Wet In Wasdale

Distance: 8 miles approx.

Time: 5-6 hours

Terrain: Mix of steep grass, rocky fellside and some simple scrambling on occasionally wet and greasy rock. Starts and finished at Wasdale Head Inn.

Where is it? Wasdale, dead-end valley set in the heart of the Lakes under Scafell, Scafell Pike and more. Wast Water is reckoned to be the deepest Lake in England

Maps: Landranger 89, Outdoor Lesiure 4 and 6. Online map.

We thought we'd bring you a few quick snaps from the OUTDOORSmagic Wasdale weekend, or more specifically a pictorial record of one OM member Alex Ford's Mosedale ordeal at the hands of a grumpy OM editor...

Wasdale from the intermindable torture of Kirkfell

Contrary to what you might read in the forum, the weather was actually perfect. Well, for regular ten-minute intervals till another squall scudded up the valley, along Wastwater and crashed headlong into wherever we happened to be walking. A top day not so much for testing waterproofs, but seeing how quickly you could pull them on and off.

Scree, yum, Suffering etched on Alex's face, what git made me do this?

And it had all begun so promisingly. I had vague memories of a knee-jolting, backpacking descent of Kirkfell, directly down to the Wasdale Head Inn back in the days when I still had knees, so it made perfect sense to go back up the other way and collect any bits of cartillage I'd left behind all those years before.

Alex was enthusiastic. 'That looks horrible,' he said. 'Interminable and steep too.' He was right as well and the bits of my knees I'd left behind had long since been eaten by sheep. Kirkfell Direct is a route of little technical interest, but much grass and some loose scree near the top and it's never more than mind-numbingly, grindingly dull, but ...

But it was all worth if for the fantastic views...

... the view back down the valley across Wastwater and the Black Screes makes it seem, well, not exactly worthwhile, but at least marginally less pointless.

We reached the pile of rocks on the top and celebrated by looking at the map. Given Alex's reputation as the Vasco de Gama of the hills, I opted to take the bearing myself. We headed down the cloud-shrouded shoulder towards Black Sail Pass.

The steepening bit above Black Sail Pass

It's all pretty dull till high above the pass, the ground steepens and you find yourself picking your way down a wet, greasy craglet. Great views across to Yewbarrow and Red Pike on the other side of the valley. The rock seemed particularly greasy, probably due to a summer's-worth of micro-organisms working hard to slicken things up.

Awkward but not technical, Alex espouses the vertical variation on the 'a cheval' technique

A few more awkward moves and it's down to the pass itself, lots of wind and lunch behind a handy boulder. Predictably as we set off towards Pillar, yet another squall shook its shaggy tail along the valley and rained on our parade. Shorts, who wears shorts in September? In Wasdale? Hmmm...

From the pass we whizzed gently up over Looking Stead then onwards over the mildly craggy bits on the south side of Pillar. On a better day we'd have crossed over and followed the high level traverse on the other side, but the rock was greasy and we were lazy.

High, flat and wet, heading for Pillar

More rain, more lulls and we finally popped over onto the top of Pillar itself in cloud and mist. No views to speak of and no sight of Pillar Rock either. If you've not been on top of Pillar, you'll be dismayed to find that the actual summit is broad and grassy, not at all as you might imagine.

And what a summit it was.

After drinking in the non-existent views, it was time for another bearing and the descent to Wind Gap via another small craglet - watch your ankles - before heading on and up over Red Pike. An option would be to go on to Haycock, but if you're heading back down to the valley floor, it's more logical to follow the ridge, so we did.

Heading down from Pillar towards Wind Gap - Red Pike beyond. That's rain on the lens, not tears you know.

Alex was still traumatised by Kirkfell, but as we dropped down towards Dore Head, the gap between Red Pike and Yewbarrow, we looked across towards Lingmell to see a rainbow lighting up the valley, fantastic...

The view from Red Pike down towards Low Tarn with Wastwater sulking in the background

So it wasn't entirely surprising when we looked back down the valley and saw the proverbial shaggy-tailed rain dog charging towards us. Just enough time to pull overtrousers on before the rain lashed into us again. I looked at Alex, he looked at the rain, we both looked at the climb up Stirrup Crag onto Yewbarrow and set off down the valley instead.

Rainbow number one from near Dore Head

Valley scenery tends to get overlooked in favour of rocky mountain walking, but sometimes it's nice just to stroll along a green, remote-feeling trough with a fast-flowing stream and look up instead of across. Which is how we got back to the road, healed and happy.

But the walk still had one last sting in the tail. As we wandered back along the tarmac, a huge rainbow formed over Wastwater. A quality end to a quality day and a happy OM editor too.

Perfect end to a wet day...