Mutiny On Darling Fell

Once we reached open fell, Captain Mo seemed a little more confident. We'd walked 10 metres uphill when we reached a 'T' junction in the track. 'Should we go left or right?' he asked. 'Well, it isn't for me to question the Captain's judgement, but if you are asking for advice then I'd say that the left path looks as though it leads up to a relatively easy ridge path, and the right up to an impossibly steep crag' I offered. He set off on to the left path and we started the climb to the ridge. Everything was going well when Captain Mo suddenly diverted from the obvious ridge path, on to a sheep track that was contouring the steep face of the fell. 'He must just be zig-zagging uphill' I thought, and I continued on the obvious path up the ridge. I looked back and saw that the Cabin Boy was following me, rather than Captain Mo. We plodded on, and I fully expected Captain Mo to zag over the side of the fell back on to the ridge path. But it never happened.  Ten minutes later I was stood on the top of the fell with the Cabin Boy and there was still no sight of Captain Mo. 'He can't have continued along that dangerous sheep track' I thought. The Cabin Boy was looking a bit concerned. 'Don't worry' I said. 'If he falls off that sheep track, then he'll just roll downhill like one of those round cheeses and that wire fence will catch him at the bottom'. Despite my bravado, I had some doubts myself, and so started inching my way down to the crag to see if I could get any sight of the Captain. As soon as I'd got down to the crag, the Cabin Boy shouted that she'd spotted him on the horizon coming up the ridge path. I ran back up and looked through my camera's zoom lens. Sure enough, the Captain was coming up, but his face didn't paint a pretty picture. 'Look, I think the Captain might think we've questioned his authority. When he arrives, just tell him I was teaching you how to tack up the path in the low wind, and we drifted apart' I instructed the Cabin Boy. 

'He made me do it. He made me follow him' the Cabin Boy shouted as the Captain arrived. The Captain had a face of thunder. Apparently he'd walked quite a distance along the dangerous sheep track before realising that nobody was following him. He said he'd had to retrace his steps and then follow the ridge path. 'Whatever. At least we've reached our first Wainwright, Low Fell' the Captain announced. I told him that if this was indeed Low Fell, then it was a lot lower than I expected. I respectfully suggested to the Captain that the fell over to the east was probably Low Fell. 'I see', he said. 'So, if that is Low Fell, as you suggest, then that means that peak over there must be Fellbarrow' the Captain stated, pointing to a fell just north of Low Fell. I told the Captain that would be an easy mistake for anyone to make, but I believed that the hill he had just pointed out to be Smithy Fell, with Fellbarrow further north and topped with a trig point.  He grunted, and without further ado he set off towards Low Pike. The snitching Cabin Boy followed the Captain, and I followed the snitching Cabin Boy.

Low Fell And Fellbarrow

There was an amazing view up the Buttermere valley from Low Fell. The very tops of the hills were in mist, but sun broke through the holes in the cloud to illuminate some of the fields below us.  I had a quiet word with the Captain that this might be a good spot for lunch. He then announced to everybody that we'd take a break here for lunch.

After lunch the Captain led us towards Fellbarrow. It is a bit of an undulating path but reasonably easy going. I'd already advised the Captain that Fellbarrow was the hill with a visible trig point on top and so there were no navigational mishaps. We had seen some cattle near the trig earlier in the day and this had got the Cabin Boy a little nervous, but these had disappeared by the time we arrived. Fellbarrow was the last fell outpost in this part of the Lakes. We looked northwards and the hillside rolled away to Cockermouth, and the sea beyond. I congratulated Captain Mo for delivering us safely to our second Wainwright. All we had to do now was to return to the car.

Fence Frenzy

The tops of the Loweswater fells are covered in a grid of fences. It looks like the local farmers have had a fencing frenzy. Some fences are barbed and some aren't. Some fields have stiles allowing you to cross a fence, and some don't. Some fields have tracks where it looks like other walkers may have gone before, and some fields have no tracks at all. It isn't strictly clear which areas are private and which have public access. We thought we might be able to go in a reasonably direct line from Fellbarrow to the point of our initial ascent, but this turned out to be impossible. The conclusion of our survey was that we pretty much had to go back on the same route that we came out on.  An annoyance of this is that you have to lose height to get back on to the path that crosses Crabtree Beck, and then climb all the way back up to Darling Fell. It did give us a second chance to admire that remarkable view down the Buttermere valley. When we got to the top of Darling Fell we looked down on to Loweswater. What a view! We'd been too preoccupied with the Captain's capers this morning to fully appreciate it.

We retraced out steps from Darling Fell back down to the car. This wasn't really a navigational test for the Captain, and so I led the way down. A constant banging echoed around the valley. It sounded like the Loweswater folk considered that they hadn't got enough fences and were banging in some posts for some more.

When we reached the car, I thanked Captain Mo for leading us on the walk. There were challenges at times, but I can honestly say that he never resorted to violence. The Cabin Boy asked if she might join us at the Officer's table this evening. I left that tricky decision in Captain Mo's capable hands.