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The Fellwalker by Peter John Farnworth
WALK 42 SATURDAY JULY 14th 1990This walk started on the main Penrith to Keswick road (A66) at a lay-by just down the road from the White Horse Inn (you can see more about part of this walk on Walk 25.) We followed the path across the face of Scales Fells, which leads round and along the side of the river Clenderamackin. From here, we continued to follow the river towards it's head, at which point we left the main path to pick up the route to Shape Edge, where we traversed this fine ridge to higher and level ground. At this point the path split into two. To our left the path goes to Blencathra, but we would be going to our right and past Foule Crags. When you stand here you have a very good view of Shape Edge. From here we followed the rim of the fell towards Bannerdale Crags, overlooking Mungrisdale village. From this summit we followed the curve of the fell to Bowscale. These two summits are very quiet places where you don't see many fell walkers, just like today. From Bowscale there are good views over to the Skiddaw range, and Great Calva. They say that when you stand on this summit you can see Windermere (Lake} on a clear day, as there is a deep trough in the landscape from North to South. This is another summit we visited, about which I still have nightmares. See Walk 47, where all will be revealed.
Blencathra is our next stopping-off point on this walk, some one and a half miles away. As we were getting round this very marshy area mid-way between these two summits, I couldn’t help thinking to myself how dangerous it would be if the mist were to come down when walking across here, because it's so flat with no landmarks if you had no compass with you. The walk up to the summit of Blencathra was on the steep side from the Col, with loose slate and scree. But it was well worth it. At the summit was a feast to the eyes. Blencathra’s position, with only low-lying countryside and no other mountains in front of it, allowed us to see over to Clough Head on the Helvellyn range (see Walk 39 for this write up.) Since it was a very clear day, the views where wonderful to see from St John In The Vale, Thirlmere, and down to Keswick. Without doubt we saw some fine views from this summit. For the return journey, we followed the path over Scales Fell, then dropped down in altitude and visited Scales Tarn where we spent a little time looking up at Sharp Edge. This reminded me of standing at Red Tarn under the summit of Helvellyn, when looking at Striding Edge. These two ridges are very much the same type (see Walk 40) and both are well worth walking over. We arrived back at the car with the temperature here well into the high seventies, but all day on the high ground it was warm with a light breeze. Mountains walked that day: Bannerdale Crags 99 Bowscale Fell 86 Blencathra 14 [[]] Diagram & Stats
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