White Pike to Tewit How - Photo Gallery

It was a much better morning than yesterday, but that wasn't difficult; it was sunny enough but it still looked as though it might be windy on the tops. From the hostel, I walked back down to Char Dubs and crossed over to the south side of the valley; I turned left and walked along a good track. I turned left off the track on a less obvious path and walked around the other side of Moss Dubs just to see what was there; shortly after rejoining the main track, I crossed a bridge, and on the right I saw the unobtrusive muddy path that I was looking for.

The path went into the dense forest and started going uphill; it went up through steeply by the side of a rocky gill, it was a chaotic jumble of trees and rough path, with occasional glimpses into the deep gorge. I eventually reached easier ground at the junction with a track; I followed the rough, wide track for a while but began to feel that I was going in the wrong direction. I convinced myself that I was going the wrong way and made my way back to the junction, where I found the “Path” sign on the floor, pointing uphill again.

There was plenty more climbing on an increasingly muddy path; up through the conifers until I left the forest and reached a wall. After looking at the map, I confirmed that I had successfully found the path to Steeple, but that was not what I had planned; I had obviously missed the path to Pillar by a long way, maybe the big track was obviously the right way. I decided to make my way over to where I should be, but I knew very well that it wouldn't be as easy as it looked.

I started to follow the wall towards High Gill for the climb to Pillar, but almost immediately the vegetation was too dense; I had to cross over the wall to get past a big old tree, on the other side it was steep and wet. Just as quickly, the wall wasn't there any more; I was walking through heather and bilberry, over uneven, wet ground – you just don't know what is underfoot. I gritted my teeth and headed towards the fence I could see in the distance; when I reached it there was still no path; I did however walk between the parallel fences that I could see on the map, but the forest shown on the map had been harvested with no trees left.

I eventually arrived at High Gill, I climbed down the steep bank, made the precarious crossing of the bouldery stream, and made the steep climb up the wet, grassy slope. There was a long climb to be made up a grassy slope; the thoughtfully place iron fence posts made a good guide. The view of Mirk Cove from this ascent makes this a very special route, the spectacular rock scenery below the tops of Steeple and Black Crag make the long slog well worth the effort.

When I reached rockier ground, there was a path around the boulders leading to much steeper ground; I scrambled as steeply as I dared to the summit of White Pike. It had been well worth the effort to reach this fine rocky summit, but as I suspected there was much more to climb that had been hidden by White Pike. It was an easy dismount from the summit to reach a more obvious path climbing the steep, stony ground, although it wasn't too bad for Pillar.

For a short time I had the summit of Pillar to myself, but soon other walkers appeared, the first people I had seen all morning. I made the standard descent to Wind Gap, all of a sudden there were people everywhere, and then made the steep, rocky climb to the excellent summit of Black Crag. I made my descent on the easy green ridge towards Scoat Fell; I walked onto the grassy spur above Mirk Cove for a closer view of the crags.

I continued down to the col, and climbed Scoat Fell, finishing the ascent by hopping across the big boulders up to the summit wall. I followed the wall downwards towards Haycock, but at a cairn I followed the broad green ridge towards Tewit How. There was no path after passing the cairn but it was a fairly easy descent; I had to make own way down, but I saw walkers at a cairn in the distance coming upwards, it was a good clue about where I should be heading.

I did find a faint green path that led me to a rocky outcrop, after which there was no obvious sign of a path that I had hoped to find; I checked the map, I decided I shouldn't follow the crest of the downwards ridge but keep to the side of the hill. It was an awkward heathery slope, very much in the style of Ennerdale; I eventually reached cairn in middle of heather, it seemed to be completely pointless but soon after I came to a path, it was faint but obvious.

I reached the gill shown on the map, and followed it steeply down to the valley; it was typically Ennerdale, a long walk on rough, wet, sometimes extremely boggy path, through chaotic wild forest. I eventually got down to the valley track, I had intended to do a shorter walk after the previous day, but it was still nearly 8 hours - Ennerdale is that kind of place.

© Andy Wallace 7th June 2009