Wander to Wandope and Whiteside - Photo Gallery
I sat in the car at Lanthwaite Green for 10 minutes, waiting for the torrential rain to ease off, before I got out to get changed and hopefully be ready to go before the next shower started. I had planned to walk a favourite route up to Grasmoor, but in view of the wet and windy conditions, I decided that a different approach would be sensible. I walked up the road for a short distance, until I was able to go through a gate; I walked off the road as far as I could on a faint path that kept parallel to the wall by the side of the road. I had to get back on to the road at another gate, and continued to walk on the grass verge until I reached the car parking areas at Cinderdale Common.
The paths were not very obvious, with the bracken being at its densest it was difficult to trace the line of any ascent towards Lad Hows. I started walking uphill towards Lad Hows in the direction of where I thought the path should on a “natural” ascent route. I was walking by the side of what I thought was Cinderdale Beck; as the going got steeper the path became more obvious and I got warmer as it seemed to have stopped raining, for the time being anyway. While I was stopped to take off my jacket and waterproof trousers, I was passed by a party of walkers including a man who was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts and trainers; he was also carrying an umbrella!
It was a long steep climb through bracken, which gave way to heather, but the gradient remained just as steep. I suppose that it was about half-way up when the ground levelled off, the short walk across the grassy shoulder gave me a good view of Lad Hows; it is a broad ridge that disappeared up into the mist, the attractiveness of the extensive blooming heather didn't hide the steepness of it. As is always the case with heather, the ground it grows in becomes eroded, and the higher I got the more slippery the loose eroded stones became; before I got into the mist the breeze became cooler and the air was damp, I had to put my jacket back on again.
As I got higher, the heather became less dense and the erosion became worse; together with a further steepening of the rougher ground it made for a sometimes awkward climb over larger, loosely eroded stones up to the grassy ridge. As I reached the ridge path, I turned left and made my way towards the shelter cairn on the misty, windy and cold summit of Grasmoor, where the umbrella man admitted to his companions that he was not very well prepared as his umbrella didn't give any more shelter than the cairn. From the summit I headed off by myself on a bearing across the grassy moor of the summit plateau; I found the faint path I was looking for and walked along the edge above Dove Crags.
I followed the faint path as it started to descend the north-east ridge, I was soon out of the mist and made my way down to Coledale Hause; there were remarkably few people there – none, to be precise. I walked around to what I regard as the front of Eel Crag, the impressive looking north ridge, and started to climb up the scree at its base. The scree is fairly stable and although there is no obvious “path” upwards, the stones are more compacted in some places; it's really just a case of making your way straight up towards a rocky gully. The gully can be quite a challenge in bad weather; the rock is steep and loose; eroded stones make it difficult to get a firm foothold and there isn't much to hold on to.
The final, sloping slab is tricky when the rock is wet, the alternative route involves making a detour round to the left and clambering up steep wet grass in a much more exposed position; I decided to tackle the slab, it needed a bit of determination not to be defeated by it. The worst of the steepness is over at that stage; I climbed up onto a small shoulder, complete with cairn, before following the rough path upwards to reach another misty plateau, and on to a summit that you might call Crag Hill if you believe the Ordnance Survey. From the summit of Eel Crag, I set off in the direction of Grasmoor; as I came out of the mist I could see Grasmoor directly ahead, but I decided to wander over to Wandope. I turned left on a not-very-obvious path, walking up along the edge above Addacombe Hole to the summit of Wandope.
In the mist, I confidently set off across the grass, intending to walk down to the col between Eel Crag and Grasmoor; I was on the point of having to take a compass bearing after losing some of my confidence in the mist, when I came across the path that I thought should be there. It's a long time since I walked down to Coledale Hause from the col on a swampy, badly eroded path, but when I got there I found a well-reconstructed, JCB-made path that prevented erosion to my knee joints as much as erosion to the fragile ground. When I got back to Coledale Hause again I followed the main path in the direction of Sand Hill; at the permanent puddle in the centre of the hause I took the less obvious path, branching off to the right, towards Grisedale Pike.
It was very breezy on the ridge and all of the way to the top of Grisedale Pike; on my approach to the rocky summit crown I though I was by myself again, but there were other walkers sheltering from the wind just below the summit. I turned back and retraced my steps over the unnamed subsidiary peak, down to the col at the head of Hobcarton, and followed the path, close to the edge above Hobcarton Crags. I didn't get too close to the edge, the breeze was a bit too strong to be comfortable close to a big drop; the path leads you up to the small rocky summit crown of Hopegill Head.
The descent down the airy, rocky ridge towards Whiteside is always a bit more interesting when the rock is wet and the wind is blowing, in addition to always having to be careful about where you put your feet on the rough, bare rock. After reaching the col and starting to climb upwards, it becomes overwhelmingly obvious how Whiteside got its name; on the northern side of the crest of the ridge a green slope sweeps down to Hope Gill, the bare rock on the steeper, southern side is almost blindingly white when you get close to it. I always make a point of walking along the crest of Whiteside Edge, even in a stiff breeze, for a close-up of the intriguing view down to Gasgale Gill. The excitement doesn't last for too long and soon there is a relatively easy ridge walk to the surprisingly anonymous summit of Whiteside.
The nice rest that your legs have on the ridge of Whiteside may or may not leave you with enough strength for the steep, eroded descent. At the start of the day it can be an interesting scramble up bare rock, at the other end of the day it can be an awkward descent, especially when the rock is wet. After all of the hard work getting down it's a pleasure to reach the pleasant little alp of Whin Ben; only when you look down to Lanthwaite Green do you realise there is still work to be done. The descent from Whin Ben to the footbridge across Gasgale Gill is arguably more strenuous than the descent from Whiteside, a typically eroded path through the heather is made worse by the steepness and uneven erosion.
At least the rain held off until I had got changed again and was back into the car.
© Andy Wallace 2nd August 2008