Roger Butler gets grandstand Lakeland views
of rain had fallen across parts of the
Lake District and every beck bubbled and babbled with the sort of energy normally associated with a children’s birthday party. The old coach road towards Matterdale was surprisingly dry but when I crossed the first culvert the ground seemed ready to collapse into the foaming torrent beneath my feet.
Skiddaw’s angular slopes rose through the murk and mist at the foot of St John’s in the Vale as pockets of sunshine lit the fields near Low Rigg. Blencathra’s ridges were draped in lacy curtains of fine drizzle but brighter skies were moving in from the west and, by the time I broached the first wedge
of high ground, the cloud cover had fully broken.
I had the best seat in the house and the tussocky terraces in front of me looked straight across to the steep finger-like ridges of Blencathra. On a fine summer’s day it would almost be worth bringing a deck chair up here; as bright light swept over the ribs of Gategill Fell, Hall’s Fell and Doddick Fell every nook and cranny was picked out in fine detail.
The skeletal remains of an old railway wagon glinted on the open moor by Hausewell Brow. In the way that some folk map and visit the locations of plane crashes in the mountains, there must also be scope for a group of hillwalking geeks to plot all those wagons which were purloined by farmers once the infamous Beeching cuts took hold. Many remain dotted across our uplands; how did some end up in the most isolated of places? Were they dragged into place by the modern equivalent of those human ants who built Stonehenge? Could a few be transformed into eyecatching bothies?
Deep ruts scarred the bridleway below White Pike and posters warned off-road riders that progress was all but impossible. Other signs spoke of responsible driving and stressed the need to stick to legal routes. And, in case anyone felt like flouting the law, another notice announced the arrival of CCTV! The cameras must have been carefully hidden within fence posts or maybe camouflaged inside another old wagon, close by the trail, which creaked and croaked like a red grouse.
I continued around the northern flanks of Clough
Head, crossed the isolated
Mariel Bridge over Mosedale Beck and headed up the soggy valley that ends at the unexpected rocky tor known as Calfhow Pike. A lonely sheepfold was my marker to fork left over pathless ground to a waterfall on Rowantree Beck and slopes that rose to the cairn on Randerside. A third rusty wagon, perched high on the north side of the valley, might once have been a shepherd’s summertime home.
The broad ridge climbed to Great Dodd and it was plain sailing as I swung north, past Calfhow Pike, before climbing an easy-going incline to the top of Clough Head. A small stone shelter curled around the trig pillar and a steep path clattered down the north-facing slopes of Red Screes before wriggling over Threlkeld Knotts and Wanthwaite Bank to return to the track at Wanthwaite.