Sarah Ryan
Exploring unknown places, finding new routes and scoring points… Trail has a new favourite game. We’re going on an animal fell hunt.
goes on the trail of the animal fells of the Lakes – and comes up with a new tick-list with a fun twist...
What do you do in the Lake District when outside the window runs with water and grimy clouds hang low over the hills? Hot tea in a café? Gear shopping? Crossword? No, no, no… You go out on the hills and look for things. You go to weird places on the side of random hills and you come back feeling satisfied, triumphant and a little bit like you’re seven again. Photographer Tom and I arrived in Buttermere with a new game to try out, and rain would not stop play. We were going to fill our very own Lake District map menagerie with every kind of animal hill we could find.
Still, it’s much easier to do that when you’re not hunched in an emergency shelter, the orange plastic splattered with rain and stretched taut between your heads. It gets in the way of the view, which is no good for hunting. There were all kinds of birds and animals close by and we needed to find them and walk them.
Not living, breathing, running animals of course, but their namesakes, found all over the Lake District in crags, coves, summits and rakes. Calf Crag, Heron Pike and one on our list, Sheepbone Buttress… The aim is to visit as many fells and features named after them as possible, in a game of animal orienteering. If there’s one thing I love, and I don’t think I’m alone here, it’s a treasure hunt. If there’s another, it’s making a list and crossing things off it. And if there’s a third, it’s discovering new angles of a hill, finding outlooks I might never have any reason to visit. You know, going to those bits that no-one else really ever goes to, not because they’re not good, but because they’re not near a path or a summit or a ridge. This hilltop game included them all so when the idea of it drifted by, we caught it.
WE’RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE!
We were going to be strategic about this and pick an area that not only had a lot of animal fells, but that would also make a good loop. As we traced the map, chancing suggestions and listing fells, it became clear that we needed to set some rules. Some were obvious. Eagle Crag, fine. Starling Dodd, all good. But what about High Pike? Or Catstycam? Tenuous… We decided the only pikes which could be included were ones which could realistically describe the long-jawed fish. Red and Cold Pike were OK, Scafell and Causey were not. Buck Pike, named also for male deer and rabbits, snuck in. We decided to start from Buttermere and climb Red Pike, make an out-and-back detour to nab Starling Dodd, drop to visit White Pike and Raven Crag on the southern side of the hill, re- climb to Eagle Crag and descend via Sheepbone Buttress and Horse Close. It seemed like a weird zoo and a good walk. Perfect.
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY!
Clouds crowded out the sky, a low grey base jostling mistily over the hills. It was barely noticeable as we climbed through birch woodland on the lower flanks, and the drizzle that began as we left the trees
and climbed the steps towards Bleaberry Tarn was even welcome. By the time we reached Red Pike we were squelching through a white haze. But less than an hour into the walk, we’d made our first catch, at the edge of a row of hills that border Buttermere and make one of its most classic walks. Like I said, rain doesn’t stop play.
Until, of course, it comes down massively, drenches everything and forces you to hide in the emergency shelter, hunting for food in backpacks and shifting around uncomfortably. But, like any good hunters, we waited. And, as often happens, we were rewarded. The rain passed, and Starling Dodd came back into sight, a gentle, grassy roll of a hill near the end of the ridge. Two in the bag. Cloud still hung low on the tops as we turned back towards Red Pike, our next two were secretive beasts, hidden around the dark craggy back of the hill.
The first was White Pike, an indistinct crag snagged on the Ennerdale side of Red Pike. Of course, all the pedants among us will know that ‘pike’ in this setting means a spike of rock, and doesn’t really refer to the snaggle-toothed fish. But taking this too seriously ruins the game, so we set our compasses and started
“STARLING DODD CAME BACK INTO SIGHT, A GENTLE, GRASSY ROLL OF A HILL NEAR THE END OF THE RIDGE”
walking, traversing across fallen grass twinkling with fresh rainfall and padded with fat clumps of moss. Above, Red Pike’s dark summit snagged and toyed with tendrils of cloud.
White Pike is a small spur of exposed rock above ground that steepens, then breaks into boulderfields. From this rocky plinth, you can see the extent of the Ennerdale Valley, starting as a narrow runnel in the east, trickling from the springs and rivulets of Lake District giants. From there, the streams became the River Liza, a grey streak that turns to a mess of waterways, splitting around islets before joining the lake. The dark green smudge of distant woodland marked its banks. Above stood Pillar’s blackened wall, looking bare, intimidating and brilliant.
With two pikes and one starling netted, we plotted our onwards route, and while gazing at the map, spotted some interesting words. Cat Crag was way below us, amid the trees. On the opposite side of the valley, another White Pike, another Raven Crag and a Hind Cove. Did they count? At the time, greedy for tallies, we said yes, but with hindsight, I’m inclined to say no. You can see any number of named things from a road without even leaving your car. That can’t possibly count and it’s definitely not the point. You don’t bag Ben Nevis by looking at it and you can’t claim an animal fell until you’ve grasped it in your hands. Or a bit of it at least.
So, we went from three animals to seven and back to three. We needed to up the count. Over to Raven Crag, a buttress of rock lower and steeper than the one we were standing above. It’s easy to imagine how this crag gained its name, the clefts in the rock and the severity of the drop makes it pretty much inaccessible to anything without wings or ropes and hardwear. There would be few predators here and plenty of sustenance for a hungry corvid, surely an ideal sight for nest building. Sure enough, as we crossed its top, there rose from below the bird’s distinctive rolling krrrrronk. This made me blindly, optimistically, hopeful for our next find, or curious about the history of it at the very least. It was up to the line of tops and over to Eagle Crag. This one perches not far below the summit of High Stile, the westernmost of a line of crags forming the back wall of a deep, stony combe. To the left, the peaceful pool of Buttermere, abruptly different in tone and atmosphere to wilder Ennerdale, despite being separated by only a single row of hills. I stood on the edge of the crags and looked down on tumbled boulders and rivets of rock, imagining the awesome birds that might once have built their eyries here and glided effortlessly between the peaks. Our count of animal fells was up to four. Sheepbone Butress was up next.
WE’RE NOT SCARED!
The route most often followed on these hills climbs or descends by Scarth Gap, a clear path leading over the saddle, but our way off eschewed it entirely. The cliffs neighbouring Eagle Crag faded out
“WE WEREN’T HUNTING LIVING ANIMALS BUT THEIR NAMESAKE FELLS – FOUND ALL OVER THE LAKE DISTRICT”
to a cove and the grassy oasis of High Crag’s top. Tom had pointed the rake out to me from the walk in, a gash across the spur, leading into the basin of the combe. On wet rock, I was nervous. Alright, this feature is named after an animal, but it’s also named after its bones. I needn’t have feared. The path dropped down the nose of the northern spur, through a jumble of sturdy rock and grassy little pathways. Not quite a walk, not quite a scramble, definitely interesting. We played with the route as we found our way down and around to the head of the rake. This chute of broken stone rumbled directly into the combe and our boots
slipped and slid on the moving rocks, or found purchase and coasted with the tide. It ended just above the foaming beck which descended in gushes and steps. The lower we got, the more spectacular its overflowing falls became, gallons of water exploding in starry droplets and a mad rush of white. It started to rain again, and against the thrumming pitter of water on waterproof was the constant low rumble of the beck.
Just before we hit the path, we found our last animal feature of the day: Horse Close. Of course, without any horses. It brought our tally to seven and completed our strange upland menagerie. Or almost. As we stomped soggily into Buttermere we spotted the brightly lit windows of the pub and caught the scent of dinner. On the swinging sign, three words: The Fish Inn. I looked at Tom and we both nodded. This definitely counts.