Ronald Turnbull joins up the Wainwright dots
MANY OF US are chasing down the Wainwrights. But the seven volumes of the Pictorial Guide aren’t lists of summits, they’re lists of routes. Many of these are no more than a dashed line on a diagram. Did AW actually do them? Or did they just look like a good idea? And given that there are already seven recognised routes onto Fairfield from the Patterdale side, do we need two more?
Well, any day spent in Dovedale and Deepdale is going to be a good one. Tackling some steepish ground, without a path, following a faint line inscribed over 50 years ago – this just adds a small sense of adventure.
Coming in along
Dovedale, cloud squatted on the tops and focussed my gaze on the lower slopes ahead. Hogget Gill is a shadowed gash at the valleys end. “Worth a visit for its impressive scenery,” says AW, whilst giving only a hint of the way. (We’re on Little Hart Crag, page 4.) Following the dots, I cross the boulder outwash below the tree-filled ravine, to head up the steep grass on its left.
At one third height, another stream slot comes down to cross my path. I drop to where the two streams meet, dodge past a dead sheep, and zigzag up between the trees. A few rock handholds help me up onto open slopes above.
In this upper hollow, whilst dark crags rise on either side, the grass between is less intimidatingly steep. Here is a tiny ridgeline, defined by the cliff drop into the stream alongside. The views back out to Hartsop show a corner of Brothers Water, and blobs of sunshine starting to break through. A few old fence posts lead up onto the familiar path onto Dove Crag.
Crossing Hart Crag to Fairfield, on wide and rather busy paths with only some cloud to look at. Is this just slightly unexciting? Not at all! As there’s still the descent into Deepdale to worry over…
Now we’re on Fairfield page 8 in the Eastern Fells book. The cliffs of Greenhow End, at the head of Deepdale, are steep and serious. But dots on the diagram indicate a zigzag route, “for experienced scramblers only”. There are indeed a couple of scrambling lines here: the
Light Slabs (Grade 1) and the Dark Slabs (Grade 2). But the zigzag route runs over brown contour lines on the Harvey map, grassy ground rather than rocks. And whilst tricky ground is harder done downhill, this means there’s always the straightforward option of turning round and going back up again.
A careful compass brings me down out of the mist.
And, at what the maps name as Hutaple Crag, a point of pure magic. It’s a grassy knoll above huge cliffs, with more huge cliffs filling two sides of the view, and the other way being a long look down Deepdale.
So what do you think? Do we need yet another two Wainwright ways onto Fairfield? The conclusion has to be that we do.