Haweswater High-Level Horseshoe: 23rd July 2024

Burnbanks - Measand End - High Raise - Rampsgill Head - Kidsty Pike - High Street - Mardale Ill Bell - Harter Fell - Branstree - Selside Pike - boggy hell - Naddle Farm

About 27km

There are moments on walks where you feel you are in exactly the right place, doing exactly the right thing.  Standing on High Raise, overlooking Haweswater and High Street, with views stretching dozens of miles in all directions, I had that feeling.  The initial low cloud had dispersed and the sky was brightening.  I had rocks beneath my feet and most of the climbing was done for the day.  Folds of mountains rippled away to the west, familiar shapes, familiar friends.  It felt ideal.  These moments certainly don’t come on every walk but they are the ones we are looking for, when all the quotidian clamour of our lives reduces to background noise and we can find some peace.

For weeks, it had seemed, I had been waiting for a weather window that coincided with demands upon my time.  There were no meetings booked on the Tuesday and the weather looked good, so I was off.  The car park at Burnbanks, at the foot of Haweswater Dam, isn’t very big, so I took breakfast with me to get there earlier.  While drinking coffee, courtesy of my Alpkit Brukit, and eating my muesli, I watched red squirrels dash down to the feeder in the garden in front of me.  I have found it a reliable place to spot them.

Burnbanks

With breakfast over I could head off along the north shore path, really good going and attractive, but only supplying limited views of the lake and hills.  What I could see was that the tops were still in cloud.  I had to trust the forecast that they would all clear eventually.  After a short while I turned right for a stiff climb alongside Measand Beck with its multiple waterfalls (‘the Forces’, OS labels them, which made me wish for a companion called Luke so I could make a hilarious joke).  A brief level section led to the first test of the day, Measand End.  It looked as though there was a path zig-zagging up but it was rather choked with bracken and, having struggled through some earlier, I opted to go for the direct ascent.  Maybe it was my enthusiasm or maybe I’m out of hill practice, but it wasn’t half steep.  I puffed and blew my way up, thinking that I would have to use one of my get-out clauses later to cut the walk shorter.  If I was going to feel like this all day, the full route wasn’t going to be fun.

The Forces of Measand Beck

Haweswater

At least the views were nice.  The glance up Fordingdale Bottom somehow reminded me of remote Scottish glens, a reminiscence made stronger when, on the gentler slopes of Low Grain, I saw a small herd of deer, maybe around eight of them.  They tolerated my approach for a while before one made a break and the others followed.  I was reminded of Kathleen Jamie, ‘Aren’t we / The bonniest companie? / Come to me, / You’ll be happy but never go home.’  It was quiet with empty hills and ridges rolling away around me.  The cloud was slowly rising and the wind picked up a little as I reached Low Raise’s dramatically large cairn where I stopped for food and an extra layer.

Deer on Long Grain

By the time I reached High Raise, the pain of Measand End was almost forgotten.  The air was clear all around me and I could feel smug that Helvellyn and friends, plus the north-west fells and the far Pennines, were still capped in cloud.  To the south-west I could see all the way to Langdale, the Scafells and Great Gable’s distinctive top.  Nearer at hand were spokes of ridges and valleys and all kinds of enticing prospects.

Riggindale

High Street from Kidsty Pike

It was around two hours into the walk, as I was descending the top that I saw my first other people of the day.  In fact I think I saw fewer than 20 people in the whole 7.5hrs I was out for.  The next few kilometres were a pure delight, enjoying those far-reaching views to all the fells, Morecambe Bay, the Vale of Lune.  Having thought I would pack in early, I was now feeling full of energy and ready to bounce around all day.  Thank you, endorphins.  A deserted High Street summit came and went.  A few more people came past the other way.  A woman with an eager but well-disciplined spaniel (they exist?) sat at Nan Bield Pass.  The climb up Harter Fell was slow and steady.  Summit slugs occupied the top like it was theirs.  A bloke was pushing his bike up from Gatesgarth the other side.  I suppose he might have made his way through the boulders on top but he would be pushing it back down then up the steps onto Mardale Ill Bell.

Small Water from Nan Bield Pass

Wainwright describes the ascent of Branstree as ‘tedious’.  He was right was old Alf, it was a slog.  I just plodded up and was glad when the climbing stopped.  At this point I managed to delete the entire route so far on my GPS watch, meaning I don’t know exactly how far I walked or how much I climbed.  My anger management issues flared up and I threw my walking poles to the ground.  That’ll teach ‘em.  Deep breaths and deliberate focus on the wonderful walk so far gradually brought me, still cursing, round as I squelched my way towards Selside Pike.

Bog asphodel

The path from the Pike to the Old Corpse Road was fine but the acres of bog asphodel kind of intimated what was now in store.  The rest of the ridge is dotted with some of AW’s Outlying Fells, over which I had hoped to travel.  But there was no sign of any paths which left me the only option of bog-trotting, tussock-tripping and heather-stumbling my way over to, first, Hare Shaw.  It was exhausting work and very slow going (it took me 90 minutes to do 4.5km).  Doesn’t anyone tick these off?  It didn’t get any better to Powley’s Hill (not an AW OF, though I may have made sounds like that), picking up fragments of deer trods that vanished into bogs or led the wrong direction.  The minor compensation was spotting tiny sundews down amongst the asphodel.  They look so alien and are a joy to find.

Sundew

My way to Harper Hills was blocked by a wire fence.  Although not barbed, I didn’t want to damage it so backtracked through even boggier terrain to what I guessed would be a way through.  Not only that, it was a track, a proper track, that I could walk along like I wasn’t a toddler discovering walking for the first time.  I trotted up to the summit and sat down on a rock for a lump of flapjack and to gather myself together.  It really had been a lot worse than expected and I’m pretty sure I won’t make a return visit.  I think it would be easier to follow the Corpse Road into Swindale and climb back over again later on.  It was a pleasant viewpoint, all the same, with woods, grazed fields and the crags in Swindale.

Harper Hills

Ahead lay more lumps and bumps, out of which I couldn’t pick my next OF, Scalebarrow Knott.  Never mind, I piled on along the ATV track, past my return path and up the few metres to the ‘summit’.  Tick.  Move along.  There was a steep descent on a good path, jarring my joints, then a minor diversion around Naddle Farm before I hit the Mardale Head road.  Haweswater Beck seemed rather benign when you think about the gigantic volume of water sitting in the reservoir above it.  I guess you get used to the idea of living beneath it as it doesn’t bear thinking about.  It had survived almost 100 years so you must tell yourself it will continue to do so.

Scalebarrow Knott

The final part was through a lovely woodland, no doubt full of bluebells in season, and popular with the locals, judging by the maze of tracks that ran through it, and back into the car park, glad to get my boots off and to sit down.  Before driving home I took the opportunity for a pint of Loweswater Gold and a steak pie in the excellent Mardale Inn in Bampton.

Like any day, it had been one of contrasts.  From the lung-bursting ascent of Measand End, and the energy- and spirit-sapping clamber around Hare Shaw to the glory of the high peaks and the lushness of the lowland scenery.  I knew that in time the memory of the hardships would fade, except as a footnote for future planning, and that the wonderful moments would shine out.  Those are the ones that keep me coming back.