Captain's Log

Ladyside Pike Retreat

It had been almost a year since I retreated from the summit of Ladyside Pike (see Retreat From Ladyside Pike). After reaching the top, I had intended dropping down into the Swinside valley before making my way up to Dodd. It was a good plan, but a heavy dump of snow stopped me in my snowy tracks at Ladyside’s summit cairn. The drop down into the valley looked fairly steep and I reckoned a descent would have been tricky in the snow. In the end, I decided to retreat and leave Dodd for another day. Well today would be that day. To ensure that Dodd got bagged today, I decided to reverse my intended route from a year ago, in reverse. We would set off from Spout Force carpark in the Whinlatter valley and make our way towards the village of Hopebeck, before climbing to the summit of Dodd. From there, we’d make our way up alongside Hope Beck to the top of Ladyside Pike. A descent along its long north ridge would take us over the summit of Swinside and then a return to the carpark. Assuming that we didn’t get a dump of snow, I couldn’t seen anything stopping us bagging Dodd today. And it looked more likely that it would rain, than snow.  

The Kapitan and Cabin Boy were with me today. The Kapitan was  officially nominated the navigator for the day and so we followed his confident strides out of the carpark. I was quite surprised when he actually chose the right direction when we reached the Whinlatter road. I suppose he had a 50/50 chance of getting it right though. 

Dodd

There was an option to park near to the village of Hopebeck (see map for location) and reduce significantly the amount of road walking on today’s route, but this would have made it quite a short walk overall. I decided to do a longer walk with a bit more road walking. Once off the Whinlatter Road, the single track lane towards Hopebeck wasn’t busy and offered good views over to the northern fells, and so the extra tarmac didn’t seem like a chore. The road passes fields and I looked out for lambs. It was still a bit early in the year though and I didn’t see any. A sign on one of the field gates was a notice to ‘pilots’ and that they shouldn’t launch themselves from the field. I could see the attraction though since it was on a steep slope and when there was a strong northerly, they'd get get an easy lift. As the road followed the hill's contour into the Lorton Valley, Dodd came into view.  It is only  454 metres high, but it looked like an ideal viewpoint for the Lorton Valley. The tops of its neighbours were covered in mist, but Dodd was clear and we could just make out a tiny figure of somebody on the summit. We reached the alternative carpark and branched away from the tarmac, venturing cross country towards Dodd. Before we reached the footbridge across Hope Beck a fell runner bounced towards us along the path. He must have been the figure we’d seen on Dodd’s summit and had made remarkable time to get down to this point. Either that, or we were remarkably slow. He wasn’t even breathless as he passed us.   

The climb up to Dodd was gradual. Well, it was at first. Views opened up along the Swinside valley to Ladyside Pike, Hopegill Head and Whiteside at its head. A ceiling of mist prevented us from seeing the rim of the valley. Looking down to Hope Beck, I could see the track that we would use to take us to the head of the valley. Our path up Dodd took us up to the col between its summit and the ridge up to Whiteside. There was a good view down into the Lorton Valley as we made our way through a short section of scree and crags to Dodd’s top. A small cairn confirmed that we’d reached the hill’s highest point. It was quite an exposed summit and we were hit with a cold wind that was blowing down the valley. After taking photos, we descended back down to the col and retraced our route downwards. Well, that was Dodd finally bagged; today would be a success in one way or another. 

Ladyside Pike

We branched off on a track that descended towards Hope Beck. Given the recent rain I thought we might have problems crossing it, but there turned out to be plenty of places where we could step across. The next hour of walking was easy navigation, even for the Kapitan; we just followed the beck up towards Hopegill Head. It was actually a good ascent path, making its way gradually up to the top of the valley. The OS map showed a path further away from the beck, but this unofficial track served its purpose for us. As we gained height, we entered the mist. The only decision to make was when we should leave the track along the beck  and head across to Ladyside Pike. The terrain actually levelled out a little near to the ridge between Ladyside Pike and Hopegill Head and we took this as an opportunity to follow the hill’s contour to Ladyside Pike. We soon reached the ridge and started following it to the top of Ladyside Pike. It wasn’t long before we reached its summit cairn. It was thick mist and so we didn’t get that magnificent view of the cliffs at Hopegill Head. There was no point waiting around for the mist to clear and so we started to make our descent along its long northern ridge. 

Swinside

On our descent, the mist momentarily cleared and we got a view along the ridge to Swinside. A few moments later the view was replaced by mist. We did eventually drop out of the mist and this revealed wonderful views along the Whinlatter valley. Swinside is more of a slight undulation on a ridge, rather than a definitive hill. We didn’t even find a cairn to crown its summit. The OS map showed a cairn further north along the ridge and so we started following a wire fence in that direction. A Kestrel accompanied us down the ridge. Despite the strong, blustery wind it remained stationary in mid-air as he  scanned the ground for his dinner. The cairn turned out to be tiny, but the views towards the Lorton Valley and across to Whinlatter were well worth the diversion from the path. We headed down through steep heather and re-joined the descent path again. A grassy path delivered us down to the intake field, and a field hop to the single track road that we’d walked along this morning. 

We retraced our steps along the road and breathed in to let a 4x4 pass us. I’m not sure what the driver would do if he'd met another vehicle coming the other way. A dispute between some Crows and Lapwings kicked off in one of the fields. I’m not sure which side I would have put my money on. Would I go for the agile, psycho Lapwings or the hefty, cunning Crows. I couldn’t decide and left them to it. The day looked as though it was clearing up as we turned off into the Spout Force carpark. It was even threatening some sunshine. It was a shame the sun didn’t try harder while we were high up. At least it didn’t snow.  

It had been a misty, dreich day, and this had limited our views somewhat. We did get a great view from Dodd and feel that it is well worthy of a Wainwrights Missed Gem status. The path along Hope Beck turned out to be gradual and a good ascent path. I made a mental note to use this as a potential future route up to Hopegill Head. Overall, we seemed to have crammed a lot into what was a reasonably short walk.