Route Level High Pillar - Photo Gallery
After a drive through atrocious weather, it is dry when I arrive at Wasdale Head but there is plenty of mist on the fells.
The walk up to Black Sail Pass is warm and humid, not my favourite conditions, but it is definitely cooler at the pass and I have to put my jacket on. I don’t follow the path to Pillar but follow the fence posts up onto Looking Stead even though I won’t be seeing much of Ennerdale. Before I get to the top of Looking Stead it starts to rain, really wet rain and it is driving through the gap as I rejoin the footpath at the start of the climb up to Pillar.
Instead of following the path I am going to walk along the ridge which involves a simple scramble over rocks at first but then walking on turf along the edge of the crags overlooking (the mist that hides) Ennerdale, the fence is an infallible guide.
The rain has stopped by the time I reach Pillar summit, it is quiet and still, a couple of ghostly figures leave the shelter cairn before I get there.
The idea of today’s walk was to see Pillar Rock that I haven’t seen of three previous visits to Pillar this year but it doesn’t look like I’m going to see it today, either. The descent down towards Pillar Rock is intimidating, steep and loose and especially today the rocks are very slippery with being wet. I have to put some gloves on because I’ve got a bit cold and I want to be able to feel the rocks as I hang on to them.
Suddenly, half way down to the Rock, the mist clears and Pillar Rock appears before me so with cold hands I have to get the camera out of my rucksack and I take two shots before the batteries run out. Rummage through my bag again for the spare batteries which are also dead, forgot to recharge them. Never mind, I’ll use my spare torch batteries, guess what – they are dead as well, as a last resort I use the batteries from the torch which are working. Well, my hands have warmed up by now but the mist has closed in again so the moment went about ten minutes ago.
Anyway, by the time I get down to the Rock the mist is clearing a bit, enough to take some photographs and it has warmed up a bit. The walk up the Shamrock Traverse seems straightforward apart from an awkward slippery rock but going downwards asks a couple of extra questions when the rocks are wet. With taking photographs you look at things more closely and even at the awkward bits on Shamrock Traverse you have no real feeling for just how close to the edge you are.
Over to Robinson’s cairn where I waited for a few minutes to see if the mist would clear enough for me to get a shot of Pillar Rock – it didn’t. I did see a rainbow that travelled up Ennerdale, rain behind it and sunshine in front of it, from here I managed to just about stay in the sun and out of the rain.
After leaving Robinson’s Cairn, the ground levels out before starting the High Level Route itself. There are actually a couple of variations, the popular “high level” route and the real High Level Route which is at least a couple of hundred feet higher in places and is much more exhilarating, especially when the grass and rocks are wet. I, of course, chose the higher level path but due to operator error the photographs that I took of the people below were video clips instead of single shots.
Back at Black Sail Pass the rain was still occasionally spilling over from Ennerdale but Wasdale and its fells (apart from Scoat Fell) were bathed in sunshine.
Andy Wallace 24th August 2002