Grike And Crag Fell

It was actually an impressive path and had good views down on to Ennerdale Water. The path took us up to the col between Grike and Crag Fell. We set off towards to the summit of Grike. Wainwright recommended using the nearby stone track to get near to Grike's summit, since the fell approach is quite boggy. We stuck to the fell path though; our feet were already damp by this stage, anyway and even if we had used the stone track it still would have required some fell walking to get to the top. Grike was our first Wainwright of the day and was marked by a huge cairn. This must be visible from the villages below since the local name for the hill is Stone Man.

We retraced our boggy steps back to the col and then plodded our way up to Crag Fell. Its name is apt since it does have some fearsome crags on the Ennerdale side. We tiptoed to the edge, and this provided great views down on to Ennerdale Water and along the valley. Returning to the summit cairn, Calse noticed dozens of shells scattered about. They looked like limpet shells to me. Calse suggested that birds would have brought them up here. We were miles from the coast, it didn't really seem efficient to bring them all the way up here to eat such a small snack. Maybe somebody just dumped them here. But then, why would somebody do that? With mystery in the air, we set off to our third Wainwright, Lank Rigg

 Lank Rigg

I'd never been up Lank Rigg before and so it was all new territory for me. It is a bit of an outlier. It would also be an out-and-back walk. Its summit had been visible and beckoning us ever since we'd reached the col between Grike and Crag Fell. Wainwright gave a feeling for its remoteness in his guide: 'Meeting another human is in the realms of impossibility. Die here unaccompanied and your disappearance from society is likely to remain an unsolved mystery'. We met quite a few people going to and from Lang Rigg. There is a certain irony that Wainwright's guide itself has now made it so popular. As we climbed the last few metres to the trig, a man with two young Spaniels walked down towards us. One of the Spaniels bounded up to Calse and put muddy paws on her trousers. The man called Willow back, but the dog ignored him. This was probably because of the attention Calse was giving her....coooing and awwwing...and rubbing the dog behind her ears and under her chin. We chatted with the man for a while. He was from Gosforth and he Tommy Topped us by saying he'd done the Wainwrights multiple times. He asked about our route, and I told him that I was undecided about our descent from Haycock back into the Ennerdale Valley. I'd seen two routes on the map: one over Tewit How and another going down the ridge from Little Gowder Crag. He said that the Tewit How route was the better one, but gave me a look that said, 'Well to be honest, that's not such a good path either'.  Mo wanted to have a look at Sellafield and so we managed to drag Calse away from Willow, and head a little west of the summit to get a better view. Mo was so fascinated with the industrial complex that I decided it would be a good spot to take a seat and have a break. The site didn't have the same fascination with Wainwright as it had with Mo: 'The most arresting sight is the grotesque collection of towers and minarets of the Calder Hall Atomic Power Station strangely tormenting the land horizon southwest'.

Caw Fell And Haycock

We retraced our steps  over Whoap and picked up a stone wall that would follow the ridge and take us to our last two Wainwrights for the day, Caw Fell and Haycock. The sun was out now, and it was getting very hot. Near one boggy pool we came across some huge dollops of frog spawn. They looked a little like school semolina. There was a wonderful view of Pillar, Steeple and Scoat Fell. I'd told Calse not to worry about Steeple. Throughout the Wainwright's campaign she'd been worrying herself about the scrambly sections on Yewbarrow. Recently I'd somehow dropped into the conversation the cliffs on Steeple and now she'd added that to her worry list. It did look impressive though.

I'd intended having lunch at the top of Caw Fell, but three blokes suddenly approached from the other side and beat us to the lunch spot by seconds. When I started walking towards Haycock, I heard Mo muttering to Calse, 'It's a quarter to one and we've still not had lunch'. They both looked a bit disgruntled and so I decided to stop for lunch on some rocks a hundred metres or so beyond the top of Caw Fell.

With Mo and Calse fully satiated, we started the short but stony climb to Haycock's summit. We bypassed Little Gowder Crag. The crag looks much more impressive from the Ennerdale side. The views from the top of Haycock are excellent. I pointed out the Wasdale area peaks that we still had to summit on our Wainwright list. I'd decided to take the advice of the man we met on Lank Rigg and descend back into the Ennerdale valley over Tewit How.

Pig Of A Path

We descended to the col between Haycock and Scoat Fell and then headed off northwards to Tewit How. I was a little surprised that the path was quite sketchy. I'd assumed a lot of people would have used this path as way to descend into the Ennerdale valley; clearly not many people do. Navigation on a clear day like today wasn't a problem and we were soon at Tewit How. The path descending down Tewit How heads into heather. We did pass a couple of cairns that marked the track, but the heather was that thick that we eventually lost it. There was an option to drop down to Deep Gill and walk down a path alongside the stream to the valley bottom.  I thought we might lose the best of the views by doing this and so I decided to stay on a higher path. I say path, but we eventually ended up wading through trackless heather. If we'd kept to the route as indicated on the OS map, then we'd have had to make acquaintance with a herd of cows, and Calse wasn't keen on that. We kept to the higher area of Lingmell's broad ridge and eventually we came to a fence that separated the fell from the forestry plantation. There was a good path from here that followed the fence westwards towards Ennerdale Water...and this is where the fun started.

The path follows a corridor in the forestry plantation down to the valley bottom. I named this path, 'A Pig Of A Path', and I hope that name appears on future editions of the OS map. Basically, the path is awkward, steep and slippery. We traversed it on a dry day, I can imagine that it is even worse on a rainy or icy day. It isn't actually that far to descend, but it seemed to take a long time. It was with a group sigh of relief that we reached the forestry road in the valley.

The day's work was still not over though, and we set off westwards along the track that runs along the south side of Ennerdale Water. There were stunning views across the lake and also down the valley. Some easy scrambling around Anglers Crag and we were within sight of the end of the Lake. Another quarter of an hour and we were back at the car.

It had been a tough, but excellent walk. There had been some amazing views down on to Ennerdale Water, and over to the fells surrounding Wast Water. Lank Rigg, Caw Fell and Haycock are quite remote and were particularly difficult to get to. But such is the life of a Wainwright bagger.