Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

The first day of November saw me make an overdue return to hill country with Cumbria’s Lake District acting as my main destination. I had a few walking locations in mind by the time that I reached Windermere train station; the railways served as my way there and away again. However, my train was late (thanks to a little Saturday morning trespassing on the line near Deansgate) so any plans for a return to Great Langdale needed to be placed on a hold and a broken down bus meant that the Coniston fells still await my footfall. That left the option of an out and back hike from the train station to the top of Yoke and my revisiting familiar terrain as I went.

I was far from disgruntled and the sights from Orrest Head should have put paid to any humbug anyway. It was its usual splendid self while I admired the views, even with a very noisy dog and her apologetic owners. The pooch had the misfortune of an aggressive appearance and an equally aggressive bark but I soon learnt to ignore her enough in order to make a few photos. The fells by now have their autumn/winter clothes on and there’s an occasional dusting of snow to be seen in places too. Panoramic views were just the balm to soothe the soul after the noisy interruptions.

Having bobbed up to Orrest Head from Windermere’s train station, I bobbed back down the other side as I made for the road near The Causeway Farm. A very short eastbound piece of tarmac bashing later, I began to cross fields again to reach Moorhowe Road where I repeated the shuffle but reaching a gravel track called Dubbs Road. Shortly after passing Dubbs Reservoir, the views over Troutbeck opened out before me and northern vistas were packed full of gloriously humpy whalebacks of hills. All of this was familiar to me from a previous circular walk from Windermere to Kentmere and a linear wander from Windermere to Staveley by way of Kentmere.

Passing a wood to my left, I emerged onto the rougher track that is Garburn Road. In so doing, I left the dodging of puddles that took up near enough to the width of the track behind me; these were there on my previous hikes too so I was unsurprised by their size. In place of those puddles, I got steeper slopes and looser surface that tested the nimbleness of my ankles. Garburn Pass was reached soon enough and, rather than descending to Kentmere as I have done on those previous visits, I left the wide track for an initially boggier one taking me higher up the slopes.

That boggy bit was to turn into a very good gravel path and it surprises me that there wasn’t a good track all of the way but I suppose that it keeps some in their place. As I went ever upward, views to my right opened out before me and the houses of Kentmere could be seen. Ever mindful of time, I continued to inch my way up Yoke with an appropriate number of photography stops. The summit wasn’t long coming, even if there was an extra cairn lurking to confuse the unwary. I was tempted by the prospect of Ill Bell but consciousness of the remaining hours of daylight and the prospect of losing a lot height before regaining it again made me see sense; the sight of an oncoming shower helped to wean me away too. That other hill can wait for another day.

I came down Yoke in the dampness and I need to admit that having pull on waterproofs did cost me some time. Given that the rain didn’t stay long, I am left wondering if it would have been better braving it but you never know with these things and it’s often better to be safe than sorry. The sun was lowering in the sky all the while as I retraced my steps and I was happy to be making progress all the while. When I made Garburn Road, I decided stick with that track rather than continuing along Dubbs Road because of the hour that it was. That meant descending on a lot of loose surface and it did begin take its toll on my patience so it was not before time that I left it for the much smoother Longmire Road, another track in spite of the name.

My plan was to return to tarmac before the light dropped too much since I wasn’t wanting to have navigational nightmares in the dusk, let alone the dark; it was an objective that was easily achieved. As it happened, I did see someone else who was going to run that gauntlet of crossing fields at dusk but I left him to it as I descended by minor roads to the A592 that would carry me onto the A591 for the final stretch back to Windermere train station. Even with failing light, the greatest challenge in all of this was one that I encountered earlier in the day: getting across the A591. Thankfully, a kind lady did me a favour for the second crossing.

It had been a great day to revisiting an old haunt but with an added twist. Ill Bell might not have been summited but hills always last more than a day and Yoke did well what was asked of it. Other plans that fell by the wayside can be kept on file for future visits. What really matters is that I enjoyed the day out and I remain hopeful of more like it.

Now that the leaves on the trees and well into the throes of changing colour and a chill has returned to the air, thoughts turn towards the shorter days that lie ahead of us. It is all too easy after the climax of a summer break like that which I enjoyed on Scotland’s islands (the next installment of that trip report is in the works so it should appear here soon) to hibernate, especially when the weather offers us only discouragement. So, some ideas erupted into my mind while perusing an outdoors magazine on the bus to work this morning. Local hill country always beckons when the days are shorter but there are other options too. For one thing, I haven’t been over the border in Derbyshire for a while and reaching the likes of Shropshire, Staffordshire or South Yorkshire is a possibility too; it often amazes me where the mind roves when the mood takes it. Even this loosely compiled catalog of options could come in useful should an opportunity take me by surprise. The next stage would be to add more flesh to the bones of this skeleton so that I simply could take an idea off some metaphorical shelf at a moment’s notice. It might be the difference between my getting out there and staying put at home.

My recent excursion to Edinburgh revealed a huge flaw in DfT thinking: three-carriage trains running on the Manchester-Edinburgh route and the Edinburgh Festival ongoing. The 15:34 departure from Manchester was packed and I was wise to have garnered myself a seat reservation beforehand. Engineering works in the Chorley area only made the situation worse. Nevertheless, the train was very busy all of the way up to Carlisle after which things thankfully eased down a bit.

That was nothing compared to what happened with the 15:52 from Edinburgh. A breakdown meant that only half of the planned six carriages appeared and ticket reservations couldn’t be honoured; this was the last day of the Edinburgh Fringe so it wasn’t at all brilliant. I counted myself lucky to have got a seat, even if my main luggage was in another carriage. From past experience, I know the problems that were experienced on bank holidays when Virgin Crosscountry could only proffer a four carriage train so I had braced myself for the worst; I even considered stumping up the fare for a journey around by York and trying to get a refund from Transpennine Express. As it happened, the train left Edinburgh with people standing and it wouldn’t have been fun trying to get on it at subsequent stations. In fact, staying on the platform and awaiting another service would have been prudent.

Considering the overcrowding, I didn’t get on too badly with both journeys and I did reach my destinations in one piece. Also, I am a regular train user so I know that there’s better than what I encountered. However, an infrequent traveller could be forgiven for being put off the railways by this experience and choose to travel by other means or not at all. I have sent some feedback to Transpennine Express but a reply has yet to appear and may never do so.  In any case, it sounds as if they need to sort out longer trains for their Anglo-Scottish workings and on a more permanent basis. It’s a shame that the Manchester-Scotland piece was removed from the Crosscountry franchise and even its addition to the West Coast one would have been better than this.

Last Saturday was a day when I was torn between possibilities. One dilemma that I didn’t face was whether to go somewhere for a wander or not; that one was settled. It’s where I was going that was the outstanding question and the choice was been Wales and Cumbria. Even though Dolwyddelan tempted and remained a backup in the event of anything going awry on the travel front, it was Cumbria’s Lake District that was to get my vote because a walk in Borrowdale was in my head for a while and I hadn’t been to the area since last July anyway. If my time was more restricted, then my decision could have been very different.

My journey to Borrowdale was set to involve a lot of changes: Stockport, Crewe, Penrith, Keswick. With this number ahead of me, it would have been better if passengers could control themselves and police didn’t need to meet what was to be my train from Crewe. Luckily, I had a twenty minute wait in Penrith in prospect but losing ten minutes due to a delayed train soon chopped that down to size and delays can beget further delays. As it turned out, I had no cause for concern and I easily made my bus to Keswick. However, I was reminded of my connection to Borrowdale when I saw slow traffic on the A66 and more people getting on at Threlkeld than I had ever seen before. It so happened that the Borrowdale bus was late, sufficiently so that one would start to wonder if it had departed without my seeing it. Keswick bus interchange was a busy spot that day.

Following all those opportunities for groundless anxiousness, I found myself in Rosthwaite relaxed and enjoying wonderful sunshine. Eating an ice cream, I found my way onto the Cumbria Way that I was set to follow all of the way into Langdale. Being a sunny day in the Lake District, solitude was not to be expected but there were to be moments when I had a lot of space to myself. Still, it never seems to surprise me how easy it can be to lose them. Even so, Rosthwaite and Stonethwaite were hardly overrun anyway but most of those perambulating about them seem to have got nary a thought of going further afield. With the sights that were on offer, I suppose that it is hard to blame them.

Having skirted past Stonethwaite, another choice presented itself: to stick with the original plan to walk to Dungeon Ghyll or tramp over Greenup Edge to Grasmere. If things got a bit too crowded on the former, the latter was to be my plan. They didn’t and I managed to drag myself onward to leave the Grasmere option for another day. A sign for Watendlath had tempted me earlier but I managed to put that into my stash of ideas for the future too. Thus, I struck on for and through Langstrath, a wide open and empty space in keeping with its Scottish-esque name. Also in keeping with any pseudo-Scottishness, it was here were I met next to nobody but a goodly number of Herdwick sheep.

The seemingly obvious southbound exit from Langstrath is follow the valley’s beck to Angle Tarn and drop down from there by the side of Rosset Gill. This is not the way taken by the Cumbria Way though; instead, a more direct route over Stake Pass is its choice. On paper, this is a seemingly unimpressive 200-300 metres of ascent. In reality, as with a lot of slopes in these parts, that apparent "walk in the park" can be a lot more testing than those numbers might suggest. For one thing, you can guarantee steepness and erosion means that route finding involves a spot of blundering about on a maze of paths, many deviating from the "correct" one. Couple all of that with the hot and often breezeless day and you have to take it nice and slow on the ascent. A descent still offers plenty of footholds but you still need your wits about you so as not to take a more horizontal position than you would like.

On reaching the top, I soon found a spot to rest a while after my exertions. By this stage of the day, the sky was full of cloud and the sun had become well hidden. It remained pleasantly warm, though, and I enjoyed the flatter gradients before the descent that faced me. The state of the path down couldn’t be more different than the one that I used on my way up. The National Trust have been keeping an eye on things and have been doing some further work over the past few months to make things better. I might have said that it didn’t need the attention and that the path from Langstrath to Stake Pass needed it more. There is a counterpoint to this of course: the way up from the floor of Langdale is a busier trail because the proximity of such delights as the Langdale Pikes, Pike’o'Stickle and many more. The result of the attentions was that I made steady progress down a well built and pitched path that would obstructed in places with big bags of big stones.

That descent and obstacle dodging completed, the track really levelled out and, apart maybe from the deepness of the loose stone surface in parts, it was easy and undemanding walking all the way to the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. If I had arrived twenty minutes earlier, I might have caught the 16:30 bus to Ambleside but the wait of over an hour, in blissful surroundings with sun attempting to get through the cloud, for the next one was no hardship. I did consider walking further along Great Langdale but reconsidered it on the grounds of time and wiled away the time on a shorter stroll instead.

When the bus did turn up, we found out that it terminated in Ambleside rather than Kendal as per the timetable. There were those who were far from happy with this state of affairs, more than likely those with ongoing connections. I suppose that anyone going south of Oxenholme would have had the limitations in late Saturday evening services on their minds. As with my travel that morning, any connection anxiety was needless since we easily made a connecting bus from Ambleside. That got me to Windermere in plenty of time for the start of railway journey home with changes in Oxenholme and Manchester. The sun was out as I was leaving; was it an effort to coax me into a return trip for those walking ideas that I had to set aside earlier that day?

Usually I write my trip reports in the order in which the trips took place but I am considering making an exception to that convention and writing up last weekend’s excursion to Cumbria before the previous weekend’s visit to Argyll. The day trek should be quicker to share and I can devote more time to telling of the various walks I did in Scotland, perhaps over a number of blog entries. All of that has had to wait because yesterday evening provided yet another distraction from sitting in front of a computer: a sunny end to a day with a wet start coaxed me out for a local trot that further broke in my Scarpas. The cornucopia of recent hikes are making the old Salomons look more and more worn so getting the new boots ready for longer outings is becoming more necessary by the day. In fact, the thought has crossed my mind that it might be sensible to get another pair of walking footwear, perhaps a pair of lightweight boots, for summer walking. However, that might be a luxury too far in the current economic climate…