Vivienne Crow lingers in the Lakes
The morning’s downpours having passed, I set off from Little Town mid-afternoon. My plan had been to head up into the valley, ford Newlands Beck and then use the old miners’ track to reach the top of Dalehead Crags; but the beck was running too high and too fast for my liking. I stayed on the eastern side of the dale instead, where I discovered a gorgeous stony trail. It runs parallel with the right of way shown on maps but at a higher level, avoiding the sometimesboggy, often-rough ground of the lower path. It didn’t provide the same exciting intimacy with the valley’s main waterfall, but it did allow me glimpses into the crags and gullies of High Spy above.
On my way through the dale, I got chatting with a
walker who thought she was on the High Spy ridge. I explained she was still in the valley and pointed out how she would reach the high ground, but she had no sense of the difference between dale and ridge, and was unable to read the map she was carrying. I calculated she was progressing at less than one mile an hour, so there was little chance of her reaching High Spy and getting back to her cottage before nightfall. I hate discouraging new walkers with their sights set on the tops, but on this occasion I suggested she limit her explorations to the dale bottom and then head back the way she had come.
The calls of wheatears accompanied me, briefly drowned out whenever I drew closer to the noisy beck. These perpetually busy, ‘white-arsed’ birds are one of the most common and easily identified ornithological sights on the summer fells. They’re amongst the first migrants to arrive on the uplands, heralding the return of longer, warmer days, and they then fly back to central Africa in late summer. The birds I heard on my mid-August outing would be building up their fat reserves, getting ready to start the long flight any moment. Preferring to fly by night, their departure could literally have been hours away.
After fording the beck just below Dalehead Tarn, I made my way on to Dale Head. I then wandered slowly, very slowly, along Hindscarth Edge
– taking photos, smiling to myself, taking more photos... The ridge was bathed in the calm of evening, the lowering sun painting a warm wash over the landscape. Even the rugged Scafell range, a monstrous sight in less benign conditions, looked mellow, almost sleepy. I was getting tired myself but, reluctant to begin my descent, I sat at Hindscarth’s summit and opened my ears to the quiet, to the absence of human noise. I didn’t know when I’d next get to visit the fells so it was important to absorb as much of this as possible – to store it up, almost as if it were a vitamin. Its magical properties might be needed at any time as an antidote to the ‘real’ world below.