Tag Archives: Foxes Tarn

This Is My Church

Scafell & Scafell Pike via Lord’s Rake, the West Wall Traverse and Foxes Tarn

Wainwright declared Scafell Crag, “the greatest display of natural grandeur in the district”, and climbing pioneer, Owen Glynne Jones, thought the Pinnacle “the finest bit of rock scenery in the Scawfell massif”. I set off for Lord’s Rake and the West Wall Traverse to experience these breathtaking crags up close. In the golden hour before dusk, I scramble down Foxes Tarn Gully and up on to Scafell Pike, where sunshine and snow make for a sublime experience.

In our porch are two walking sticks, rough-hewn and robust, cut for hiking.  Metal badges decorate their shafts, testimony to myriad adventures; they depict summits, stags, viaducts and mountain villages, and bear Alpine names like Brienzer Rothorn, Grimsel Furka, Jochpass and Brünig. The sticks belonged to Sandy’s great uncles, Tom and Arthur, brothers who shared a love of fell walking, mountaineering and ice-climbing. In the 1940’s, to heed the call of the Alps was to embrace a British passion that was less than a hundred years old.

The Victorians turned mountaineering into a pastime. Alfred Wills’s ascent of the Wetterhorn in 1854 opened the Golden Age of Alpinism, which culminated with Edward Whymper’s ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. A Silver Age followed, which ended in 1882 when William Woodman Graham reached the summit of the Giant’s Tooth.

Four years later, a new sport was born here, in the English Lake District, when Walter Parry Haskett-Smith climbed Napes Needle, a free standing rock pinnacle on the side of Great Gable. To climb the Needle served no mountaineering purpose. It was rock climbing as sport in its own right. The notion caught on, spearheaded by men like Haskett-Smith and John Robinson, and fostered by the formation of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in 1906.

Of these early pioneers, one man did perhaps more than any other to fan the flames of interest.  His name was Owen Glynne Jones, and what set him apart from his peers was not so much his climbing prowess, remarkable though it was, but the engaging way he wrote about it.  Demand for Jones’s book, Rock Climbing in the English Lake District, soon outstripped its initial 1897 publication run.

Abraham Brothers postcard of the Scafell Pinnacle
Abraham Brothers postcard of the Scafell Pinnacle (but is it Owen on the top?)

The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs by the Abraham Brothers of Keswick. George and Ashley Abraham were accomplished climbers, but they were photographers by profession, and their startling images of the Lakes graced many a contemporary postcard. They accompanied Jones on several climbs, but two, in particular, stood out:

“Two climbs with Mr. Jones are most strongly impressed on our memories, and these two would probably rank as the two finest rock climbs made in our district. These are the Scawfell Pinnacle from the second pitch in Deep Ghyll in 1896, and the conquest of the well-known Walker’s Gully on the Pillar Rock in January, 1899. Both of these were generally considered impossible, and it is probably no exaggeration to say that no leader excepting Mr. Jones would have had the confidence to advance beyond the ledge where the last arête commenced on the Scawfell Pinnacle climb.”

Jones describes the Pinnacle as;

“the finest bit of rock scenery in the Scawfell massif. It rises up some 600 feet from the foot of Lord’s Rake in steep and almost unclimbable slabs of smooth rock, forming the left-hand boundary of Deep Ghyll and the right of Steep Ghyll.” 

The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress, Scafell Crag
The Pisgah Buttress and the Pinnacle, Scafell Crag

You don’t have to be a climber to be swept along by the power, humour and joie de vivre in Jones’s writing. His account of their assault on the Pinnacle is a particular highlight:

“My companions were holding an animated discussion below on the subject of photography. The light was excellent, and our positions most artistic. The cameras were left in the cave at the foot of the ghyll. Ashley was afraid I meant to go up without him; but his professional instinct got the better of his desire to climb, and, shouting out to us to stay where we were for five minutes, he ran round to the high-level traverse on the other side of the ghyll, and down the Lord’s Rake to the cavern. George had the tripod screw and could not hand it to his brother; so, asking me to hold him firmly with the rope, he practised throwing stones across the gully to the traverse. Then, tying the screw to a stone, he managed to project this over successfully…

“‘Mr. Jones! I can’t see you, your clothes are so dark.’ I apologised. ‘Will you step out a foot or two from that hole?’  I was in a cheerful mood and ready to oblige a friend, but the platform was scarcely two feet square, and to acquiesce was to step out a few hundred feet into Deep Ghyll. For this I had not made adequate preparation and told him so.”

In 1898, Jones and G. T. Walker broke new ground on the Pinnacle. Contemporary climbing practice favoured ascending chimneys, cracks and gullies, but Jones and Walker went straight up the face of the buttress above Lord’s Rake.

The Lord’s Rake, Scafell. The Pinnacle forms the left hand wall.

In 1903, an attempt to do something similar ended in tragedy for R. W. Broadrick, A. E. W. Garrett, H. L. Jupp, and S. Ridsdale. The men were roped together, so when the leader fell, they all did.  At the time, it was the worst climbing accident ever to have occurred in Britain.

The news never reached Jones. He was already dead. He had perished four years earlier, attempting to climb Dent Blanche in the Swiss Alps. A second edition of his book was published posthumously. It contains a poignant memoir from W. M. Crook, who had spoken with Jones just the day before. When Crook had asked him about the ambitious schedule he had set himself, Jones had replied:

“‘You see there are only a few years in which I can do this sort of thing, and I want to get as much into them as possible.’ Alas! Owen Jones had not twenty four hours more; the years were ended.”

At the foot of Lord’s Rake, a humble cross, carved into the rock face, serves as a memorial to Broadrick, Garrett, Jupp and Risdale. It takes me a while to find. It’s deliberately unobtrusive, respectful of the prevailing notion that the mountains should remain unsullied by the mark of man.

In 1730, the political philosopher, Montesquieu, had written, “there is no religion in England.” The Age of Reason had swept godliness aside, at least in intellectual circles, but it had left a spiritual vacuum, which the Romantics filled with the idea of the sublime—the notion that some experiences, and some landscapes, possess such inherent magnificence, such grandeur, such terror even, that they take us utterly beyond ourselves. Scottish glaciologist, James Forbes, wrote of finding the bodies of mountaineers in the Alps:

“The effect on us all was electric… we turned and surveyed, with a stranger sense of sublimity than before, the desolation by which we were surrounded, and became still more sensible of our isolation from human dwellings, human help and human sympathy…We are men, and we stand in the chamber of death”

A skeleton lies at the foot of the rake, not far from the cross. It was once a sheep, but its front legs are missing, giving the strange impression of a velociraptor. Even a dinosaur would be millennia younger than “towering rampart of shadowed crags” that rise all around. The words are Wainwright’s, and he goes on to declare the Scafell crags “the greatest display of natural grandeur in the district”. Today, an early blanket of snow helps illuminate their every nook and cranny. Upper shoulders are bejewelled with glittering crystals of ice, and they conspire to trick the imagination with chameleon forms. The curved ravine of Steep Ghyll creates an elbow in the rock of Pisgah Buttress, and I can see a colossal king of stone, seated on his throne, his face all but hidden by a prodigious beard that flows into his lap. To his right, the Pinnacle stands guard, a might champion, battle-ready in breast plate and helmet, sword held against his chest, while the rounded foot of Shamrock supplies his shield.

The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress
The Pisgah Buttress and the Pinnacle, Scafell Crag

I detour along a rocky path that hugs the foot of the cliff, rising on a narrow shelf to Mickledore, the ridge that separates Scafell from Scafell Pike. The summit of Scafell Pike is England’s highest, but it takes its name from its neighbour, which from many angles looks the larger and more imposing. The way up the Pike from Mickledore is easy but the summit of Scafell is defended by the sheer wall of Broad Stand. Wainwright marks Broad Stand “out of bounds for walkers”, and I have no intention of risking my neck. I will ascend via Lord’s Rake, but first, I want to study these magnificent rock faces at close quarters. Their ghylls, gullies, arêtes and chimneys bear the names of climbing pioneers who risked death or glory here: Puttrell’s Traverse, Collier’s Climb, Slingsby’s Chimney, Robinson’s Chimney…

Broad Stand over Mickledore
Broad Stand over Mickledore

Mountaineering, climbing, even fell walking feats are often described as conquests, but it’s ludicrous to imagine that we could ever conquer a mountain. The conquest is personal—conquering our own fears and frailties, our own dearth of knowledge or lack of skill. Perhaps the victory is simply the feeling that we have entered the “chamber of death” and survived.

The Lord’s Rake from The Rake’s Progress

I retrace my steps and start up the scree of Lord’s Rake. The Rake is a steep gully that affords walkers a dramatic passage up through the crags. It comprises three ascents and two descents. The first section is the hardest, being particularly steep and loose. While not graded as a scramble, hands are frequently employed. About a third of the way up, there’s a breach in the left-hand wall. A mossy cave stares out, like the green mouth of a giant snake. This is the first pitch of Deep Ghyll. The cave’s roof is a tremendous chockstone, assailable only by climbers. Above and set back some way, I can see the entrance to another cave.  This is the second climbers’ pitch, where Jones once spent a cheery Christmas Day. His planned ascent was nearly abandoned when one of his party produced a jar of Carlsbad plums. They tasted so good that no-one wanted to leave the cave. Eventually, the owner seized the jar and swore no-one was to take another mouthful until they had completed their climb.

Deep Ghyll cave
Deep Ghyll cave, Lord’s Rake
Deep Ghyll first pitch
Deep Ghyll first pitch
Deep Ghyll Second pitch
Deep Ghyll Second pitch

The top of the first section of the Rake is littered with large boulders—the remains of a chockstone that fell in 2002 and came to rest in a standing position, forming a precarious arch. Mountain Rescue warned walkers against using the Rake for fear it would topple, but after a couple of years, it was assumed stable.  It did eventually come crashing down in 2016. Fortunately, no-one was on the Rake at the time, or there might have been cause to carve another cross.

Looking down the Lord’s Rake from the top of the first section

Just shy of the boulders, a clear path climbs out of the rake.  This leads up to the West Wall Traverse, a narrow ledge that runs above Deep Ghyll and enters the ravine at its third pitch. In its final section, the ghyll is a grade 1 scramble through some of Lakeland’s most astounding rock scenery. I took this route two weeks ago.  Today, I intend to follow Lord’s Rake all the way to the top, but with snow and the sunlight painting such a striking picture, I can’t resist another detour on to the ledge.

The start of the West Wall Traverse

If your heart doesn’t perform a double somersault when you set foot on the West Wall Traverse, you should apply to your doctor for a soul transplant. The Pinnacle and Pisgah tower above you, two imposing towers separated by the Jordan Gap, biblical names that testify to the religious impulse this terrain induces. The Traverse feels like the nave of a colossal temple.  From this side, the Pinnacle resembles the furled wing of vast eagle; Pisgah is its breast and its head, encased in a hood, or perhaps a gladiator’s helmet, with a large chiselled eye socket keeping watch. Savage grandeur: imposing, formidable, awe-inspiring, and sublime.

The Pinnacle and Pisgah from the West Wall Traverse

A crack runs up the right hand side of the Pinnacle. This is the route that Jones and the Abrahams took before traversing a thin ridge across the rock face to the subsidiary summit of Low Man. I’ll never know how it feels to perch so precariously, especially in tweeds and hobnail boots!  I’m happy simply to know that I’m standing exactly where Ashley did when he photographed them.

Eventually, I walk back down the snowy ledge to Lord’s Rake and clamber gracelessly over the boulders. The next section is a short descent and re-ascent.  The path then drops much further to climb again beside another scree slope. At the top, a snowy plateau looks down over Wasdale’s ruddy screes to the long blue ellipse of Wastwater.

Wastwater from the top of the Lord’s Rake

To the north stands Great Gable, a mighty pyramid, free of snow, but swarming with tiny figures. They are a large crowd of people, gathering on Remembrance Sunday to pay their respects, not in a church, but on the summit of mountain. Gable was bought by the FRCC, along with 12 surrounding peaks, and donated to the nation as a memorial to the club members who died in the First World War. Known as the Great Gift, this was the ultimate expression of what James Westaway calls sacralisation of the landscape: mountains liberated from private interests to stand as national monuments to the men who died in the nation’s defence.

Great Gable from the top of the Lord’s Rake
Great Gable from the top of the Lord's Rake
Memorial service attendees on top of Great Gable

It was not the only such gesture. in 1919, Lord Leconfield donated the summit of Scafell Pike to the nation, “in perpetual memory of the men of the Lake District who fell for God and King, for freedom, peace and right in the Great War”. And so, the Roof of England herself became a shrine to those sacrificed in her service.

From the saddle below Symonds Knott (the top of the West Wall), I track around to the head of Deep Ghyll. Here Wainwright sketched the Pinnacle and Pisgah, including himself, bottom right, as “the Oracle”.  I cross the narrow shoulder on to Pisgah rock, treading carefully—the drop into Deep Ghyll is unforgiving. 

Symmonds Knott over Deep Ghyll
The Pinnacle and Pisgah from the plateau above Deep Ghyll
Great Gable from Pisgah

Pisgah is the Biblical name of the mountain where God showed Moses the Promised Land. The Scafell version is aptly named. But to cross the Jordan Gap and gain the top of the Pinnacle is beyond my skills, so after a brief visit to Scafell’s summit, I descend the scree into the deep bowl of Foxes Tarn. The tarn itself is an enigma. It’s no more than a puddle, but a perpetual stream of water cascades down the rocks of its outlet gully.  The gully is the Rake’s counterpart on the Eskdale side of Mickledore.  In summer, it’s a simple scramble, but today much of the lower section is iced, so Microspikes pay dividends.  Water sparkles, icicles glisten and with the gentle tinkling of the cascades, the deep green moss and crisp white snow, it’s a magical oasis of tranquility.

Foxes Tarn Gully

Ahead are the sun-flecked crags of Scafell Pike, my final destination. It’s a slog back up the loose scree to the crest of Mickledore, but the chiselled charcoal tower of Broad Stand is ample reward.  After paying due reverence, I turn and follow cairns over snow covered boulders to England’s highest ground. 

Scafell Pike from Foxes Tarn Gully
Broad Stand
Broad Stand

A stone tablet, set into the summit platform, tells of Leconfield’s legacy. I’ve heard it lamented that this memorial is too seldom noticed by the crowds that flock here daily. In truth, no-one has ever missed it, for the tablet is not the memorial. The memorial is the mountain itself.

As we approach the final hour of daylight, a golden radiance licks the surrounding fells.  All except Scafell that is, which remains black and foreboding, “a spectacle of massive strength and savage wildness”, as Wainwright so perfectly puts it. AW understood the sublime, so I shall leave the final word to him:

“A man may stand on the lofty ridge of Mickledore, or in the green hollow beneath the precipice amidst the littered debris and boulders fallen from it, and witness the sublime architecture of buttresses and pinnacles soaring into the sky, silhouetted against racing clouds or, often, tormented by writhing mists, and, as in a great cathedral, lose all his conceit. It does a man good to realise his own insignificance in the general scheme of things, and that is his experience here.”

Bow Fell from Scafell Pike
Bow Fell from Scafell Pike
Snow field on Scafell Pike
Snow field on Scafell Pike
Gable from Scafell Pike
Scafell from Scafell Pike
Scafell from Scafell Pike

Further Reading & Listening

In a fascinating academic article called, Mountains of Memory, Landscapes of Loss, Jonathan Westaway examines the “sacralisation of the landscape” that ultimately led to the Great Gift.

Mountains of Memory, Landscapes of Loss

Unbeknown to me at the time, while I was climbing the Lord’s Rake, the brilliant Countrystride team were interviewing Dr Jonathan Westaway on Green Gable, en route to the memorial service on Great Gable. The result is a riveting interview in which Jonathan talks more about the sacralisation of the fells and the memorials of Gable and Scafell. Well worth a listen…

https://www.countrystride.co.uk/single-post/2019/11/11/Countrystride-21-GREAT-GABLE—Remembrance-Sunday

A contemporary account of the disaster on Scafell Crag from the archives of the Yorkshire Ramblers Club

The Disaster on Scafell Crags

Rock Climbing in the English Lake District (second edition, 1900) , by Owen Glynne Jones was reprinted twice in the 1970’s so second hand editions are relatively easy to pick up. I am not a climber, but you don’t have to be to be enthralled by Jones’s writing and the wonderful photographs by George and Ashley Abraham


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    Standing on the Shoulders Of Giants

    Scafell Pike and Sca Fell via Foxes Tarn

    A homicidal jester, the world’s greatest liar and a notorious whisky smuggler are all part of the history that surrounds this spectacular hill walk to the top of England’s two highest peaks, Sca Fell and Scafell Pike. The wild majesty of the summits provokes a meditation on why we climb mountains and the true meaning of the word sublime.

    Tom Foolery

    It was a risky business asking directions in Muncaster in the mid 1600’s. If the amiable chap under the chestnut tree turned out to be Thomas Skelton, you’d better hope you made a good impression. If he liked you, he’d help you find a safe passage over the river Esk. If he took exception, he’d direct you to the quicksands. Not everyone lived to tell the tale.

    Skelton was the jester at Muncaster castle; a charismatic and famous entertainer, who may have been the original “Tom Fool”. Some have speculated that he was Shakespeare’s inspiration for the joker in King Lear, but in truth, Skelton was born in 1620, four years after Shakespeare’s death. Nevertheless, he was a malevolent soul, whose notoriety rocketed when his master’s daughter, Helwise, took a shine to a local carpenter.

    This didn’t sit well with Sir Ferdinand, a knight with his own designs upon the girl. Ferdinand turned to Skelton for help. Tom put it about that the carpenter had stolen money from him, while feigning friendship with the lad and promising to help him elope with Helwise. One night, pretending to lend a sympathetic ear, Skelton got the boy drunk on cider, then carried him back to his workshop, where he murdered him, cutting off his head and hiding it under a pile of wood shavings. When he arrived back at the castle, Skelton bragged that the lad would not so easily find his head when he awoke as he had done Skelton’s coins.

    The river Esk meets the sea at nearby Ravenglass. It shares an estuary with the river Irt, which begins its short passage a few miles away in Wastwater. Wordsworth described Wastwater as “long, stern and desolate”. It is England’s deepest lake, framed by its highest mountains, with the perfect pyramid of Great Gable centre stage. So ruggedly beautiful is this panorama that it was voted Britain’s Favourite View in 2007.

    Wastwater
    Wastwater

    In the 1800’s, the Wastwater Hotel (now the Wasdale Head Inn) had its own court jester. Landlord, Will Ritson was famed for his tall tales; and his motivation, if not his methods, may have been similar to Skelton’s. Mountain climbing gained popularity during the Victorian era and the hotel enjoyed an influx of visitors. Some of the city folk considered themselves superior to country bumpkins, but those affecting such airs in Wasdale would likely fall victim to Ritson’s yarns. There was no malice in Will’s antics though, just good natured leg-pulling; he’d see how far he could string along his sap before they realised they were being had, at which point he’d push his story to a preposterous conclusion.

    One tale involved a turnip, his father had grown, that was so large it took a year to hollow out. He used the carcass as a shed. Another told of an injured eagle that Ritson had rescued and nursed back to health in his chicken coop. Panic ensued one night when an excitable dog escaped her master and raided the pen. The hound was caught and returned home and, to Will’s immense relief, the eagle was unharmed. A couple of months later though, the bitch gave birth to winged puppies.

    The Roof Of England

    Even taller than Will’s tales are the mountains that ring the valley. The summit of Scafell Pike is known as The Roof Of England because, at 3208 ft, it’s the nation’s highest point. Despite this distinction, it takes its name from its neighbour, Sca Fell. From certain angles the pair look like giant stone beasts squaring up to each other. Sca Fell’s bulky shoulder appears to roll forward making it look the aggressor, while Scafell Pike’s peak is set back giving the impression of retreat. Perhaps, this is why Sca Fell was designated the superior mountain.

    Scafell Pike
    Scafell Pike

    Today, if my fitness levels permit, I intend to ascend both. I’ve climbed the Pike twice this year only to find the summit shrouded in cloud. Today, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and I hope my luck will change.

    From the National Trust car park at Wasdale Head, I take the permitted path past the Brackenclose Climbing Club hut, over the wooden bridge and out on to the open fell.  The first challenge is to ford Lingmell Gill, which can be an impassable torrent when it’s in spate.  It rained heavily last night, so I’m little concerned my adventure may be thwarted before it’s begun. Happily, the water levels are normal and I step across the stones with relative ease.

    A little further up, the path forks and I’m faced with a decision that could have been scripted by J. K. Rowling: turn right for Mickledore or carry on through the Hollow Stones. Mickledore is the narrow ridge that separates the two stone giants. Its ascent from here is the more dramatic way up, but I’ll be crossing it later, so I opt for the Hollow Stones and zigzag up the steep grass slope to Lingmell Col.  Here the slog is rewarded with a spectacular view down to Sty Head Tarn, at the start of the famous Corridor Route from Borrowdale. Great Gable rises magnificently on the left.

    Great Gable and Styhead from Lingmell Col
    Great Gable and Styhead Tarn from Lingmell Col

    Wadd and Whisky

    The high level path that skirts the base of Great Gable, and links Wasdale to Honister, is known as Moses Trod, after a shadowy slate worker called Moses Rigg. Moses was an accomplished smuggler of wadd (graphite), then a hugely valuable and highly guarded natural resource. The story goes, he used the path to move his contraband through Wasdale and on to the coast at Ravenglass.

    But wadd was not his only line of business. Rigg is supposed to have built a hideout high up in the crags of Great Gable, well out of the way of the excise men, where he distilled illicit whisky from bog water. As far back as 1966, Wainwright claimed that no trace of this mythical building remained. Given that the only historical accounts of Moses Rigg stem from Will Ritson, you’d be forgiven for thinking this local legend is simply that. However, in 1983 an expedition, by Jeremy Ashcroft and Guy Proctor from Trail magazine, discovered four stone walls and a stone floor on a small and obscured plateau below central gully, about 200m from Great Gable’s summit. In the middle of the floor was a lump of wadd.

    To my left, Lingmell’s summit is in easy reach and offers even better views of Gable. But with two higher mountains to conquer, I bear right and start the stony ascent to the Roof of England. From here on, the landscape changes. Gone are the green slopes that led up from the valley. This is proper mountain terrain now; a steep staircase through a barren field of boulder; hard underfoot, demanding of concentration and a fittingly testing way to attain the country’s pinnacle. When I reach the summit, the sky is clear and the views are breathtaking. My luck is in.

    Styhead from Scafell Pike summit
    Styhead from Scafell Pike summit

    Perspective

    The top of Scafell Pike does not meet any conventional notion of beauty. It is a wasteland of rock where little or no vegetation grows. But, on a clear day you can see for miles, and there is no denying the special feeling you get when you stand here. On a weekend, it can be overrun with sponsored fund raisers and three peak challengers (who aspire to climb Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis in 24 hours). Even so, there is still a strange, desolate magic to this place.  You are literally at the top of the country and it tends to put into stark perspective the small stuff you spend most days sweating.

    Indeed, this summit inspired Wainwright to write a soliloquy, asking why men climb mountains, when they might otherwise be sitting in a deck chair on the beach, eating ice-cream and watching girls in bikinis (being a glutton and a lech, in other words). But,  if we skip over the unreconstructed sexism of the early 1960’s, AW draws some beautifully poignant conclusions: “they find something in these wild places that can be found nowhere else. It may be solace for some, satisfaction for others: the joy of exercising muscles that modern ways of living have cramped, perhaps; or a balm for jangled nerves in the solitude and silence of the peaks; or escape from the clamour and tumult of everyday existence. It may have something to do with man’s subconscious search for beauty, growing keener as so much in the world grows uglier. It may be a need to re-adjust his sights, to get out of his narrow groove and climb above it to see wider horizons and truer perspectives.” It’s a passage that speaks volumes to me and one I muse on, as I sit on the summit platform and stare across at Bow Fell.

    Great Gable from Scafell Pike
    Great Gable from Scafell Pike summit

    Twenty minutes later, as I’m readying to set off for Sca Fell, the cloud comes down, cutting visibility to almost nothing and causing the temperature to plummet. All of a sudden, what seemed rugged and inspiring seems hostile and intimidating. Scafell Pike’s summit is notoriously disorientating in mist. As it comprises entirely of boulders, there are no paths, so you have to follow the cairns and it is all too easy to pick the wrong line, especially if you can’t see them. Mountain Rescue are frequently called to the aid of walkers who have descended to the wrong valley; a humbling reminder of human frailty in the face of elemental forces.

    This counsels caution and I consider abandoning my plan to ascend Sca Fell. However, given the speed at which the cloud is racing, it seems likely this will clear. I resolve to head on for Mickledore. If the mist sets in, I can return to Wasdale from there.

    Fortunately, it starts to lift and the outline of Sca Fell slowly emerges through the gloom. Bit by bit, its imposing bulk is unveiled until only the very summit is lost in mist.

    Broad Stand from Scafell Pike
    Broad Stand from Scafell Pike

    I hear footsteps and I’m joined by an athletic young man in running gear, beaming with pride at having achieved the Pike’s summit in an hour (it took me two). He’s planning to go back down, change into his walking gear and trek up Moses Trod to have a look at Napes Needle (a slender, sheer-sided rock pinnacle on Great Gable). Suddenly, my plan to conquer the twin peaks doesn’t seem quite so ambitious. His utter passion for being out here is infectious and we chat warmly about our plans. He’s a taxi driver from Lancaster, but spends all his free time on the fells. His ambition is to become an outdoor instructor so he can do this full time.

    Shock and Awe

    We part ways on the ridge of Mickledore. By now the sky is free of cloud and Sca Fell stands before me in sunlit glory. A direct ascent is barred by the towering rock face of Broad Stand, a haven for climbers but beyond the capabilities of any walker, who lacks specialised scrambling skills and a casual indifference to continued living.

    The only alternative is to descend about 800ft and circumnavigate the cliff by scrambling up one of two gullies. On the Wasdale side is famous Lord’s Rake, but recent rock falls have made that a dangerous proposition. I opt instead for the Eskdale side and the Foxes Tarn outlet gully.

    This gully can be dry at certain times of the year, but today a sparkling stream cascades down its rocky steps. Where Scafell Pike draws crowds, here feels wonderfully secluded and remote. I’m not entirely alone, however. Half way up is a solitary figure. He looks back, spies me, and waves – the brotherhood of track-less-beaten.

    Foxes Tarn Gully
    Foxes Tarn Gully

    I begin to climb. Some of the stones are large but they are firm and relatively easy to clamber up. The trick is to stay where it’s dry, the volcanic rock being precariously slippery when wet. This means keeping right until about a third of the way up, where the route crosses the stream and ascends on the left. Above, the sky is bright blue and the large natural amphitheatre that surrounds the top looks spectacularly inviting. When I finally stand in its midst, it doesn’t disappoint.

    By contrast, Foxes Tarn itself is no more than a puddle and you wonder where all the water running down the gully is coming from. From here, a steep trudge up a bank of loose scree brings me to the saddle below Symonds Knott, with its curious cross of stones. Bearing left, I reach the summit.

    Burnmoor Tarn from Sca Fell summit
    Burnmoor Tarn from Sca Fell summit

    If Scafell Pike invokes feelings of awe and reverence for its sheer size and desolate majesty, those emotions intensify amid the wild grandeur of its neighbour. The panoramic vistas are staggering. The blue expanses of Wastwater and Burnmoor Tarn lie side by side as you look down on the high Screes that separate them (those slopes that look so steep from the water’s edge).

    Burmoor Tarn and Wastwater from Sca Fell summit
    Burmoor Tarn and Wastwater from Sca Fell summit

    In his book, The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton devotes a chapter to the sublime. In its rightful sense, sublime does not mean merely beautiful. To qualify as sublime, landscapes must overwhelm, intimidate, shock and awe, strike fear as well as wonder. Ultimately, they must make you acutely aware of your own weakness and insignificance in the face of something so vast, noble and infinitely more powerful.

    These wild terrains were forged 450 million years ago by colossal volcanic explosions that must have exceeded any vision of Armageddon the imagination can conjure. They will remain long after our flesh and bone is gone. Up here, larger than life characters like Skelton, Ritson and Rigg are mere pinpricks in the fabric of time; indeed, the whole of human history is a tiny blip on an unfathomably large axis. It makes you feel very, very small, and it’s the most uplifting thing imaginable.

    De Botton suggests that because we spend our lives imagining we’re powerful, and feeling frustrated when we can’t make little things happen, it is intensely liberating to be reminded we’re a tiny, insignificant part of something so overwhelmingly vast. I think he’s right. In the inscrutable context of the universe, what is truly remarkable is that we’re here at all; so being right here, right now, experiencing all this is, to some, proof of the divine; to the rest of us, it’s the most astonishing accident.

    After a long while, I retrace my steps to the saddle, turn left, then bear right to follow a path along the top of the cliffs above Wasdale Head. Eventually, it descends the steep bed of a dried up stream back to Brackenclose.

    Mosedale from Scafell Summit
    Mosedale from Scafell Summit

    In the car park, I chat with a woman who’s just ascended Scafell Pike via Mickledore. She’s an outdoor instructor and it’s her day off, so naturally she’s spent it climbing a mountain. She says her services don’t include challenges like the Three Peaks as she objects to these on ethical grounds. I’m curious but I don’t push. Somehow, that seems a topic for another day – too mired in the politics of human hubbub. Right now, we’re basking in something grander. We swap cursory accounts of our routes and marvel at how striking the views were. Our conversation is punctuated by long pauses and much looking back and up. There’s nothing awkward in our silences however – we’re sharing something not easily expressed in words: the beatific, humble elation that comes from standing on the shoulders of giants.

    Click here for a map and detailed directions for this walk at walklakes.co.uk


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