Ups and Downs in the Green Rolling Hills of Wythop

Day 32 – Friday 24 April. I should have mentioned that Slight Side, Wednesday’s last top, was Mike’s 100th top on this walk. It clearly had no effect on inspiring a quiz win against Fleetwood but a great milestone nevertheless!

What looks like an easy day often turns out not to be so, and this was a typical example. None of the North Western fells in the area North of Whinlatter Pass and West of Bassenthwaite is all that high – Lord’s Seat is top of the list at 1811’ – but most of them stand alone and so a good deal of height needs to be gained per top. Still, the soft grassy and heathery tops made a nice change after the harsh rocky environments of Wasdale - Scafell, Great Gable and the like.

Starting from the Forestry Commission centre at Whinlatter, where Siskins were enjoying the massive birdseed feeders, we were unsure of the route to the top of our first fell, Whinlatter (1696’). As a rule, men never ask directions, but I learnt a few years ago that this is a big disadvantage and learnt to be brave and ask. So although the Centre was closed, there was a man just getting out of his car to walk his dog, looking for all the world like this was a daily routine, and it turned out that he knew the area well. So with confident directions we headed through the woods, past all the signs about Red Squirrels, and were at the top within 35 minutes.

We dropped down from the summit to forest tracks which I may well have travelled along at high speed when competing on the RAC Rally many years ago. Today was slower but hardly less leisurely as we pressed on towards the very steep finish to Graystones (1476’). Down again to a marshy valley and up through thick heather to the top of the aptly named Ling Fell (1224’). It’s usually at around this point that I start thinking we could be finished before 3 o’clock, but somehow it never works out this way!

Down to the public road near Beck Wythop, which I have also travelled along before, but this time on two wheels on the C2C cycle route with Val, and up to the long top of Sale Fell (1170’), before a long trek through green fields with newly-arrived Swallows flitting around farm buildiings, before the much longer climb up to Broom Fell, where at 1670’ someone has gone to a lot of trouble to build a massive stone cairn to BS1685 (Cairns and other Stone Monuments, amended 1991). Was that a Cuckoo I heard? Before writing to The Times, we carried along the ridge to the highest point of the day, Lord’s Seat, at 1811’.

Now don’t laugh, but the final top of the day was Barf. Now this might sound like something out of Monty Python, or a euphemism for various functions which this Blog is far too genteel to mention, but at 1536’ this is quite a fine hill with a grand façade overlooking The Swan Hotel at Thornthwaite. Or what used to be The Swan, as it now seems to be closed. The steep descent, past the white-painted ‘Bishop of Barf’ (definitely not a euphemism) was hard on the knees, and with the Royal Oak at Braithwaite only a couple of miles away it would have been a crime not to go in and see whether Allan Boardman’s friends were there after their regular Friday walk. Shock Horror, when we arrived they weren’t there. But after only two minutes they’d arrived, after a day in the Langdales, so normality was resumed.

180 down, 34 to go. Will the weather hold? Will the knees keep going?

We returned to Allan and Sandra’s in Cockermouth, where we have been billeted in fine style recently, and took them out for a meal at the Royal Yew (not the same as the ‘Royal We’) at Dean (very nice) followed by a visit to the incomparable Black Cock (‘Annies’) at Eaglesfield: the Landlady (Annie, of course) is 85 and has been running the pub for sixty, yes SIXTY years. One small bar, a fireplace (newly cleared of nesting Jackdaw) and outside toilet, just like a real pub ought to be. But better not drink too much, we’ve a hard day tomorrow including the England’s highest mountain under 3,000’.

Photos: (at last!) 1. Yours truly at the summit of Whinlatter, Grisedale Pike and Hopegill Head in the background; 2. Ling Fell; 3. Naked tree roots; 4. Barf from Lord's Seat.