Honister Slate Works

It is worth having a wander around the Honister Slate Work's carpark to admire the slate statues. I particularly like the one of the Osprey catching the fish. We could see a slate lorry making its way down the mine road from the slate mine. I wondered whether the brakes have ever failed on one of these machines. It came down the road faster than I thought and it rolled past us leaving a cloud of stone dust. We ambled up the stone steps of the old tramway until we reached the plateau with Fleetwith. Pillar loomed large across the Ennerdale valley. It was a hazy day with a grey hue and the north face of Pillar looked quite imposing. Fortunately we' be tackling it along its easier eastern ridge.

We headed south from the tramway path, skirting around the western flank of Grey Knotts. Views of the Buttermere valley opened up.  After crossing a wire fence, the cairned path headed off to Gillercomb Head; instead, we continued southwards for a few hundred metres, over trackless moor, to the obvious Moses' Trod path.  It was hard to remove our gaze from the amazing Gable Crag as we made our way along the path. It looks like a huge tidal wave of rock tumbling towards you. The path heads directly for it and then turns promptly westwards before reaching it. A small climb over Great Gable's north ridge and we found ourselves at Beck Head with a stunning view over to Kirk Fell and down into the Wasdale Valley. So far, so good. Now to complete one of my least favourite paths in the Lake District.

Kirk Fell

To be fair the path that skirts along the northern flank of Kirk Fell isn't that bad.  It also avoids having to traverse Kirk Fell's summit, and that would be exhausting. I find it annoying more than anything.  If you look at Kirk Fell from the Moses' Trod path you can see the distinct line of a path progressing along the side of Kirk Fell. The closer you get though, it becomes less distinct, until when you actually reach it, you find there isn't one there at all. Well, that's not completely true. Some of the grass and stones look worn by boots in places, but I'd defy anyone who claims that there is a definite path. Since it contours along the hillside, it is only the height where you might go astray and three cairns towards the western end of Kirk Fell do give an indication if you need to be higher or lower. An impressive gill sourcing Sail Beck interrupted the route before a short, steep climb was made up to the col between Kirk Fell and Pillar. Two walkers were sat down at the col when I arrived and they asked me if I'd come along the flank path of Kirk Fell. I told them that I had. They seemed pleased about that since they weren't sure that they'd got to the correct starting point for the track. I told them that they were definitely at the correct starting point but they'd find the track would disappear after about a hundred metres and then only reappear in patches for the rest of the way to Great Gable.

Today's walk was an out-and-back walk and I knew that we'd have to return along this vague track later in the day.

Pillar Approach

I wasn't really sure how the Cabin Boy would react to the climb along Pillar's east ridge. It is marginally scrambly, stony and has a steepish drop into the Mosedale valley to the south. It didn't seem to bother to bother her at all though and that was a relief. We soon got to Looking Stead and some dramatic views down into the Ennerdale valley. In my more adventurous days I'd once taken the climber's path to Pillar Rock from near here. This drops down on to the steep northern face and makes its way across to Pillar Rock. The route was fine until I had to cross a wet slab that had sloped down to a lethal exit point. I remember that I had to scuttle across the slab on my backside to continue along the path. The path arrived at a col with Pillar Rock and had unbelievable views of the crag. From there, it had then been a short scramble from the col up to the summit of Pillar. Amazing views, but probably a route left to those with a head for heights.

We followed the normal walker's route that follows the northern edge of Pillar. There are a few cairns along this route that may help if visibility is poor. After the initial narrowness of the climb from the Kirk Fell col it does come as a slight surprise that the eastern approach and the summit of Pillar is a relatively flat area. I'd been keeping a canny eye on a couple of walkers that had been catching us up. It was a windy, cold day and I could only remember one stone shelter on the top of Pillar and so I ushered the Cabin Boy and Kapitan Mo to a quicker pace. There was nobody in the shelter when we arrived and so we hunkered down to have some lunch.

Pillar Summit

The two other walkers arrived at our shelter a couple of minutes later, but they carried on walking towards Pillar Rock. After lunch we headed further westwards to have a closer look at my one last remaining Wainwright, Steeple. It did cross my mind to extend our walk to include it, but I reckoned on at least another 2 or 3  additional hours on an already long walk. Steeple would be left for another day. We wandered around to the northern edge of the summit plateau and the infeasible Pillar Rock came into view. It looked almost vertical down to the forestry roads below. 

Well, that was Pillar ticked. We started heading back across the summit plateau. I could see a couple approaching us with what looked like a Border Collie. It was only when they got closer that I saw that the dog was in fact a black and white Spaniel. The couple had come up the Mosedale valley from Wasdale. They continued up and we continued down. We followed a slightly different track across Pillar's flattish area that ran alongside its southern edge. I found this path marginally less distinct than the northern edge path and it didn't have any cairns. It did have stunning views down into Mosedale though. Both the northern and southern paths joined up before descending to Looking Stead. Apart from painful knees the rocky descent down to the col with Kirk Fell didn't produce any problems. All we had to do now was return on that mysteriously vague path around Kirk Fell.

 Return To Honister

I've walked this mysterious Kirk Fell track many times over the decades. It has always been indistinct. Maybe most walker's do a summit traverse of Kirk Fell instead. I did think about putting some additional cairns along the track...but I wasn't 100% sure of the track anyway. We drifted too low initially, but the existing three cairns put us back at the correct height. When we approached Beck Head I found that we'd drifted too low again so we had a steeper ascent to Beckhead Tarn. 

As we walked along Moses Trod we heard the rumble of jets and saw two of them approaching low along the Ennerdale valley. They were so low I expected their impact point to be a 100 metres or so directly below us. Fortunately they banked around sharply and climbed over the col between Kirk Fell and Pillar. I got an adrenalin rush just watching them, although I'd guess that the pilots' heart rates were beating a little faster than mine.

On the tramway path back down to the Honister mine works we caught up with a couple. 'Have you got a pair of working knees for my wife?' the man asked me. 'I can swap her a dodgy leg if that's any good?' I offered. He decided not to trade.

What a superb day. I'd halved my Wainwright Venture deficit, but more importantly had a great day out on the fells with stunning scenery to boot.