16 March, 2024
My longer rides have been fewer and less frequent in the past couple of years. This is no small part down to the emergence into our lives of Henry the Springador with whom I’ve been exploring the hills of the North Pennines, the Lake District, and the Yorkshire Dales. As a result I thought I should start adding some entries detailing some of those walks whilst you’re all waiting on more cycling adventures! I’ve got a number of walks in the North Pennines which I could write up but I thought I’d start with some of our ‘Wainright walks’ in the Lake District; of which this expedition was the first.
I’d been contemplating such an adventure for a while and as Henry and I got more used to climbing some of the bigger hills of the North Pennines (including a walk up the biggest, Cross Fell). Maybe foolishly, maybe not, I thought we’d start with one of the bigger hills of England; Helvellyn.
We packed our bags ready on the Friday night including putting some lunch into the fridge ready to pick out for an early start on Saturday morning. We were up and out of the house fairly early; stopping at a Greggs just west of Penrith for breakfast, and arriving at the car park at Wythburn Church at around 9am. The car park was already fairly busy but we managed to park up easily enough and got ready to start walking.
The walk started with warm up of a two hundred feet climb to meet the north-south path running through the woodland that sits along the east side of Thirlmere. Once on that path it was easy going. Not flat but the undulations that the track follows are mild and the first two and a half miles were a nice warm up for what was to come. The walk in amongst the trees was very pretty with some lovely views over the lake below.
The woodland path ends at Swirls Car Park. After the peace of the woodland path, which he had virtually to ourselves (save for some squirrels), the car park was full of cars decanting groups of people preparing to climb. A look to our right also showed a busy path heading straight up the hill covered with an ant like line of people.
We turned right and began to follow that line. We were on the hill straight away, although it breaks the walker in with an opening section following, and sometimes crossing, Helvellyn Gill around the top edge of the woodland from which we had just emerged.
Warmed up nicely, and with the gradient ramping up, the path leaves the edge of the woods and starts a more direct climb up the face of the hillside through a series of zig zags. Henry and I were in good form at this point and made our way up this first part quicker than the majority of our fellow climbers.
For the most part of the climb, the path is a good clear stone stepped trail ever upwards. At Browncove Crags the path is less obvious however. Its not a real scramble as such, but there are sections where one has to make your own route across the rocks. Although it requires a little more thought and care in places, it never gets too tricky and before long the crags lessen and you start to come out onto the higher reaches of the hill.
The upper stretches are on open ground; an almost flat scree landscape. We were also getting into the clouds now. The visibility wasn’t poor; but it wasn’t great. Also, although the contours are a bit more spaced out up here than on the climb up to, and through, Browncove crags there is still a lot more hill remaining. The path is marked by a series of cairns. It was easy to imagine how useful they would be when the clouds are even thicker at this level than was the case today. There were also some reminders that we were not yet out of winter; bunkers of snow were lined along some of the north facing pockets, hidden from the sun.
Eventually, after just a ltitle way short of 5 miles since we set off from the car, the hill ran out at the Ordnance Survey triganomatry point which marks the third highest summit in England. We stopped for some pictures and a bite to eat and looked down across the Swirral and Striding edges, and over Red Tarn towards Grisedale; all of which were intermittently visible through breaks in the clouds.
One of these days I’l like to come back and approach Helvellyn along those more famous routes up to it. For now though, as much as I love my long walks with Henry (and I think he likes them too) , I’m not sure I fancy the opportunity of being pulled over Striding Edge by him. Any walks together up to a Wainwright summits of the Lakes will therefore be made using the “easier” routes.
On leaving the summit of Helvellyn we turned towards the south and followed the ridge top path. The overall direction was downwards for the next two miles but its not all downhill as we follwed the path to tick off the summits of Nethermost Pike (the 13th highest point of England) and Dollywagon Pike (the 22nd).
Its testament to just how many big hills there are in the Lake District that these other two hills are so much further down the rankings despite each one being only about 100 feet lower than the previous. The visibility was beginning to clear with longer gaps between the clouds. As such we were rewarded with some excellent views from the rocky tops of the crags.
After leaving Dollywagon Pike we started the descent proper. We followed the path towards the west side of Grisedale Tarn and then turned due west to follow the steep path down, alongside Raise Beck.
The descent was a lot tougher than the climb. The path is less well trodden and involves more scrambling down. The strain on the legs is so much more on the descent and it was slow going. Henry wasn’t finding it anything like as difficult and he had to be asked to hold back and wait for me every few feet down.
Things didn’t get any easier until we were almost down to the level of the main road. We now had a small bit of uncertainty in the route. The maps all show that one simply crosses the beck near the road. Although not in full spate there is no bridge or other easy way across and the river wasn’t going to be passable without getting our feet fully submersed.
There is an option to walk alongside the A591 however we decided to go for it and cross the river. At the worst we’d have 1 1/2 miles to finish up with wet feet/paws and so that was the option we took. I wouldn’t recommend that option to everyone, and you should always be careful and monitor the level of water in the beck, but for us it was a good decision and we were soon across and on the path proper.
The final stretch of the walk involved a short way across a couple of fields and back into the woods along the same track back to the car which we had followed in the other direction. The last part was the descent back down to Wythburn church and the car for some refreshment before heading back across the A66 to home in the North Pennines.
