Low Tarn

The morning had been grey and sultry, but as we neared the top of High Fell, the sun revealed itself and patches of blue started to appear above us. At first, I thought Low Tarn might have dried up since it was nowhere to be seen. It was only when I started walking across the top of the fell that the large tarn revealed itself. I'd never been to Low Tarn before. In truth, I didn't even know it existed until I saw it on my Lake District Tarns Venture list. It is a bit off the beaten track. I couldn't see any footpaths around and so I guess the local sheep graze undisturbed. This is a shame, since it is in a fine location with a good of Yewbarrow. It met with the approval of Kapitan Mo who had become a self-proclaimed expert on whether a tarn qualifies as a tarn. His criteria appeared to be whether it has the word 'tarn' suffixed to its name. At the east end of the lake we came across a curious metal box that had a lid bolted to the top. I assumed it to be capping off some sort of hole or shaft, but it seemed a bit tall for that. As an alternative, I thought it might be a prop for a magician's trick. I knocked on the lid, but didn't get a reply and so I guess its use will remain a mystery. The pyramid of Black Crag overlooks the north-eastern end of the tarn and we started making our way up to its summit.

Red Pike

We had a break in the lee of Black Crag's summit. As we drank coffee, we listened to a walker making his way up the track from Dore Head. He appeared to be talking to himself. Maybe he was hard of hearing, since we could hear him from quite a distance. He sounded like he was on the phone or even doing a vlog, but I couldn't seem him carrying a phone or camera. We packed up before he reached us and diverted slightly off the path to reach Black Crag's summit. This coincided with the mist rolling in and so we didn't get a summit view. It also coincided with the solitary walker-talker passing us and we never actually got to see or hear him again. 

The mist mooched around Red Pike's summit too. The summit cairn had been built dangerously close to the edge of that dramatic drop down into the Mosedale valley. I looked over the cairn and managed to see a beck way down in the valley below. I wondered whether it would be possible to base-jump from such a point. I certainly wasn't going to try. We continued following the edge of the abyss and dropped down to the col with Scoat Fell. We'd dropped out of the mist and now we could see our next objective, Scoat Tarn, down to our left. We started descending towards it on a sketchy track.

Scoat Tarn

A man and his son were fishing on the east side of Scoat Tarn. Their tent was pitched on its south side. The track down to the tarn was a little vague but it wasn't too bad underfoot. The western side of the tarn was littered by boulders that had tumbled down from Scoat Fell, some of them quite large. The mist still clung to the western crags of Red Pike and this gave the tarn an austere appearance. 

At the south end of the tarn, we investigated some machinery that was either probably left by an alien or possibly by a meteorologist to measure rainfall. It seemed a bit of a Heath-Robinson affair with supporting cables that were about as tense as a Miss Marple mystery. We had our lunch sat on some boulders at the far end of the tarn whilst the mist tried unsuccessfully tried to roll down Red Pike's crags to reach us.

After lunch we followed the beck from the tarn and started the descent into the Nether Beck valley.

Nether Beck

We followed the Nether Beck valley southwards. It is a pretty valley, but it always seems to be unusually long. This might be due to the bends in its route such that you can't see Wast Water at the end of the valley, until the later stages. The route was reasonably dry today though and we made good progress. Nether Beck drops into  some pretty gills closer to Wast Water and we found an outward-bound organisation carrying out a character-building exercise in one of them. The student subjects were being asked to jump from a crag into a deep pool. A couple of them leaped into it without any problem and then a small girl teetered on the edge for a minute or two, before retreating to safer ground. One of the students who had already jumped off and had his character built, was already scrambling back up to have another go and build his character further. The Kapitan, Cabin Boy and myself gave each one a clap as they jumped off but felt our presence might be intimidating the runt of the group (although we don't judge) and so we left them and continued walking down the valley.

It had been a super walk that had met my expectations. It was a pity that the mist had rolled in on the tops, although the breaks in the mist had actually made the views even more spectacular. The character building exercise of the outward-bound group had also given me some ideas about activities I might include on future walks with Kapitan Mo and the Cabin Boy.