Skiddaw and Bassenthwaite

After a night in Cockermouth, I made an early start for Peter House Farm, heading east into the rising sun.  It was a perfect morning and the hills looked astonishing as I pulled off the main road and headed up the narrow lanes, thinking I wouldn’t like to meet anyone coming the other way (I did on my return later in the day, and it was awful squeezing past them).  It was all quiet and I was the first person to park up in the small layby.  There’s always an eagerness to get going when the day is so good and the land is quiet, I want to have it all to myself.

A tarmac lane led across the fields full of Herdwicks.  Another bloke was walking his dog in the opposite direction to me.  ‘Beautiful day,’ he said.  ‘Aye,’ I replied, ‘Grand.’  A performative northern-ness emerges from me in these encounters, I suppose because I’m trying to assert my rightness to be there, my birth-right possession of the north.  It’s a kind of defensiveness too, a plea to be allowed to walk there.

There was a van parked at the end of the tarmac but no one around.  Just after here I turned off the main track to Skiddaw House and looked for the path up the fellside between Dead Crags and Dead Beck.  It was an official route but looked horrendously steep.  I had chosen it because I had wanted to avoid the horrendous steepness of Birkett Edge and the option of switching routes hovered in my mind.  This was a more direct way though, so I stuck with it.  At first I failed to find any real path and slowly stepped up the grass tussocks almost like climbing a ladder.  It was very hard going but for a while I didn’t feel too bad.  Eventually though my calves started stinging with lactic acid and I started to feel weary, zig-zagging left and right to try and ease the gradient.  Something like a path finally appeared, though it was still as steep, and bit by bit it led me to the top of Bakestall.  The compensation for all this effort was the view, especially to the low-lying country north and west.  The hills of Galloway were perfectly visible, not just the usual sight of Criffel, but something snowy-topped even further north.

The blue sky continued to glow overhead as I trudged up the slopes towards Skiddaw.  The wire fence that took a sharp turn after climbing Birkett Edge was coated in places with rime ice.  Under the glare of the sun, short sections of ice from each individual section of wire had fallen onto the ground, like tumbled icicles or a fancy dessert.

There was still no one around until I approached the summit of Skiddaw, and then the hordes appeared.  Just before I reached the trig point, typically, some woman sat herself down on the base to laze around and hog it to herself.  I contented myself with the topographic pillar and gazed out at the western fells.  Each peak was picked out in perfect clarity, the still-brown slopes folded into the distance.  It would have taken an age to name each one but I let my eye rest on a few and let the memories of the times I had climbed them fill my mind.  There was a slight breeze, making it feel quite chilly, so I stopped behind one of the shelters to eat an apple and to contemplate the view.  I was joined by some noisy southerners who were looking for a geocache, so I packed my bag and moved on.

It was so glorious and, after the assault on Dead End (as I shall name the ascent), I had recovered my energy, so I added a quick out-and-back visit to Skiddaw Little Man.  Again, the reward for this was a superb view, passing even that of Skiddaw itself.  A curl of smoke rose from a field near Applethwaite, Derwent Water glowed a sublime blue, and the hills marched onwards before me.  It was worth the detour.

The drop off towards Sale How was rather boggy, particularly in the col and then nearer the bottom.  A few folk were ascending there as I walked towards Skiddaw House.  Ravens were calling from the faded larches around the building and there were some blokes climbing onto the roof, presumably doing repairs rather than anything nefarious, as I sat down for a bite to eat in a warmer spot.  Skylarks had been singing over the grasslands on my way down, with mighty Skiddaw looming behind, and a brown bird hopped about in front of me, though I couldn’t tell if it was skylark or meadow pipit or something else.

The road back to Dash Falls took me a little way before I branched off to climb Great Calva.  The path was a narrow trod between heather, boggy in places.  At one point I startled a basking lizard, warming itself in the midday sun.  Beneath the heather, sheltered from the sun, puddles were still glazed with ice.  It was a slow slog, but I was pleased my legs weren’t protesting too much, and I could make my way up without feeling I was going over my limit.  The top, nevertheless, was a relief, not just for the end of climbing, but for the views of the lonely countryside at the back of the superstar twins of Blencathra and Skiddaw.  There was a 360° view from the summit, looking north to Great Sca Fell, east down the River Caldew, south to St John’s in the Vale and Dunmail Raise, and west to Skiddaw’s slopes.  If there were people in that landscape, they were lost in its vastness.  I felt lord of all I could see.

The first part of my long walk out was over boggy terrain to the foot of Knott.  Here I turned left down a narrow, craggy, and very beautiful little valley – Hause Beck, AW identifies it as – which led to pastureland lower down.  The path curved around the fellsides in utter tranquillity and I felt I could walk here forever, gentle scenery all around, my legs working perfectly, the sun shining.

Across the road at Orthwaite, I followed the badly signposted Cumbria Way through fields of ewes and lambs, the first I had seen except from a moving vehicle, until I came to Park Wood.  A lot of the trees had been cleared, presumably because they are non-native spruce, and the forestry road I used passed through scenes of desolation and abandonment before dipping down towards the village of Bassenthwaite.  Just on the edge of the village was a little stand of trees with a profusion of celandines underneath them and also some primroses tucked under some banking.

After a refreshing pint or two in the Sun Inn, I finished my walk through more fields full of lambs.  It was surprising to find them so quiet as they usually kick up quite a racket.  Some of them looked very new indeed, not entirely confident in their ability to stand upright.  Some were a little lost, looking for their real mother.  I tried to keep my distance, not to disturb them, even if it was hard to keep moving in the sodden, clay-rich ground.

As I approached my car, I looked up again to the slopes of Skiddaw, still looking marvellous.  I felt that I could do the whole round again, just to be part of those beautiful hills for as long as possible.  If only my legs would have carried me that far.