Western Fells

Skip past Great Gable to:

• Pillar and its neighbours
• The High Stile ridge

Great Gable and its neighbours

It’s quite common to use Green Gable as a mere stepping stone to its more famous neighbour, but almost 50 years after climbing the Great, I found a way to make Green the centrepiece of a fine and varied walk. This section also records my ascent of Kirk Fell; the hause between it and Great Gable is rather higher than that between it and Pillar.

Friday 14 June 1974. Great Gable (2949ft) from Styhead Tarn.

This was the last ‘action’ of my introductory Mountain Leadership course. We’d walked up to Styhead Tarn from Seathwaite the night before, for a wild camp. All very delectable, but it didn’t spark the wild camping bug in me, in fact all I can remember of the first night was asking for aspirin from the group leader.

How did we get there? Probably straight up Aaron Slack, rather than the Breast aka Tourist Route. We definitely got down via the Gable Girdle, with its sensational rock scenery. After striking camp, I remember walking very fast, compared to most of the group, back down to Seathwaite, and was told that I had ‘passed’.

It didn’t take me long to decide not to proceed to the final assessment because (a) I’d got lucky on the night navigation and didn’t reckon that would happen again (b) I never expected to master the knot work, and I never planned to be anywhere that I’d need it.

There’s a brief easing of gradient before the next difficulty in the ascent of Base Brown (2119ft): one needs to find a way round its northern precipices. The key is an immense resting boulder, the Hanging Stone. Pass beneath it; there are bits of path, though not, from what I could tell, quite in the places that the OS Explorer map puts them.

Base Brown to Green Gable (2628ft) is by contrast a doddle, joining an over-cairned path (the Honister – Great Gable path) soon after the depression and with gentle gradients to the summit. It’s a good viewpoint though, south and west obviously blocked by Great but Ennerdale, separating the Pillar and High Stile ridges, particularly fine.

Next up is Brandreth (2346ft) to the north, back down the over-cairned path for a while but after Gillercomb Head, with its group of little tarns, diverging from it to the top. Two 30ish couples were here, debating the merits of iPhones rather than revelling in the scenery.

From Brandreth things change. The Honister – Gable path is regained as it contours around Warnscale Head, the valley coming up from Buttermere, and you’re heading into slate mining territory – it’s still going on, as will soon become apparent.

Indeed my immediate target was not a hill but a bothy. There are two here: one named Warnscale Head, but a bit lower down than my route was going, and the second Dubs Hut, an old miners’ hut which was to be my lunch stop.

It’s not difficult from here to climb my final hill of the day, Fleetwith Pike (2126ft). It’s renowned for its view of Buttermere, with a sharp ridge falling directly down to the lake head.

I don’t like sharp downhill ridges much though, and anyway Buttermere was the wrong way for me. It seemed from the map straightforward enough to drop down the Pike’s SE ridge but it’s a complex little affair and I kept losing the path.

Eventually I joined the track to the still-working mine, and a short break at Honister Hause. This is a contentious place these days, as the mine owner keeps pushing the boundaries not so much of the mine but the outdoor pursuits he offers. There’s via ferrata – quite fancied a go, tbh – and zip wire, but the zip wire would have been far more intrusive if he’d had half a chance. Plus, there’s a dreadful bit of doggerel extolling his little Englander sentiments.

It’s an easy road walk down from the Hause to Seatoller, but that’s not a fun way to go. There is an old road, now part of the Coast-to-Coast walk, but it heads to Rosthwaite not Seatoller, so after a while I left it to go through a likely-looking gate over the road for a more direct line through rough pasture. It worked, but I had to climb a couple of gates, so I don’t reckon many come this way.

Turn right instead of left from the Pass and Kirkfell Crags immediately impose themselves. Indeed, while the route to Pillar is relatively gentle, that to Kirk Fell is far more complex, though old iron posts help keep you on track. It’s a bit scrambly from time to time, but not too long before you’re on Kirk Fell’s plateau.

It’s not exactly a plateau, in all honesty, but it does boast two Hewitt tops, the main west top (2631ft) and the lower east top (2581ft). A couple of fell runners joined me on the main top; they’d been over Pillar, they said, and were now heading for Great Gable. That’s probably two days with a wild camp walk for me now, not just a single run.

For Great Gable looks solid from here, though from the Beckhead Tarn col with Kirk Fell there’s a regular ascent path, indeed one regularly used to climb Gable from Wasdale Head.

For me of course that would be my descent path. It’s rather stony in the upper reaches, but becomes grassy when it reaches Gavel Neese, essentially the SW ridge of Gable.

All in all, not the longest Lakeland round, at a just under 4½ hours, but in today’s perfect weather it was full of glorious mountain scenery.

Pillar and its neighbours

It took me a long time to get to these hills, despite their fine reputation – 2024, in fact.

Why so long? Perhaps most simply, ease of access, or its lack. Ennerdale makes perhaps the best approach, with Wasdale a close second. Notoriously, they are devoid of public transport, so for one like me travelling from the south, that either means a long drive or a lot of imagination. I chose the second.

The initial plan was to spend three days here after the West Highland Way in May ’24, with a wild camp and night at Wasdale Head. The weather truncated that down to a single night at Wasdale Hall YHA, so I looked for a weather window later that year, and found it in October.

Not that this wasn’t a little fraught, thanks to a three-hour train delay at Preston on the way up. It scuppered my plans for a bothy night at Dubs Hut, but not thankfully the walk over Pillar itself.

Not far from the buildings at Honister, a helpful sign to ‘Great Gable and Haystacks’ points the way to the old tramway that runs in a dead-straight line to Dubs Hut. Just before its summit, I veer off below Grey Knotts, soon reversing the path I had taken to Fleetwith Pike a year before.

But not for long. I’m aiming for the steep climb down by Loft Beck, losing an early 1000ft in the process – and, incidentally, turning a day with 4000+ft of ascent into a day with 5000+ft of descent. This will become relevant later on.

The beck joins the River Liza in Ennerdale, and the map shows a bridge, but it’s clearly long gone. The river crossing could be an issue, but not today. Just down here is the famous Black Sail Hut hostel, and at one stage I’d thought of staying over there, but the YHA have a mean-spirited policy of not letting rooms to groups of less than four.

Over the river, Black Sail Pass goes well enough, and as I reach the summit I meet a pair of climbers looking for routes on Pillar’s famous crags.  They soon take the traverse below the summit, I aim for the summit of Pillar itself (2926ft). On a just above-average day, ie moderate winds, high enough cloud and barely a sniff of rain, there’s nobody else here, and I must say I was rather surprised.

There’s a sharp drop off the summit into Wind Gap, and with it the merest hint of a tweak in the left knee. It disappears up to Black Crag (2717ft), one of those rarities a Hewitt that was not singled out by Wainwright. The going is easy from here to Scoat Fell (2766ft), the summit of which is an uncairned rock just east of the Wainwright top.

It’s here that I meet a couple of about my age; we’re making for the same route to Wasdale. I make Red Pike (2717ft) before them, but we’re soon together again as we head for Yewbarrow. The knee means I’m slower descending now, and I’ve a decision to make: climb Yewbarrow, if so how, or just head down to Wasdale.

My plan had always been to take the scramble of Stirrup Crag to the hill’s north top (2023ft). I can clearly see it, but it’s late on a long route, my knee hurts, and I’ve got a bit more than a day pack (food and sleeping stuff for the non-bothy night included). Clearly the scramble would be foolish. My companions tell me of the ‘traverse path’ – a line that stays high on the fell and then branches up to the col of the ridge. Being so close, whatever the discomfort, it seems a line worth taking.

The couple are well ahead of me by now, and I see them head for the south top (2063ft). At the col though I stash my sack and tick off the north before meeting them just below the south. After the latter summit, it’s a steep climb down towards Wastwater; I know it’s going to take some time. Two miles, in fact, and roughly 90 minutes.

But things aren’t too bad on the road by the lake, and the Wasdale Head Inn is a welcoming place at twilight.

A mile beyond, I met the mighty Ennerdale Fence. It’s a drystone wall, mostly well up to head height, so there’s a decision to be made as to which side to walk. I didn’t think too much about this as I met it, reasoning that if a summit was on the other side, there would these days be a helpful ladder-stile or similar.

Not though on the first Hewitt, Iron Crag (2100ft). Clearly I wasn’t the first person to be in the wrong place, as a stone or two had been taken out of the very top, so gingerly I climbed across – I was with full pack from the WHW, remember.

Thankfully, there were helpful stone placements at the next wall-crossing, above Silver Cove, and by the time I needed a third the wall had degenerated significantly. There was rock scenery for the first time too, Little Gowder Crag inviting either scramble or bypass, which to me meant bypass.

A feature of the day was the almost total absence of wind, a rarity in the mountains. This wasn’t though a help on the top of Haycock (2618ft), designated lunch stop and high point of the day, for the midges were out. At least I had my bottle of Smidge, bought two days before after a distressing encounter at Kinlochleven. I managed to leave it on the summit too, but there were walkers headed to the top from the east, so they may well have been delighted.

Haycock is in essence the last distinctive summit of the Pillar ridge, but my route lay south. This is potentially tricky, for there’s the not-so-little version of Gowder Crag to be avoided. I did one of those rare things for me, consult the guidebook. It took me to the first helpful cairn but the second was nowhere in sight, so I had to freelance a bit, taking care not to stray to my left. I soon picked up the regular descent path and headed for the saddle of the Pots of Ashness, where I might have wild camped had the forecast been better.

Above the saddle, Seatallan (2270ft) has a broad grassy top, and would have been an even better wild camp spot were it not for a few more midges. I tramped about a bit to make sure I found the high point – it’s not the trig point or wind shelter, but close to a small cairn to their north.

The descent is easy, by a thin but clear path heading south into Greendale. I was soon beside Wast Water, gazing over to the Screes on the far bank and wondering that there was a path through them, taking in the great view towards the mountains at its head, then turning my steps to the Wasdale Hall youth hostel. It was something of a time warp back to how hostels used to be, just without the youth.

Of this pass, Wainwright says:

Because of the boggy crossing of Mosedale Head this approach is not attractive and cannot be recommended.

From the summit, it’s straightforward enough, up to Starling Dodd (2077ft), then Red Pike (2477ft) and High Stile (2648ft). From here we dropped down to Scarth Gap, where many turn right back to Buttermere, but we continued over Haystacks.

Though at around 1900ft it is not a Hewitt – not a term that had even been coined back then – Haystacks was in many ways the highlight of the day. It’s a beautiful little cameo of a fell, a couple of little tarns, rocky outcrops here and there, and a clever little path to pass between them. No wonder Wainwright chose it for his ashes.

Descent was by way of Warnscale Bottom. It had been a sort of nondescript weather day but now the clouds were lowering oppressively, and I can remember looking at the crag rising above us – it must have been Striddle Crag, on Fleetwith Pike – and being pleased not to be there when the weather broke.