Squelching for England - Photo Gallery
It was sunny and almost warm, just about warm enough for me to wear shorts. I parked the car on a lay-by on the Grasmere to Keswick road near Stanah and turned right to walk along the road in the direction of Keswick. Just before you reach the dual carriageway there is a ladder stile in the wall on the right hand side leading to a path that takes you quite steeply through trees up the nose of High Rigg.
Once you get on to the ridge it is just a pleasant walk, nothing too steep or prolonged to climb but a nice undulating ridge with plenty of interesting variation. The view ahead has kiddaw and Blencathra both looking splendidly isolated, it was very hazy so I couldn't see much detail apart from the remaining band of snow on Skiddaw and a few scattered remnants on Blencathra. The Dodds on the right hand side are too close and too high to see their tops but I made a mental note of some interesting routes on the side of Clough Head.
Keep to the left of the first small tarn you come to and you will find the first of the cairned summits on the ridge with a clear view Walla Crag and Bleaberry Fell at the northern end of the central ridge. Carry on past the cairn and the path will take you to a stile to cross a fence, to keep on the more obvious path that bears left will miss a lot of detail. Take the less obvious path following the fence to the right brings you to an attractive tarn, keep to the left of the tarn and climb up a grassy bank to get to another cairn on a mini ridge.
The little ridge ends quite suddenly, you can get down the steep grassy sides on the right towards the tarn and pick up the path where there is a temptation to follow the ridge and not the path. You can go left too, it looks a bit too steep from the ridge but a series of grassy slopes gets you easily down to the path but with a bit more interest than the alternative route. As you get to a flat depression there is some very wet ground to cross to reach a stile that gets you over the wall. If you had followed the ridge you would end up on the wrong side of the wall which is not the easiest to climb because of its height and the looseness of the top stones.
You can follow the wall if you want to miss the next summit or make a more direct ascent of the slope; it isn't that steep and it gets you to a small rock platform. I'm sure there used to be a small cairn here too but not any more, this is my favourite part of High Rigg, the best all round viewpoint and just a thoroughly quiet and pleasant place to be. You can pick up the path again and see ahead that it splits into several routes, each of which will eventually take you the the obvious summit of High Rigg.
Having found your way off the steep northern side of the summit crown you head in the direction of Skiddaw to pick up the increasingly obvious downward path. The steep lawn can be awkward in the wet but easy on a dry day to get down to the Youth Centre on the road next to St Johns in the Vale church. You can get to the church by turning right but I turned left towards Sykes, the tarmac road soon becomes a track and descends around a bend to meet another little road at Sykes Farm.
Cross the road and a signpost points the way of a footpath that isn't very obvious across the fields, just head across the field for the nearest gate you can see. After crossing three or four fields you get to a signpost on a track, you can turn left for Dale Bottom but I turned right towards Keswick. You go through another gate and cross another field to get to a stone stairway built into a wall, climb over it and carry on across the next field to cross a wall that gets you onto the road to Keswick.
Turn right and cross the road, go uphill and just as you start to fear you have to walk into Keswick there is a track on the left with a signpost showing the way to Walla Crag. The footpath is signed until you reach a junction of substantial stone walls and the path is not clear anymore. Turn right and keep to the left side of the wall, you will pass a signpost showing where you have just come from. Follow the wall, it forms the boundary of the Castlerigg camp site; an untidy fence on your left armed with a single strand of barbed wire will make sure you don't accidentally walk on the farmer's field.
When you get to a minor road, turn left for a while until you get to another signpost for Walla Crag, turn right along a rough track. Cross a stream via a wooden footbridge and shortly afterwards you go through a gate to a very obvious path up by the side of a wall. You will come to a gap in the wall that gives a more interesting finish to the ascent of Walla Crag along the top of Great Wood, I was looking down over a very blue Derwentwater. There is a final easy scramble to the rock platform bearing the summit cairn which is the only hint of Crag on this attractive little hill.
Continue over the other side of the summit and after another easy scramble down you cross over the wall to rejoin the path towards Bleaberry Fell. Apart from the view of Derwentwater, all attractiveness is left behind for a while, flat wet grass alternates with dry brown heather. The direct route towards Bleaberry Fell is not very obvious, too many diversions are taken around the wettest areas in order for a path to be trodden. This is one of those paths where you can't always avoid the wet, you have to judge whether the wet vegetation will hold your weight or if you will end up knee deep in swamp.
It is a bit of a plod, strenuous enough through the yielding wet vegetation until you get to drier ground for a while when it becomes a plod over rough grass. You eventually reach a small summit that you can climb for an excellent view of Derwentwater, there is also a substantial ruin that seems half built rather than half destroyed. Keep following the faint path and it turns into a constructed one that takes you over rough heathery ground to the final climb of Bleaberry Fell. This is the first time I have found this reconstructed path, I have experienced a couple of rough scrambles through heather on previous occasions.
A large cairn welcomes you at the top of the path then there is a less steep climb to the stony summit, lots of building material has enabled the construction of large cairns and a substantial stone shelter. The broad flat summit, higher than the surrounding area, gives the best views of the day; you can also see the easy looking path running northwards along the central ridge. After setting off along the path it soon becomes obvious that this isn't the easy stroll it looks like, the path is good in places but disappears frequently as the ground gets increasingly wet.
After you climb over a stile in a fence the path disappears almost completely and I was again wondering if the wet vegetation would take my weight. There are heather covered peaks to climb if you want and I did climb one to see if I could see any evidence of a path but I couldn't. One of the peaks is noticeably more rocky than the others and I made my way round to the right of it, there was no sign of any kind of a path as I started to climb up towards the top of High Seat.
Looking downwards I could see the line of a fence heading towards High Seat so on a hunch I made my way through the dry leg-scratching heather growing in swampy wet ground. Within a few yards of the fence I found a muddy path going up the steep slope, tracing it back I should have gone around the left hand side of the rocky peak. Then suddenly there is a wide rocky plateau in the midst of the heather and swamp with two peaks, both worthy of being the summit.
One of the peaks is named Man on the map and I had to go and visit its substantial cairn before visiting the triangulation column of what must be regarded as the summit of High Seat. After you go down the other side of the summit peak a fairly obvious but very soggy path takes you across to the fence with a stile where you cross over it. The going wasn't too bad to begin with, more dry heather and wet ground, I was keeping away from the worst of the wetness on the path by the side of the fence.
Then everything turned brown, if you like brown this is a good place, the biggest peat hags I have seen, the eroded peat dissolved into sloppy mud. The peat does give some structure to the mud and it was a dry day after all so I trod warily over the brown surface. There were some obviously swampy areas that I either bypassed or used the remaining hags to jump across the worst of the mud. Finally I got past the mud and came across more wet vegetation, this time I got it wrong and both boots were swamped, no gaiters worn with shorts on this warm day.
There was more diverting and jumping as I avoided getting my boots re-filled with swamp and at one point I came across a wide pool by the side of the fence. Instead of going around it I decided to hold on to the fence and use the solid ground at the bottom of it. Two thirds of the way across there was no more solid ground and in putting my foot into swamp I lost my balance and had to hang on grimly to avoid falling backwards into a morass of unknown depth. Having hung on I had a desperate last few feet walking on the bottom wire of the fence. There were no more awkward moments after that but my feet were wet and becoming uncomfortable as they rubbed on my boots.
Now at the summit of High Tove was the prospect of another wet walk across to Armboth Fell, it started off dry enough but my fears were realised as I squelched across the wet ground. I was thinking that this would be a good place to hold the World Squelching championship and because it was St. George's day I could be squelching for England. There is a stream to be crossed here so I knew to head upstream following the quad bike tracks to find a fordable place.
Once across the stream the ground was a bit drier but my feet were still wet and the heather was still scratching my bare legs. It's a bit difficult to decide just where the summit of Armboth Fell is, there are a few rocky peaks but one seems much more prominent than the others so I made my way over to it. There are a couple of path-like gaps in the heather that take you to a splendid platform of rock bearing a small cairn that was worth the title of summit. I spent a pleasant few minutes on this rocky island enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun.
Whilst I was sitting there I picked my route across to the the forest path on the way to Raven Crag, aiming for a wall by the side of the trees. I cleverly avoided the wet ground I had come up by choosing a different way but it wasn't too clever because I found equally wet ground that was rougher and more awkward than what I was avoiding. Then I realised I was losing too much height, if I wasn't careful I wouldn't be able to get across the stream. I headed across to the stream and I was of course already unable to cross the ravine, I had to walk back uphill to a place where I could cross and of course the ground was as wet as ever.
When I got to where I was aiming for I realised I was nowhere near I expected to be, I had another twenty minutes walking uphill over rough ground before I got the the gate in the forest fence that gave access to the track I was expecting. At least it was dry walking now on a lovely warm afternoon, and I was determined to visit the summit of Raven Crag having made the effort to get this far. There is another track where you double back on yourself and climb uphill on a rough track past a signpost that says no access beyond this point. After a short while you get to a wooded plateau, there is a bird watching hide with a spectacular view of the whole of the Helvellyn range.
I worked out that the highest point is in the trees above the hide and after climbing through mature trees I found the tiniest of cairns and was just about able to see the tops of the hills over the trees. Even though I had reached the obvious highest point I had to refer to my Wainwright guide when I got home and he describes a much more significant cairn, it seems I didn't reach the summit - again. I walked back down to the forest road and followed it down hill; there is now a signpost pointing the way to the summit of Raven Crag, I'll have to try that one day.
The path down towards Thirlmere is steep and loose for a while until you get to the reconstructed section, then it is just steep. You cross over the forest road a couple of times as it zigzags on an easier gradient and eventually you reach the road a short way up from Thirlmere Dam. Turn left and follow the road for a few minutes before a footpath on the right takes you eventually to the main road at a point across from the stile I crossed first thing that morning; just a few minutes walk away from where I left the car.
Andy Wallace 23rd April 2005