmyard to a gate leading to the valley of Lingmell Beck.

Follow the path by the side of the beck for another mile or so ignoring the paths branching off to the left, the first after a footbridge takes you to Beck Head, the second takes you uncomfortably to Styhead Pass. After passing the junction of a couple of streams Lingmell Beck becomes rockier and seemingly impossible to cross especially when there is a lot of water in it.

After you pass a couple of cairns the path becomes unclear but stay close to the beck and you will see a path of sorts rising up the grass on the other side of the beck. There is a small cairn on the other side of the beck and a boulder on your side with an arrow scratched into it to show you where to cross the beck, today there is enough water to fill your boots if you are not careful.

Once across the beck there is a small but obvious path that climbs upwards along the shoulder of moraines, if moraines have shoulders, until you have to cross another stream. Up to this point it is an easy pleasant walk up a very interesting valley with good mountain views on either side. Now you have to do a bit of work, going uphill on a zigzag path until you reach flatter ground where Skew Gill lies in front of you just to the right, a river of boulders and scree leading you there.

The mist has cleared, it is still warm enough for shorts so I am hoping for the best from the weather. The Corridor Route starts at the bottom of Skew Gill, many people are making that journey, I have never seen anyone else set off up the gill apart from the two unsuspecting companions I took there last year. The gill is dry at the bottom, the water must be underground, but there is plenty of white water ahead cascading over the steep rocks.

The climb starts straight away and the water starts flowing soon afterwards, the gill is a narrow rocky stream bed, the only way up is to follow the path of the stream. Unlike last year which was dry there has been heavy rain recently and there is plenty of water in the gill. The route upwards is fine, there any good hand and footholds only today they are full of water, it is impossible to climb up the steep wet rocks or vegetation on either side of the gill.

As I climbed each little waterfall I was being splashed with water, but there is one particular section where the flow of water is directly down and the climb is directly up, the full flow of water came over my legs and filled my boots. The going after that gets steeper and the climbing is less straightforward, sometimes you have to use little gullies by the side of the stream and there are a number of awkward steps to be made. Fortunately the gill is so narrow that you can be climbing on one side of it and support yourself by leaning on the rock wall on the other side of it.

By now you have reached the point of no return, going down those awkward rocks would be worse than carrying on but carrying on looks a very steep and wet prospect. I suppose if I wasn't enjoying myself I would have worried about the awkward steps, the wet rock and the consequences of not making those life or death hand holds. There is a slight respite, very wet and precarious rock but at least not quite as steep, and then you become aware of the top of the gill.

Just to complete the scene, the mist I saw at the bottom of the gill has now overtaken me, a boy could easily feel intimidated in this gloomy environment. A long hard way to go and a sincere desire not to have to go back down again.

At the top is a fifteen foot high vertical slab, wet and black with algae and moss, there is no way to climb that. The alternative on the left is a small rock gully, wet and black looking with no obvious places to hang on, did I say it was almost vertical too? The route I have taken before in the dry cannot be done today so the gully is my only option, I really don't want to have to turn back now.

The rock on the left is surprisingly but reassuringly grippy, hands find good places to hang onto meaning your boots won't slip either, I am quite exhilarated if you know what I mean. Half way up the gully ends and you have to get onto the slab but there are a couple of good footholds, you have to be double jointed to raise your foot that high so I allowed myself to use my knee. If this was dry and at ground level it would be no problem but everything is wet and it is a long way straight down backwards.

I allowed myself a phew! as I got to the top of the slab but there is another awkward step to make, not that difficult as such but the destination is loose earth and scree. You have a few steep feet on loose material to scramble up before you are safe, another phew! is definitely allowed. All you have to do now is boulder hop over greasy rock, at a reasonably strenuous gradient of course until you reach a small grassy col near the summit of The Band on Great End.

Phew! again, all I have to do now is climb steeply up grass and boulders. If you find the cairn and look towards Great End the mist might clear for a couple of seconds and show you a vague path upwards. The vague path is enough to follow, there are a couple of interesting rock steps to start with but having got this far you just get on with it. The rest is steep, sometimes you lose the path and sometimes you find it, just keep going up until you reach the bouldery plateau, keep going up and you will reach the summit of Great End.

After all that work there is no view, so much so that I have to look at the map and get my compass out, trust your compass before following those obvious looking cairns. I followed the bearing and didn't recognise anything, saw traces of footpaths and cairns and eventually began to wonder if I was getting anywhere. Then I heard voices and there was higher ground ahead, I had got to the exact point I wanted to be at Calf Cove on the main path to Ill Crag.

After four hours of solitude there are many people around now, across the anonymous Ill Crag no one visits its summit. Over to Broad Crag I am amazed that some people are visiting its summit, as interesting as it is there isn't much to see on a misty day. Down to Broad Crag col and the final climb to the summit of Scafell Pike, do all of those people know they are obviously first time visitors to this place?

I don't need map or compass to know where Mickledore Ridge is, maybe it would have given me some reassurance, this place doesn't help you to know where you are on a misty day. I needn't have worried, the stretcher box is the ultimate landmark and I know where I have to go now. Up the ridge of Mickledore and when you can't go any further you have to climb Broad Stand or turn right as I did and descend the eroded climbers traverse that Wainwright calls Rake's Progress.

The path takes you to the start of Lord's Rake, there is a new warning notice that mentions a fallen boulder but not the massive rock fall that has changed the nature of the place recently. When I was here two months ago the rake was full of new rock, it seemed easier than the loose stones I was expecting. All of that rock has moved downwards quite a long way, you can not expect to march up Lord's Rake; you must be very careful.

Lord's Rake was always a dangerous place, it is just a different kind of dangerous these days. The larger rock pieces that have moved downwards are seriously unstable, you wouldn't want one to fall on your foot or to hit your leg, the instability is very worrying but half way up I really don't want to go down again. The steepest part is more worrying than ever, you can still hang to the wall of the rake but could you hang on if all of the rock slipped beneath you?

Then suddenly you are on familiar loose steep stones, so much of the new rock has slid downwards. An awkward scramble brings you within twenty feet of the boulder, the erosion is so severe that the climb to it is more than I want to do today. An enormous amount of rock has gone from here, the entrance to the West Wall Traverse is now a ledge instead of a gully.

The West Wall Traverse hasn't changed but the damp conditions add some exhilaration as it does to the climb up Deep Gill. The exit is a bit awkward but nothing harder than I have already done today and I am on the misty plateau below the summit of Scafell. I know this place I can just set off in any direction and I'll know where I am, I got to a cairn at the top of a steep path that I had seen before, ten minutes before because I had gone round in a circle.

I used my compass and some common sense at the second attempt and quickly found my way to the eight foot wide plus sign on the ground made from stones that is an absolute distinguishing mark. Now I know where I am and quickly climbed to the summit of Scafell, I am alone here except for a bird perched on a rock near the summit. Only when I put my glasses on was I sure that it was a pigeon, that homing animal wasn't going home today.

Just over an hour to get back to Brackenclose, that Green How path is quick but hard on the knees. A classic walk in less than classic conditions but I feel that I have done a lot in the eight hours it took me.

Andy Wallace 17th July 2004