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Date & start time: Saturday 28th February 2009. 11 am start.

Location of Event : The Bowder Stone car park, Borrowdale, Cumbria, Uk ( NY 253 168 )

Places visited : The Bowder Stone, King's How, Grange Fell, Joppelty How, descending via Long Moss.

Walk details : 4.1 ml, 1500 ft of ascent, 4 hours 10 mins.

Highest point : Grange Fell (Brund Fell) 1,345ft ( 410m)

Walked with : Sara, Jo, John, Ann and the dogs, Jodie, Polly, Harry and Bethan.

Weather : Low cloud, a strong breeze, cold and damp . . . It should improve . . . but didn't !

Parking at the Bowder Stone car park . . .

 

A Saturday walk and it turned out to be a damp one.

We rejected Mosses Trod and Kirk Fell in favour of a low level walk in Borrowdale.

King's How was our first objective and we'd see where we would get to from there.

Our second car park of the day, the first one being a bit damp and uninviting.

John, Ann, Sara and myself . . . the team . . . photo courtesy of Jo, our other member today.

Put it on top of a fell it would be called a mighty Howitzer and people would queue up to climb it.

Down here it's just a another rock structure in the old slate quarry.

The path to the Bowder Stone . . .
. . . with views across the valley to Castle Crag.

Our first objective, the popular tourist spot of The Bowder Stone.

In the rain and away from school holidays there were few people here today.

The ladder allowing access to the top of the "Stone".

Sara climbs the ladder which provides easy access to the rather slippery top.

Two lads try a more challenging way up.

Harry watches from the top of the adjacent bank after climbing the ladder too.

Next to the Bowder Stone is another stone obelisk, mounted vertically on top of the rock.

Anyone any ideas as to why it is there ?

The Bowder Stone from the obelisk.
From a little further up the valley, we start our main climb.

We look down on the upper Borrowdale Valley as we head for the summit of King's How, .

Out into the open, we follow the dramatic fell wall upward.

Circling round we near the summit

and look across at the Troutdale Pinnacle and the Borrowdale crags a short distance away.

Bethan reaches the summit cairn on King's How.

Behind, the poor weather is reflected in the damp view of Derwent Water and distant Skiddaw.

The Grange Fells from the top of King's How.

Once everyone reached the top, we would back-track and then take the path across to Brund Fell opposite.

The distant wall in close up as the dogs climb the ladder stile on the way to the top.

Recent improvements have made the old, rotten stile redundant.

The summit rocks close to the top of Brund Fell.

The many tops of Grange Fell.

Click here or on the photo above for a wider annotated panorama.

We move across to the delightfully named Joppelty How . . . Here I look down from the rocky summit.

The weather up here was very breezy and the cold, damp conditions were not the best.

Where are they off to now ?

They look a bit damp and cold to me !

A change of plans saw us backtracking towards King's How

and then taking the path down Long Moss, back towards Borrowdale.

The pitched path down through the woods . . .
. . . giving us views of Derwent Water below.

Circling round below King's How, we pass another large boulder

Another erratic possibly, but no where near as big as the Bowder Stone.

As we cross the damp ground above Grange Woods, we see Castle Crag once again.

Another boulder lies below the crags as we make our way back to the car at the end of the walk.

- - - o o o - - -

The weather had brought cold, damp conditions and so we cut short our walk at Jopplety How.

Shame though this was . . . it did mean that we had a little spare time at the end of our walk . . .

Cheers . . . courtesy of the Grange Tearooms !

- - - o o o - - -

 

Technical note: Pictures taken with with my Cannon G7 or Ann's Ixus 75 Digital camera.

Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder.

This site best viewed with . . . a spare ten pound note in your jacket in case you just happen come across a tearoom or pub !

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© RmH.2009 # Email me here # or leave me a Guest Book Entry

Previous walk - 24th February 2009 Crag Fell with Dave and Josie

A previous time up here - 15th October 2003 Kings How and Bowder Stone with Layla and Holly

 

Stop Press . . . a follow up message just received :

Hi Roger and Ann ... Lovely walk, shame about the weather.

I have a very old Lake District book that mentions Joseph Pocklington "developing" the site around the Bowder Stone in the late 1790's and erecting a druid stone. Could that be the obelisk you saw there?

I haven't been to the Bowder Stone since I was a small child although we go to the Lakes every year. I think my two boys would enjoy a visit. Thanks for reminding me.

Karen, Sussex.