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" Broom and Lords Seat with The Mob "

Date & start time:      26th January 2025. 9.45 am start.

Location of Start :     Spout Force upper car park, Whinlatter, Cumbria, Uk. ( NY 181 255 ).

Places visited :          Graystones, Broom Fell, Lords Seat, Tarbarrel Moss, Whinlatter, Brown How and back.

Walk details :            7.75 mls, 2380 ft of ascent, 4 hrs 15 mins.

Highest point :           Lords Seat, 1,811ft - 552m.

Walked with :            Peter, myself and Dougal. (I think you need more than three to make a mob ! )

Weather :                  Overcast, grey, windy, cold, forecasting rain at 1pm.

                     

                     

© Crown copyright. All rights reserved. Licence number PU 100034184.

 

The Mockerkin Mob, our local walking group, is rather depleted today partly because Storm Eowyn on Friday left several homes in the valley without power.

Mine returned after 9 hours but others aren't yet re-connected, so as a consequence several potential walkers sent their apologies for this Sunday "A" walk.

Other Mob friends also passed on this outing due to the difficult route and the equally pessimistic weather forecast,

so it was a select band of two and a trusty dog that this select group set out for a winter walk around the Whinlatter Fells.

This was the view Peter captured when he was up here doing a recce for this walk a few days ago.

He encouraged me with the beauty of the view from Barf . . . what could change in three days . . . it will be lovely !

How wrong he was !

- - - o o o - - -

To be fair, the forecast for the morning was okay, cold but with good visibility, but rain was expected after 1pm.

An early start should mean we get a dry walk, or mostly dry at least.

We parked the car at the top 'Spout Force' car park on the Lorton side of Whinlatter Pass.

The view here is of a slightly white Ladyside Pike after overnight sleet and snow.

My fellow walkers today . . . Peter and Dougal.

Note the straight wall and steep climb in the background to this photo . . . it will feature in the ones I took after we had dropped down into the Aiken Beck Valley.

What goes up the other side . . . has to go down this side first . . .
. . . as we make a steep descent from the car park into the valley.

The classic view of Scawgill Bridge.

We could have parked down by the bridge, but the total ascent for the day would have been the same

and it would have meant a steep descent at the end of the walk.

For now, the path we need to climb of Graystones starts from halfway between the wooden gate and the bridge.

- - - o o o - - -

 

 

That wall I highlighted in the previous photo

is the same one that's alongside us now.

 

This route to Graystones summit is unrelenting

but not as steep as the direct ascent of Low Fell

that I did in the snow recently.

 

 

Peter leads the way . . .

otherwise you'd have a less interesting picture

with just the path and the wall.

 

- - - o o o - - -

You can tell its a steep when the walling stone is laid at a significant angle to the ground.

The stile gives access to one of the forest tracks leading across the face of the fell.

The slope eases and so do we.

Chance now to look around at the snow topped north western fells of Grisedale Pike, Hopegill Head and Grasmoor.

They have been becoming more open to view as we climbed.

The weather remains clear and dry as forecasted . . . but they didn't estimate the wind speed very accurately in the forecast.

Up here the wind was cold and blowing sufficiently hard to introduce a significant wind chill.

My attempt at a northerly summit panorama from the top of Graystones, with Lords Seat on the right (the highest ground) being our target for today.

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

The slightly complex gate system at Widow's Hause has perished over the years, and the sheep barrier is now just a simple stile.

There's no dog gate for Dougal so he had to to vault over, which he did by hardly touching the top bar at all.

The stone wall that once was covered in thick, verdant moss is now a cold and bare structure since the trees have been taken away.

The protected micro-climate has gone and the fragile moss succumbed to the cold and winds.

Talking about cold . . . time for a morning coffee as we approach Broom Fell.

Rather than sit by the cairn, we dropped down from the exposed summit ridge into a hollow, where we enjoyed a small measure of protection.

As it happens, the shelter was bigger than we remembered and so would have protected us should we have walked the extra 100 yards.

The cairn is suffering from the high winds as a few of the top stones have been blown down onto the ground.

A very tall man or step ladder would be needed to replace them.

Dougal often likes a ball to play with on his walks. If I haven't brought one then he'd often find a stick to play with.

However I feel this six foot fence post is a little excessive, even for him !

As we approached Lords seat we crossed the 'snow line'.

The path had a crust of frozen sleet which hid the peat bogs and mud, so careful micro-navigation was needed to avoid wet and muddy boots.

Peter stands next to the three iron stumps of old fence posts that define the summit of Lords Seat.

There's not a lot to see today as the cloud base has dropped as a result of the incoming poorer weather.

This was the view looking across to the Whinlatter area, in the direction of our intended route.

Looking back at Lords Seat. (Peter's photo)

The original plan for today was to catch those lovely views from Barf summit . . . but we felt they may not be realised in these poor conditions.

To divert to it would also take extra time on what was a day with a 'rain later' forecast . . . so we opted for a change of route.

Peter had never climbed Whinlatter Fell itself ( the mottled fell opposite with cloud covered Grisedale Pike behind).

To include would turn the route into a more circular shape and gain him a Wainwright Point into the bargain .

So we headed south, onward into the Whinlatter Forest.

The snow covered path curves round towards Ullister Hill, but we'd turn before then.

We'd take the alternative track direct to Tarbarrel Moss and get onto a path that eventually skirts the western edge of the woodland.

Life would have been easier if the Forestry people had not been clearing timber.

Not only was the forest track thick with mud, but newly exposed trees have fallen in the recent gales and have blocked the route in several places.

There's people on the other side so progress was possible and after a short climb up and over the roots, we were on our way again.

Looking north west down the Aiken Beck Valley, towards Graystones and Broom Fell that we'd walked earlier.

The route we took here cleared the forest on the right at a simple stile, passed behind me and curved round to start a short climb up Whinlatter Fell.

Route finding was relatively easy as the path was highlighted by the snow and formed a white line across the fell side, guiding us ever forward.

Just be careful that the white line of wet snow could hide a patch of mud, bog or ice with equal ease.

We both has double trek poles today and we commented that they had been useful all the way round, from helping with the climbs, leaning into the wind when it gusted,

catching your balance when the foot slid on ice or mud and generally testing the ground as were walking along.

Oh yes, I forgot that they even got used to point out distant landmarks when the visibility allowed.

The view from Whinlatter summit, a new fell top for Peter today.

To view of the Whinlatter road far below did need a slight diversion to the edge of the steep ground.

Peter's photo of me consulting the O.S. map on my phone.

It was a bit cold and windy to get a paper version out of the rucksack and I was only after the name of the next minor summit on the ridge.

The whole spur of the fell which heads north is shown on the map as Darling How.

The small summit shelter just visible in the photo is that of Brown How, part way along the ridge.

Time now, about five minutes to one.

Five minutes past one and the weather weather forecast had come true, spot on time.

The snow was fortunately falling on our backs rather than in our face but as time went on it changed to sleet then rain.

Brown How shelter offered little protection from the strong southerly squalls, but we were not in need of a stop anyway.

The coffee we had earlier meant that we could put off lunch till we reached the shelter of the car at the end of the walk.

Historic clearance on the end of Darling How has opened up the fell and a new path down has been established.

There was now an easy route down to the first of the forest tracks next to the lower trees.

Still raining now as we reached the forest track.

It would have been nice to cut down through the field this side of the wall, but there was no path available.

Instead we had to take a half mile detour to get down to that same point just a hundred yards below us.

This put a little kink in the circle as that's Broom Fell and Lords Seat on the skyline ahead.

Fortunately the rain had now eased as we made our misty way past Darling How Farm and back to the car.

It had been a hard walk in the conditions, but an enjoyable one nevertheless. Thanks Peter.

- - - o o o - - -

Technical note: Pictures taken with my iPhone 11pro mobile phone camera.

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

This site best viewed with . . . a successful outcome after a change of plans.

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Previous event - 23rd January 2025 - Loweswater's Burns Supper 2025

A previous time up here - 4th June 2021 The Whinlatter Fells in sunshine

Next walk - 30th January 2025 - Friars Crag and Castle Head