Hopegill Head
What do you get if you mix England’s only mountain forest, a thrilling mini scramble and a Cumbrian ridge that is inexplicably unfrequented? The best Lakeland fell walk you’ve never heard of.
From the depths of England’s only mountain forest to the heights of the Lake District’s sneakiest ridge
Expectation is a funny thing when it comes to climbing mountains. Whether it’s as part of that annual hillwalking trip with mates, a special summer holiday getaway with the family or a weekend’s escape with a loved one, a jaunt to the hills is likely to have been penned in the diary for months – so you want it to be perfect. Which area should we explore? Which peak should we climb? Which route should we do? All of these things have to be considered with care if you have any designs on making a success of your trip.
Well, I have a little golden nugget to share with you. Hopegill Head is an unpretentious fell that resides in the north-western slice of the Lake District, roughly five miles west of Keswick. If encountered it would most usually be as a flying visit along the popular linear ridge that stretches between Braithwaite and Crummock Water, and includes the rather better-known Grisedale Pike. But I’m here to tell you there is a much more interesting way to make acquaintance with this intrigue of rock.
Now, I have to be honest at this point and say I had no good reason to climb Hopegill Head myself before I did, other than the fact I’d never done so before. My research concluded that, on paper, there is nothing remarkable about this mountain. It’s not the biggest, baddest or most iconic of peaks. Among the smorgasbord of other fells in this corner of Lakeland, Hopegill Head is unassuming and apparently content to melt into the backdrop. Yet hiding in plain sight is a mountain with allure just waiting to be discovered.
Our route starts and culminates within the western fringes of Whinlatter, a splendid expanse of coniferous upland forest covering roughly 1200 hectares. The area was acquired by the Forestry Commission almost a century ago – the first trees were planted in 1920
– and Whinlatter has since adopted the eye-catching tag of being ‘England’s only true mountain forest’. Whether this label is actually the product of a marketing masterstroke or not, the forest’s defined high point of 790m – the summit of Grisdale Pike – is home to a clutch of rare species of flora and fauna, and its carpet of spruce, firs and larch imbue a sense of evergreen charm into the landscape over which it sprawls. After motoring through Whinlatter, my pal Tom and I park up on a grass verge not long after crossing Blaze Bridge. Boots laced up, sunglasses on, we’re ready for the off. Our approach to Hopegill Head is via its north-west ridge, from the Vale of Lorton, and the outing’s opening gambit involves an uphill march over a section of pastoral land. The ridge is quickly gained, upon which the terrain shifts to more aesthetic heathland. Patchworks of purple heather engulf us at ankle height, mixed with a verdant glade of bilberry that tumbles down the hillside.
The air is filled with a warmth and a calmness that conveys the tinkling song of two meadow pipits that appear determined in tailing our journey. ‘Mipits’ provide a joyful soundtrack for the hills and can often be spotted fluttering jerkily in the sky, chirping a mellifluous tune that progressively crescendos before a flourishing climax. This pair repeatedly practiced their aerobatic displays overhead before parachuting down into the low-lying shrubs, where, in concealment, their shrill calls became amplified like a cricket’s.
As we progressed upwards we discovered the remnants of a ruined drystone wall that would run parallel with our trail all the way to Ladyside Pike and beyond. This 703m subsidiary top of Hopegill Head appears very prominently from most low-level parts of north-west Lakeland and it duly offers some exquisite views from the jumble-of-rocks summit cairn. On a day as fine as this the eye is allowed to reach the Solway Firth in the west, while across to the east there is Blencathra, Skiddaw and the Helvellyn massif. As for the name, the pike was formerly known as Lady’s Seat, which, in Wainwright’s mind, was a far more pleasant title for this ‘graceful cone’ of a fell if interpreted as a ‘place of rest, not as an anatomical reference’.
After we left Ladyside and her Pike in our wake, the craggy outline of Hopegill Head beckoned. From this specific angle, it is a mountain that now demands your attention, exhorting you to become rapt with its presence. Two expressive faces stare back from either side of the ridge. The east facade is Hobcarton Crag, which is jagged and scarred and falls away precipitously to the gill below, while the opposite face is lashed with
multi-coloured strata that’s been laid bare from millennia of exposure to the elements. From a distance we also espied a rocky outcrop, called the Notch, jutting out over Hobcarton Crag, followed by an arete that seemed not a little daunting as it pulled up to the summit. As do all the best mountain walks, the very crux of this one looked exhilarating.
Upon reaching the Notch, we inched towards the edge of this shelf of naked slate and peered over, imagining how many of our bones would be left unbroken should we slip off. “Look!” whisper-shouts Tom, pointing suddenly at something down in the crags. “What’s that?” My eyes take a moment to adjust but I soon make out a blurred speck, camouflaged against the mass of rock, soaring in circular motions near the cliff edge. It’s not our meadow pipit friends, that’s for sure. I pull a pair of binoculars from my rucksack and lock on to the raptor as it swirls and cavorts in the scree slopes of the crag. “Kestrel, a male,” I confirm, “and there’s another close by, a female.” This ubiquitous falcon is far from an unusual sighting in the UK. Yet, to see a pair – that, at this time of year, were likely tending to a nest of chicks – in their natural habitat and to have a bird’s-eye view of the predators was quite spectacular.
We watched the kestrels’ antics for 10 minutes before turning our attention to the rising crest that would be our ladder to the top of Hopegill Head. To extract maximum fun out of this airy 100m section you are required to adhere to the crag edge to the left of the main path – though to do otherwise would be criminal. The scrambling is short-lived and not as intimidating as it appears from afar, but Wainwright wrote no truer words when he described this ridge top as ‘the sort of place where one turns back to do it again out of sheer delight’. And that’s exactly what we did. Twice.
A solitary raven glided overhead as we topped out on the peak and its distinctive ‘krrrronk’ echoed around the surrounding gullies. The rocky summit of Hopegill Head is wonderful – small in size, but big with chutzpah. The fell top puffs out its chest fully aware that the panoramas it bestows, of the bumping rolls of Lakeland and beyond, are just reward for the effort of reaching it. And if lapping up the expansive views is the best thing about this 770m apex, heading to its col with Grisedale Pike and gazing back at that ridge crest, the Notch and the Alpine-looking Whinlatter in the valley basin below comes a very close second.
After taking about a thousand pictures of the view, we turned off the col and descended the steep slope into
Hobcarton Valley. Incidentally, this valley has interesting botanical significance as it is the only place in England you can find Viscaria alpina, or the red alpine catchfly. A small population of this rare plant, which blossoms a plume of shocking-pink flowers in early summer, thrive in the crags of Hobcarton on heavy metal-rich rock that is toxic to other species of flora. The minerals embedded in the rock are also the reason why it is ill-advised to climb on Hobcarton Crag, as the surface has a propensity to fracture and crumble.
The unmistakable resonance of a cuckoo rung out from the deep of Whinlatter as we neared Hobcarton Plantation, the final leg of our walk. On approach to this coniferous jungle the footpath turned to forest track, which was edged with foxgloves and tree saplings. And as we took our first steps into the plantation, there were clear signs of further wildlife. A babbling of finches and tits, a school of tadpoles swimming in a puddle and squirrel-gnawed pine cones lying on the forest floor.
Now, if you’re thinking ‘I came here to read about mountains and all this guy is warbling on about is birds and the environment’ then fair enough, but stick with me... Without meaning to set up Hobcarton as a location for a future David Attenborough documentary, it speaks volumes for how a little variance in a landscape – even if it comes in the form of a man-made forestry plantation – can benefit the appeal, intrigue and vitality of a place. Nature will thrive if given half a chance and to witness so much evidence of that during a day in the hills is amazing and so refreshing. And what’s more, given how unaccountably quiet this route is, we’d not seen another soul since leaving the car.
Underpromise and overdeliver. That’s commonly said to be a key concept of successful salesmanship, and were Hopegill Head in the business of marketing days out in the mountains, I reckon it would be raking in commissions by the barrowload. As a standalone hillwalk, Hopegill Head exceeds all expectation.