Wansfell Over to Red Screes - No photographs today

I have been trying to work out walking routes that include Wansfell and the climb up Red Screes from Kirkstone Pass and today I managed them both on the same walk. My main target for the day was Red Screes but as I was driving to Ambleside I got a glimpse of blue sky through the mist that suggested that I might get some interesting views from Wansfell.

I walked through Stock Ghyll woods in order to see the spectacular waterfalls and because of the amount of rain recently the falls were more spectacular than usual.

The exit from the woods leads on to the tarmac drive to Grove Farm and soon there is a stile and signpost in the fence on the right hand side marking the start of the path to Troutbeck and Wansfell. The path has been extensively reconstructed since my last visit to Wansfell, and is now obvious but unobtrusive all the way to the summit of Wansfell Pike and beyond to Troutbeck.

The path, although good, is fairly steep and in spite of the misty conditions I was running very warm and for most of the climb I was down to my tee-shirt. As I expected at about three quarters of the way to the summit I left the mist behind and the Kirkstone Pass sandwiched between Red Screes and Caudale Moor was an island in an ocean of mist. Walking along the ridge of Wansfell the view to the south was just as fascinating looking down on the mist, although the strengthening breeze was surely going to change things as it became noticeably cooler.

The ridge path from Wansfell Pike to the summit of Wansfell accompanies the wall until the wall leaves the ridge and the ground becomes very wet. The final dip before the rise to the summit was like a mat of grass floating on water, my boots were ankle deep in water and the matted grass was moving about three inches as I stepped on it and returning to its original position as I stepped off. The motion made me feel slightly queasy and I was glad to get to the other side.

There is a path marked on the map north of Wansfell summit but the fence running parallel to a ruined wall contained a notice marked "no public access". I followed the wall down to its junction with another wall and another notice on the fence was barring my way to the path northwards. I don't like trespassing because it usually involves having to climb a wall, the alternative was to turn back so I climbed over the fence, the barbed wire across the top had previously been removed by somebody else.

Sure enough I soon came to an other wall junction and I had to climb over the wall on the left, without damaging the wall or myself. On the other side of the wall were the tracks of a farmer's quad bike that I followed knowing that they would lead me to the Grove Farm track. I joined the track just before the messy ruins of High Grove and followed the track northwards until joining the Ambleside – Kirkstone road where I was able to to struggle up The Struggle to Kirkstone Pass.

The Pass was now in mist as were the fell tops as I walked through the Kirkstone Pass car park to reach the start of the Red Screes path. As you would expect the path is steep and soon it continues up over steep scree and then you get to the narrow chimney-like gully. The scrambling is first class, requiring some precise placing of feet in the wet conditions, there are two variations to exit the gully and I chose the harder of the two and it provided a worthy leg stretching finale to an enjoyable climb.

Red Screes summit was its usual inhospitable self in the cold, windy and misty conditions although the path down to Scandale Pass is a bit more obvious that it used to be. In the absence of a path I used to have to take a bearing North West down to a ruined wall which is now easy to find but the way from here is still not obvious so once again I had to make a pathless traverse westwards until finding the wall that accompanies the wet path down to Scandale Pass.

Having taken so long to get to Red Screes I had to revise my route at this point so I took the path that I have not walked before past Scandale Tarn over featureless ground to High Bakestones with its impressive cairn. It started to rain heavily (and horizontally) as I walked to the High Pike to Dove Crag path and it continued to rain as I made my descent via High Pike and Low Pike back to High Sweden Bridge and then to Ambleside.

Andy Wallace 2nd November 2002