Posts tagged 'Swindale'

Far Eastern Fells Wildcamping – Day 3 – A fine finish

Posted by on June 4th 2008 in Annual Wildie, Great Escapes, Lakes Escapes, Wildcamping
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We were awake at 07:00 and packed up by 08:00, ready for the last leg of the walk. The weather was still in our favour - overcast but warm with a slight breeze.

We strolled up onto the nearest high ground (a low mound just to the side of the dry tarn) and made a beeline from there to Selside Pike. The walk was uneventful and quiet except for the racket made by a flock of seagulls that we had to walk past as we crossed Captain Whelter Bog. We made it to the summit shelter by 08:50, took a few pics and chose a route down to lower ground.

 

Selside Pike shelter

 

Our chosen route took us down over High Blake Dodd and Selside End, allowing us to get a great view of Swindale.

 

Swindale

 

We joined the Old Corpse Road at the highest point and headed off towards Haweswater. Unlike a lot of walk-offs where the best of the scenery is usually behind you, this path leads back into the heart of Mardale Head, with an end-on view of the Long Stile ridge, so the view in front gets better with every step. There's great satisfaction in looking at the circuit of high peaks surrounding the head of the valley and thinking "we've just been up all of those". The view really opens up at High Loup, where we took some pics and a short rest. The abandoned buildings here, high on the fellside, would make a good bivvy spot.

 

Mardale Head panorama from High Loup

 

Long Stile, Rough Crag and The Rigg from High Loup

 

We then descended the path which goes down in steep zig-zags, passing some fine waterfalls in wooded ravines, before reaching the road right opposite The Rigg, which is the wooded terminus of the Long Stile/Rough Crag ridge.

 

Waterfalls in Hopgill Beck

 

On reaching the road there was a choice of routes back to the car-park: along the road, or along the lakeside path. We chose to take the road, having done enough steep descending for one morning. Little did we know that we would have to pass perilously close to the lair of the local hoodlums...

 

BEWARE!

 

After that, the route was without danger and we made it back to the car unscathed. We had a quick change of clothes, a snack and a chat with some anglers and walkers in the car-park, then we were off to find somewhere for lunch just as the first rain of the weekend started. Excellent timing, eh?

The journey back down the M6 was as bad as the journey up had been good. There were hold-ups at almost every major junction, and two lanes were blocked by an accident near J13, snarling up the traffic right back to J15 and beyond, so we bailed at J16 instead of the usual J12 and took a cross-country route. In the end it took a shade over 7 hours to do the 195 miles back home.

Expect a post-trip analysis soon...

Far Eastern Fells Wildcamping – Day 1 – Hold-ups and detours

Posted by on June 2nd 2008 in Annual Wildie, Great Escapes, Lakes Escapes, Wildcamping
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We had a hassle-free drive up the A5 and the M6 to Junction 39, there were none of the usual roadworks to hold us up, so we made good time to Shap. Then it was time to crank up the satnav and head off for the pre-programmed lat/long for Mardale Head. After a few miles we ended up at the end of the road into Swindale, with CoPilot telling us to "take the local road" directly to the head of Haweswater. Well, the only "local road" that goes the right way is the "Old Corpse Road", and that's hardly fit for MTBs, let alone cars, so we ditched the satnav and rerouted using the OS map. The nav error wasn't a complete waste of time, though, as Swindale is a nice place (we'll come back for a proper visit another time) and we saw some wildlife on the way out, including one of the biggest hares I've ever seen. Sadly, it was off before I could get the camera out, so I've no pics of the beast.

Anyway, we were soon belting down the road to Mardale Head but after a mile or so we were halted by a resurfacing crew who told us that we couldn't go further as they had the road blocked between the Haweswater Hotel and the road-end car-park. "Typical", I thought, "we've picked the only week for years when the head of the valley is off-limits", but a friendly chat with their gaffer revealed that they had just run out of tar and so would be going home soon. About 20 minutes later all their plant came back, followed by a string of cars full of disgruntled families.

We soon hauled up in the car-park and, after changing into our walking gear, donned our packs and made for Blea Water, which was our second-choice of pitch for the first night.

 

Blea Water panorama, Mardale Ill Bell (l) and High Street (r)

 

It was an easy walk up and we made it to the dam much sooner than we had anticipated, so after a snack-break we decided to head off up the easy grass slope on the right to our first-choice site, Caspel Gate Tarn on the ridge of Long Stile. This turned out to be an excellent place to overnight, there being plenty of level pitches and exhilarating views down each side of the ridge into the adjoining valleys. We would have had plenty of time to get up onto High Street to the third-choice site before dark, but that would have involved carrying up 5 litres of water for a night on the dry top, and neither of us was enthralled at that idea. Besides, I wanted to be at Caspel Gate at dawn to get some photos of the crags in the morning light. High Street could wait until the next day, we were in no rush.

 

High Street and Long Stile from the Caspel Gate pitch

 

As we pitched, the broken clouds, which had been just grazing the tops, lifted and thickened a little, which ensured that we would have a mild night. We had the place to ourselves, having seen nobody else at all since leaving the car-park. There was no running water, so we filtered from the tarn, brewed up, had some food then settled in for the night after taking a few photos.

 

Rough Crag from the Caspel Gate pitch

 

To be continued...