Sunday 10 May 2015

Borrowdale Head

Borrowdale Head


Introduction, spring 2014

This mission involved my old travel companion of previous Lakeland mission Paul Dial. The two-hour drive up the motorway gave me time to reflect on our missions to the Lake District and the first stop off point, before reaching the Lake District National Park was Morecambe Town. We parked on the seafront,  It's only from here you get to see the size of Morecambe Bay.

Venus & Cupid
The statue artist is Shane Johnstone and was erected at Morecambe Bay for the 24 cocklers who died in 2004 in the bay.This point on the bay was also a good point to enjoy the view across the bay to the Lake District.

Morecambe Bay was formed through the last Ice Age when retreating glaciers from the Lake District dumped soft sediments which formed expanses of sand. As the sea levels rose the bay became flooded, the whole bay is shallow with a tidal range of up to 10.5m at spring tides and an ebbing tide can retreat as far as 12 km. 
After our break we moved onto Warton Crag for another revisit to stay overnight in the car park, in the evening we went for a stroll to the summit of Warton Crag and watched the sun go down across Morecambe Bay. 

Next day was the drive to Keswick to pick up supplies and then into Borrowdale, Borrowdale is the place where Wainwright's book four ends and the start of book three in the Wainwright's books, this year, but this spring mission to Lakeland was to finish book four off. The last time I was here was in the summer of 2009 when I and another friend climbed Scafell Pike and I wanted to repeat that walk again. I took the car to end of the valley, It was here at the end of the valley at a place called Seathwaite we found the campsite what I last used in 2009, and set about setting up the tent and having something to eat.

Combe Gill

I planned an afternoon walk what was taken from the book  Lake District Natural History Walks, Christopher Mitchell, walk 6 Combe Gill 4 miles, a botanical and geological field trip.
The walk started from Seatoller village, and the weather was good nice sunny as we left the village along the road and picked up the footpath that took us across some fields, it was in this section of the walk we noted the first pollard ash trees, what was special about these trees is that they provide some of the richest habitats for tree-living ferns, lichens, liverworts and mosses.
Plants living on other plants are known as an epiphyte, an epiphyte is a plant that normally grows on another plant for support. It is not parasitic but uses the host plant for support only.  Here is one of the wettest valleys of the lake district,  Borrowdale receives over 240mm of rain per year. It's this rainfall that makes it perfect for these plants.




On the tree grew the fern known as a polypod fern, other species Camptothecium sericeum a moss and the lichen Peltigera horizontalisWhile looking at the trees we also came across this insect a Longhorn beetle, Rrhagium mordax.


 Longhorn beetle, rhagium mordax.

It was time to move on, so we carried on up the valley following a sheep track to the valley head an area of boggy grassland in places with rushers, but what stood out for me was strange looking shapes, covered in mosses these turned out to be ant hills.
We turned around now to head back down the valley, but this time on the opposite side of the valley and we headed back to the start.

Scafell Pike 10 miles circular.

My third mission to this mountain and the last now I have explored it from Wasdale and Great Langdale, the route chosen for this mission is a repeat of the one I did on my first visit to the lakes back in the summer of 2009 when the lakes were just an idea.
It was a nice sunny morning as we set out on the valley floor heading for Styhead Gill. We climbed Styhead Gill and the path levels out till you come to Styhead Tarn. from here we could see are objective Scafell Pike.From Styhead Tarn you could make out our route all the way to the summit, the route we were going to use was the Corridor Route, this interesting path goes below Great End and Broad Crag to Lingmell Col.


Styhead Tarn
We had a couple of stops on the Corridor Route as we passed through some of the ravines, but the most interesting ravine for me was the great gash of Piers Gill on the side of Lingmell. Piers Gill lies along a fault line in the rock of the Borrowdale group and it also has some interesting flora what I shall be investing again this coming summer.


Lingmell and Piers Gill
One of the stops along the Corridor Route was the finding of a new species for me, Fir Clubmoss Huperzia selago, the Clubmoss family is an ancient group of plants superficially resembling mosses, but actually more closely allied to the ferns, having a vascular system.
Fir Clubmoss
We passed over the top end  of Piers Gill and made our way to the top of Lingmell col, there were many people about today as we made our way on the final section to the top of Scafell Pike crossing the very rocky section to the summit and passing crowds of people on the summit on a lovely day, we also had a nice long break enjoying the views.
From the summit, we headed for Broad crag, first descent and then a climb. Once back on the level passing Broad Crag and Ill Crag.
Since passing this way last summer, I had missed out one of the main satellites of the Scafell range, that being Great End, and that is where I was heading now to Great End.
Great End is not best appreciated from this approach but is best seen from Borrowdale, it is only then you appreciate the size of Great End 
I made it to Great End and then headed to Central Gully, it's only then standing atop of the great buttress you are on the highest plateau in the country.
This is the true Lakeland of the fellwalker, the sort of terrain that calls him back time after time, the sort of memory that haunts his long winter exile,
Alfred Wainwright quote from Southern Fells from the chapter on Great End.

Central Gully
I retraced my path back to Calf Cove and then onto Esk Hause to find the descent path back into Borrowdale, but first, another stop off at Ruddy Gill. Down in Ruddy Gill, I spotted some plant life I wanted to look at, but to get to see what the plant life was, I had to scramble down a steep bank till I got to the bottom of the gill, it was here that I found a new plant roseroot. Roseroot Rhodiola rose, is in the family of stonecrops, it is a plant of cliff and ghylls, of inaccessible places; it is a sub arctic-alpine plant.

Roseroot

It's these arctic-alpine plants I was just looking up this year to have a summer mission looking for these plants, and now I have found two so far the clubmoss and now roseroot.
Back to the footpath and the long descent to Seathwaite and the campsite down Grains Gill and the end to another major fell, will I ever climb Scafell Pike again in my lifetime, I like to think so, so that’s it the end of the walk.

Great End

Seathwaite Fell, Allen Crags, and Glaramara.

The starting point for this walk was Seatoller, we had also moved campsite to Seatoller.
The first part of this walk after a short road section, and then the footpath that passes the Borrowdale Yews. This group of yews were made famous by Wordsworth's 1803, this is the short version.


Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! - and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling and inveterately convolved, -
Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; -a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining, umbrage tinged
Perennially - beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With un rejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide - Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight - Death and the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow, - there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o’er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara’s innermost caves.


The "fraternal four of Borrowdale" (one fell during a storm a few years back) could actually be from the same rootstock. Regardless, it is their age that is so astounding: a top branch was dated at 1,500 years, leading scientists to believe their trunks could be as much as 2,000 years old.


I and my friend spent a good hour with these trees, they are just amazing, yews are the oldest living things in the country.



Now back on the walk, I left my friend with the yews, and I carried on a solo mission, I climbed out of the valley by the way of Styhead Gill, passing Taylorgill Force.


The weather today was not great, with low cloud on most fells, so I knew at some point in the walk I will be walking in it, less it lifted, I met up with the Styhead path again to the tarn, a few walkers were out today as I reached Styhead Pass and lost all views now, so compass out, just in case,  as I have now been here  many times, but I never take it for granted, and today was one of those days as I headed for Seathwaite Fell.
On Seathwaite Fell I made it to the summit, but you would not have known it because of the  low cloud, no views, I made it back to the main path to head for Esk Hause and came out of the cloud as I approached Esk Hause with my next destination in view Allen Crags, the weather was starting to improve instead of the low cloud just sitting on top of the surround fells it was now on the move giving me glimpse of the summits for short periods before the next cloud came rolling in.
I started the climb of Allen Crags, my aim now was to climb Allen Crags and to carry on a ridge walk to my next summit Glaramara and then back down into Borrowdale to finish off.
The cloud had got the better of me as I reached the summit of Allen Crags so pushed on down into the depression between the two fells and then started the climb of Glaramara and this time I got the summit clear of cloud, but distance views of surrounding fells were poor.

Glaramara summit
 Now the long descent back into Borrowdale and to finish off my walk, not a bad walk, would have been a lot better if I had the views.

Borrowdale view


And that’s it for my camping and fell walking week of the Borrowdale mission, there was only a short mission my friend wanted to do and that was to visit the stone circle of Castlerigg, I will go into that in more detail in a future mission.

 Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ” John Ruskin