Gavel Fell

Despite all the prospective 'hill' ticks, the first tick of the day was the Lakeland Tarn, High Nook Tarn. This was a 5 minutes walk beyond the farm and seemed a little bigger than I remembered. At the end of the valley we could see our path zig-zagging up the hillside near to Highnook Beck. It looked a tough climb. Although the hillside was steep, the zig-zags took most of the pain out of the ascent and we made good progress upwards. The beck nestled into a clough and on the other side we could see a hill with a cairn at the summit; this was Gavel Fell North Top. We contoured around the boggy catchment area of the beck and made our way up to the cairn. Our first Explorer hill was ticked. Its higher sibling, Gavel Fell, was only 10 minutes walk away to the southwest. This had pretty much the same views but was graced with a larger cairn. The highest peak of the day, Blake Fell, was our next target. Navigation on these fells can be straightforward; a wire fence would lead us almost from Gavel Fell to Blake Fell's summit.

Blake Fell And Sharp Knott

There was a fair bit of ascent to Blake Fell, but nothing very serious. A view opened up to the Cogra Moss reservoir to the west and the conical shaped Knock Murton at the side of it. I'd had half an idea of including Knock Murton in today's itinerary, but figured it would probably have been a hill too far. It would have involved a lot of ascent/descent. I'd leave it for another day. At the top of Blake Fell we came across a couple trying to erect a small wind shield. At first I thought it was a tent, but it looked too small even for a one man tent. The man was struggling to sort out the rods in the sheet and the strong wind made the process almost impossible. I couldn't understand why they didn't just descend down the leeward side of the slope, rather than trying to set it up at the windiest point. We left them to it and descended down the leeward slope ourselves. Within a few minutes we were in a totally calm spot and we settled down for a break.

We continued downwards to Sharp Knott with its rather large cairn. This too had a good view down to Cogra Moss reservoir and Knock Murton. Just north of the large cairn we found a mega-large stone shelter and another cairn. Somebody had obviously been busy making use of the large number of rocks that were available in the area. 

Carling Knott And Loweswater End

We headed eastwards from Sharp Knott towards Carling Knott. There was no stile over the wire fence heading down from Blakes Fell and so we had to hop over it. A lot of this bit of the walk was pretty much trackless, although we did eventually pick up a track that led us to the summit of Carling Knott. Just before reaching the top, I saw a vague track heading off westwards. It wasn't on the OS map, but I'd be able to use that to get across to Burnsbank Fell, when we returned to this spot later. There was a rather tall, stone shelter on Carling Knott's summit. It was so narrow, it looked a bit claustrophobic inside.  We carried on eastwards along the track and we eventually came to the summit cairn of Loweswater End. The track continued eastwards and descended. We followed it and after a 100 metres or so we were greeted with a tremendous view down into the Loweswater valley and over to Grasmoor. It was hard to drag ourselves away from this spectacle, but having had our fill, we returned back to the summit of Loweswater End and then to Carling Knott. We didn't fancy having lunch in the narrow stone shelter and so we set up camp on the leeward side of it to have our lunch. 

Burnsbank Fell

We dropped down from the summit of Carling Knott and started along the track I'd spotted earlier. Sure enough, it headed in the direction of Burnbank Fell and it didn't take long to reach the wire fence that leads up to its summit. It was near the fence that I found a pair of spectacles on the ground. I'd seen a couple of walkers making their way along the fence on their way up to Blakes Fell and I wondered if they might belong to them. Unfortunately they'd long gone and we'd never catch them up. I decided to take them with me and leave them on the gate post at Maggie's Bridge; at least then there would be a slight chance of the owner reclaiming them if they'd parked there too. 

Burnsbank Fell is a Wainwright and despite the cairn, it is a rather boring summit.  Wire fences have to be negotiated if you want to stand next to the summit cairn. We headed off north-eastwards on an obvious path.  This had a gradual descent until it reached some crags and then dropped surprisingly steeply down the hillside. At the end of this section we picked up the bridleway that contours along the hillside above Holme Wood. The views down on to Loweswater and along the valley were superb. Just after Holme Beck, we started down the track through Holme Wood. Unfortunately the Tree Troublers had extensively nuked the area. What used to be a delightful track through woodland had now been decimated with one long stretch converted into a forestry road. We were glad to get to the bottom of the track and so on to the side of Loweswater Lake, with fine views across to Darling Fell.  The skies were still blue and the sun was still shining as we made our way along the farm track to Maggie's Bridge carpark.

This really was a delightful walk in very good walking conditions. The view from Loweswater End has to be up there as one of the best in the Lake District.