England - Lake District - St Sunday On A Wednesday

Walk Summary

Easy walking up the Grisedale Valley to Grisedale Tarn. Return over the spectacular, whale like lump of St Sunday Crag. Descend over Birks to the diminutive Arnison Crag with its classic view along Ullswater.

Date: 16/11/2022

Length: 9.61 miles

Height Gain: 762 m

Terrain: Stone steps, stone paths, grass paths, boggy fell, trackless fell, lightly used road.

Navigation: Map/compass and gps required. The route from Glenridding to Grisedale Tarn is reasonably obvious. A bearing is required from Birks to Trout Head. There is a vague path going down, but it is possible to miss it.

Start: Glenridding Carpark

Route: Glenridding Carpark, Lanty's Tarn, Grisedale Tarn, St Sunday Crag, Gavel Pike, Birks, Trout Head, Arnison Crag, Oxford Crag, Grisedale Bridge.

Map: OL5 The English Lakes North Eastern Area

Weather: Grey and gloomy; misty on St Sunday Crag

Walkers: Nun, Calse and Mo

Gallery

Grisedale Valley

Place Fell

Nethermost Cove Beck

Grisedale Tarn's Stepping Stones

Glenridding Valley

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Heron Pike And Glenridding Dodd

Captain's Log

Grisedale Tarn

The mist scraped the roof of my car as we drove over the Kirkstone Pass. As we dropped down towards Brothers Water our surroundings seemed to get darker. In fact, the early morning, winter gloom turned into an all day winter gloom. We were the first car into the Glenridding carpark; maybe other walkers had given up on the day. The A592 had been closed beyond Glenridding for road maintenance. The contractors sat in their vans, parked along the roadside, reading newspapers and drinking coffee. They seemed to be in no rush to step out into the gloom. We followed the road on the south side of Glenridding Beck and then followed the direction of a fingerpost towards Lanty's Tarn. The footpath next the tarn was still closed off from the Glenridding side. Storm Arwen had caused havoc in the surrounding woodland and one of the trees had fallen across the footpath. On past walks, I sometimes saw a Heron fishing in Lanty's Tarn. I bet he's enjoying the lack of visitors nowadays. We proceeded on an alternative route around the trees and then dropped down into the Grisedale valley.

The vast bulk of St Sunday Crag dominates the valley. Over its northern shoulder we could see the relatively small pinnacle of Arnison Crag. We would return over that later in the day. It was easy, flat walking along the valley path and we made good time. St Sunday Crag's northwest face is protected by some fearsome looking crags. Due to the mist, we could only see the lower part of the crags. One of them forms a Grade 3 scramble known as Pinnacle Ridge. I forgot to put that one on my bucket list. At the small climbing hut of Rosthwaite Lodge, an instructor gave a pep talk to a dozen boisterous early teens. The youngsters were all dressed in regulation blue cagoules and red overtrousers. The instructor told them that some of them hadn't shown compassion to each other on yesterday's walk. I looked at my sorry troop of Mo and Calse and figured that attribute didn't feature much in my platoon either. The kids' rucksacks were piled up near the hut and I was surprised at the large size of them. I'm not sure how much time I'd have for compassion carrying one of those things.

We sat down for a break at Grisedale Tarn. The layer of mist was just above us and it felt a bit like being in a large room with a low roof. A cold wind was blowing across the tarn and so we didn't overstay our welcome. We crossed the stepping stones over Grisedale Tarn's outflow and headed off up the hillside towards the col between St Sunday Crag and Cofa Pike.

St Sunday Crag

By the time we reached the col, we had entered the mist. Initially, it was just thin enough so that we could see on either side of the ridge into the Grisedale valley on one side and the Deepdale valley on the other. As we walked along the ridge and got higher, we lost the valley views altogether. At one random point, Mo turned around and asked if we'd reached the top. There was no cairn and there was clearly some higher ground further on. I presumed the monotony of the mist had driven him a little crazy and I just shooed him onwards. Eventually we did arrive at St Sunday Crag's summit cairn, although on a day like this, it could have been a summit cairn anywhere in the Lake District.

I decided the conditions were suitable for Mo to test his navigation skills and I asked him to set a bearing for Gavel Pike with his £3.20 Ebay compass. Despite the huge air bubble in his compass deflecting the needle in random directions, we arrived at Gavel Pike's cairn a few minutes later. I then showed him how the compass could easily be reversed so that we could head back to the summit of St Sunday Crag. We started retracing our steps and halfway back I got him to set a north bearing to take us back on to the main St Sunday Crag path. We set off on the bearing and everything was going swimmingly until Mo's leg suddenly went up in the air, his body hovering for two or three seconds, and then plunging back down to earth at great speed, on to his back, with wind expelled from his every orifice. He'd performed a very similar manoeuvre on a recent walk (see Grey Friar's Boggy) and I wondered whether he'd been practising it. It didn't deter his navigation enthusiasm though and he was soon back on his feet and heading downhill apace. Just before meeting the main St Sunday Crag path, we dropped out of the mist and the world became more interesting again. We decided to stop for a break and admire the view, just in case the mist decided to do an encore.

Grisedale Tarn

Ullswater From The Footpath To Birks

Birks And Arnison Crag

On the way to Birks, Calse went for a pee. I walked a discreet distance away, but when she returned her trousers were soddened. I feared the worst, but then she told me that as she was looking around to see if anybody was in the vicinity, she'd got disorientated and fell over into a bog.

We arrived at the Birks summit cairn after traversing a couple of boggy undulations. It is rather a flat top and you have to walk away from the summit to get a decent view of Ullswater. Mo set a bearing to pick up the path to Trough Head. The humungous air bubble is his compass had deflected us towards Black Crag, but we had good visibility now and it was easy enough to pick up the correct route. At Trough Head we followed a boggy path to Arnison Crag. At 433 metres, the crag isn't one of Wainwright's highest, but it is certainly up there for one with the best views. There is an excellent view down Ullswater and across to Place Fell. The mist had lifted a little, and looking back we could now make out the pointy promontory of Gavel Pike, the mist-strewn peak we had visited earlier.

Return To Glenridding

We followed a large stone wall back down towards Patterdale. The views along Ullswater were stunning. At one point both my feet started slipping on the wet grass and, with my trekking poles for support, I suddenly became a black slope skier. I nearly formed a two-man bob-sleigh team with Mo but he rather uncharitably stepped out of my way while cheering my progression downhill, clanking two of his tin tea mugs together in appreciation. I could see that I was sliding uncontrollably towards Oxford Crag, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that Olympic ski jumpers must experience as they head down that massive slope towards oblivion. At least I would have a soft landing in Ullswater. By divine intervention, but mostly by superb skill, I was able to slow my rapid descent, by making rapid, alternate chops into the grass with my boots. Using this improvised method, I managed to come to a complete halt just a few inches from the vertical edge of Oxford Crag. Looking back up the slope, I could see Mo and Calse making their way down, clanking their mugs against their Sigg bottles in respect.

The rest of the walk back to Glenridding was less eventful. Some school kids were out on boats on the far side of Ullswater and making a noise remarkably similar to that of the thousands of Black Headed Seagulls that roost at RSPB St Aidens in Spring. Back at Glenridding, the road contractors seemed to have disappeared, despite it being only 15:30. Maybe they'd just driven up the road to where the work was being carried out.

It had been a gloomy old day. It hadn't rained though, and that's the important thing. We weren't able to witness those fine views from the top of St Sunday Crag, but at least we'd got some good ones from Birks and Arnison Crag.

Ullswater On Descent From Arnison Crag

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