Duddon Valley

Duddon Valley

Autumn  2012 and it’s the back end of September, and its been 12 months since the last Lakeland mission. First stop off was the RSPB nature reserve of Leighton Moss,  in fact, we were just in time for a guided walk of the reserve a great way to spend the morning, we even got to see some otters.

After that, it was back on the road to the Lake District National Park and the Duddon Valley and Turner Hall Farm campsite.

Caw

697 m (2,287 ft)

29/9/2012
Sunshine and showers on the campsite, we could see the summit of Caw and the dot of the Ordnance survey column from the campsite, so the summit was cloud free so we packed up for a day’s walk first down into Seathwaite village and the first stop was the church yard.

Caw is an abrupt pyramid on the  long undulating ridge from Dow Crag and as we climbed out of the valley along a track known as Park Head Road passing through a mixture of trees hazel, birch and oak and sycamore, as the views started to open up of the valley we looked for the Caw quarry track.

Looking up the Duddon Valley

We found the quarry track what took us to the slate quarry and the minor workings. when seeing these placers and looking at the landscape its good to have an understanding of its geology'

The initial period of volcanic activity in the Lake District was characterised by high-temperature molten lava-typically producing dark flows of ‘andesite’. There was also the occasional violent interlude when fine ash and debris were spewed into the air to settle and consolidate as ‘tuffs’. This produced rocks of the Lower Borrowdale Volcanic Series.

Slate

The volcanic ash was laid down 450 million years ago. The parallel beds of dark and light-coloured ash seen in the slate show geological folds and faults.

In the Duddon Valley, however, we would be walking through the upper Borrowdale Volcanic Series – rock that was formed later, when the volcanoes had cooled down.The silica content had increased leaving a magma that had become stickier. Now the eruptions were suddenly violent, throwing out successive clouds of ash and debris in huge quantities; falling in layer upon layer, some in dry conditions where the heat welded it back together, some on wet surfaces where it flowed down slopes, and some being reworked and jumbled together forming layers of tuffs, sandstones and breccias. The weight of all this material compressed and folded the underlying rock and realigned its crystal structure to follow the line of pressure. This produced a line along which the rock would split, known as the cleavage plane. This is why the rock was quarried for the slate.

We found the quarry track to the slate mine, there is some nice specimens of junipers to see along this section to the slate piles scattered about we stopped for a break at the quarry building and the quarry adit. We took in the fine views of the valley and went to look at an adit a long tunnel dug into the hillside, tall enough to walk into if the floor was not ankle deep in water, we shone are torches down into the tunnel.

Harter Fell

After the break, we set off up to the summit on a thin winding path up and around rocky outcrops to reach the summit trig point. The view was good with many fells in view, first across to Harter Fell and the head of Eskdale with all major fells in view all way around to Bowfell and Crinkle Crags, with the Coniston Fells, Duddon Estuary and Black Combe.  And finally to the Irish Sea and Devoke Water.

Caw summit

From the summit, we made our way to the Pikes by dropping down going around bogs to reach the rocky knolls of the Pikes and another climb to the summit.

From the Pikes, the path was not easy to find but we found our way to the Walna Scar Quarry and then onto the Walna Scar track to start heading back down into the valley and the end of the walk.

Great Worm Crag

427 m (1400) ft

30/09/2012
A grey damp morning on the campsite as we packed up for days walking.  Everything into the car, then a short drive to the Birker Fell Road and Woodend junction.

First objective was Great Worm Crag, as usual with these walks from Wainwrights Outer Fells book, they get little usage these lesser fells, as most fell walkers go for the bigger fells, so they are usually pathless as this one was, as we set off on a compass bearing through grassland and bog with the aim of aiming for Little Crag. As far as the eye could see the area was a grassland landscape, devoid of trees.   

We made it to Little and Great Crag with views now opening up now of Green Crag has we aimed for the top of Worm Crag, with a strong breeze hitting us on the summit, we had good views.

The panorama was far-reaching with the skyline of the Scafells towering above Green Crag. We made our way over the summit going downhill with aim was a decent back to the road, but first, on our way down we went to look for the ancient cairn trying to read the landscape for its archaeology we found many more cairns what looked like Clarence cairns and a large cairn. The uplands in the Bronze Age were farmed intensively, as seen from the number of clearance cairns, the people must have lived close by as there is a settlement site close by, but few of the sites in this area have been excavated or dated accurately. We finished the walk and had a long break before our next walk. 

Hesk Fell

477 m (1565) ft

30/09/2012

Quoting Alfred Wainwright, ‘ Hesk Fell its appearance promises nothing at all of interest and the trudge to its featureless summit confirms first impressions’.

Hesk Fell a massive grassy mound between the Duddon and Esk valleys, but I was not deterred by Wainwright as we set out on another grassy pathless walk, the sun was now breaking out behind clouds as we climbed the steady trudge up the fell.

Open views to the Scafells

Big wide open views opened up as aimed for the summit, this was worth the climb just to get this view.  The summit was featureless as we made are way over the top enjoying the views now searching for a way down to finish off this walk, the rest of the walk was pathless and uninteresting, but glad to have done it just for the views.  

1/10/2012

The next morning and it was still raining from the night and did not stop till about 11am so when we got the chance we opened the tent up to air out and started packing up for the day mission, a repeat mission of Stickle Pike from the same starting place as last time, in the Duddon Valley, not going to go into detail about the walk, has I be repeating myself, but it was a good walk, the weather stayed dry but cloudy with the odd sunny spell.  why repeat these walks, because my friend wanted to do these last two missions. 

2/10/2012

The last mission of the holiday was another repeat mission to Sunkenkirk from Duddon Bridge a seven mile walk, so another I will not repeat the walk, but mention that I got better views, than the last time I did it. As again on these walks a quiet empty landscape away from most of the poplar routes, we have not met any other walkers on any of our missions.

The tranquil and peaceful place of Sunkenkirk with its fifty five stones was good to see again but this time without the snow.

                                                     

Sunkenkirk Stone Circle 

The rest of the walk went well no showers on this cloudy day and a nice finish to a holiday in autumn and a good week of camping in the Lake District National Park. 

Puffball