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The Fellwalker by Peter John Farnworth
WALK 38 FRIDAY OCTOBER 13th 1989Friday 13th. Was it going to be a good day, or a bad day? We soon found out! Our starting point was at Greendale near Wastwater, and the target summits were Haycock, Caw Fell, and Seatallan. Some who read this may never have heard of these places or been on them. But a word of caution. This is a very remote place and I would not recommend that you go alone. If you had accident here on your own it would be weeks before anybody would find you. Even on this walk we saw only two fell walkers all day between the hours of 9.30am and 5.00pm, and they were maybe one mile away from us. I picked them out with my binoculars as they were going towards Scoat Fell, which is near Pillar. As I have said before in the diary, if you walk alone leave a note with someone, or on your car windscreen. But back to the tale. We parked the car on the side road, just off the main road going to Wasdale Head. The walk up from the road to Greendale Tarn was very interesting, with an easy approach. When you leave the Tarn and head to the first summit, Haycock, which you can see in the distance, the path fades away and you have to cross very marshy ground for a while (no way around it.) This area, from the Tarn to Haycock, could be very dangerous if the mist were to come down, so care should be taken. This is open ground and featureless. As we approached Haycock to maybe within 500 yards, we could see the crags and the rocks which lay under the summit to the right, but we also observed to the left a grass shelf or path-way. By following this, it brought us to the summit. When standing here you can see the remoteness of the place. Haycock is so removed from the other summits and it's so quiet here you can hear the grass grow (you may not believe me, but it's true!) This is the last of the high mountains within this area of fells, from here it's low lying hills and countryside before open sea can be seen. As we turn round, we can see over towards the Ennerdale Fells and from Steeple the ridge follows the rim of the fell round to Pillar.
From this summit we followed an easy path, with more open views of the surrounding countryside as we approached Caw Fell. I would think few fell walkers come to this summit, other than people like ourselves on a mission. Our original intention was to return to Haycock, then drop down and pick up the path to Seatallan. Part way back along this route, I thought we could cut across the face of Haycock, which would save us some time, as the evening was closing in on us and we had another summit to climb. It was only when we were half way down the fell side, that we came across all these out-crops (small rocks) which were everywhere. Going this way made it more difficult for us, but we found a way down to level ground. From this point it was a hard climb to the summit of Seatallan. I was just feeling the legs as we reached the top, but that soon left me as we were greeted with a wonderful view (time now 3.25pm.) As we moved closer to the summit we could see the sun slowly sinking over the horizon, giving the sea that little sparkle you would see on small fairy lights when flashing on and off. It made a wonderful view, the icing on the cake. This was another summit with an Ordnance Survey post, so Friday 13th was our lucky day after all, as we were rewarded with that grand spectacle at the end of a very rewarding day. The following day, we visited Sellafield (BNFL), which we enjoyed very much. Mountains walked that day: Haycock 35 Caw Fell 89 Seatallan 94 [[]] Diagram & Stats
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